main difference between real sound and repro sound

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
I got some experience during in live recording, a STAX static head phone switched to a Studer A80's out put and MIC pre amp, there were not too big different between those in sound quality but a noise of HISS, after I on and off the head phone to check the difference between real sound and the repro, I found main difference is not frequency respond or distortion, the real sound with body, mass, weight and thickness compare to the repro, so this should be the same way to compare two recorded source or two amps or two systems to see which has more thickness more mass and weight or sharp body,with those that will sound close to the real things is not only by measure the rate of distortion or frequency respond, I don't think people will compare two 0 % distortion 60HZ sin wave to see which HUM sound better, just joking
tony ma
 

Ethan Winer

Banned
Jul 8, 2010
1,231
3
0
75
New Milford, CT
I found main difference is not frequency respond or distortion, the real sound with body, mass, weight and thickness compare to the repro

Well, "body, mass, weight and thickness" are either frequency response or distortion or both. The added tape hiss can also affect perception in a positive way became the hiss is stereo and can add a false sense of wideness.

--Ethan
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
Well, "body, mass, weight and thickness" are either frequency response or distortion or both. The added tape hiss can also affect perception in a positive way became the hiss is stereo and can add a false sense of wideness.

--Ethan

I found out lot of SS amps with great distortion rate and frequency respond in measurement but can not sound thick only loud compare to those small out put SE tube amps with 3 % distortion and not too good extend frequency, so I wonder do they related to a thickness sound ?
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
I don't find that live music sounds "thick" compared to recorded music. In fact, music playback often has more body, mass and weight than acoustic instruments in a good-sounding room. But that's not necessarily a good thing. It depends on the instruments, of course, but many sound much lighter and airier than their reproduction does. I find two areas where reproduction falls far short --

1) Dynamic range: Yes, you can get a system to play the sudden hard attack of a trumpet, or the clanging of a cow bell as loudly, louder even, than live. But to get that attack, that percussive strike to jump out of the background with as much impact relative to the other instruments is quite a hat trick. I've heard some really good systems, and none delivered the most dramatic transients life-like. Some of the "best" playback systems are actually not very good at this at all.

2) Dispersion: If you're listening to a jazz quartet consisting of piano, bass, amplified guitar and a reasonably complex drum kit, you're actually listening to around a dozen different instruments, some with really dramatically different dispersion characteristics representing wide variations of directivity, all affected by the room they're being played in. When you listen to that quartet through a playback system, you hear a recording of those instruments captured on a variety of directional, cardioid and omni-directional microphones, in a variety of placements that, unless we're talking about binaural recordings, are nothing like your ears, played back through a pair of speakers that have singular dispersion characteristics, into a different room.

The recording and the playback system are never going to sound like that quartet in that room. We'd probably all find our bliss a lot quicker if we could accept that.

Tim
 

RogerD

VIP/Donor
May 23, 2010
3,734
318
565
BiggestLittleCity
Tony,

Thickness? or are you trying to describe the level of saturation present in the reproduction? Saturation as in the light or darkness of a color,vibrancy,ect.
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
Tony,

Thickness? or are you trying to describe the level of saturation present in the reproduction? Saturation as in the light or darkness of a color,vibrancy,ect.

Yes. Even something heavy, like the strike of a kettle drum or the pluck of a double bass has an airy lightness, a floating transience (OMG, I'm talking like an audiophile!) that can't seem to be fully captured in recording. I hear weight, mass, thickness, much more in recorded reproduction - digital, vinyl, tubes, SS, whatever - than I do in live acoustic instruments. Even the thump of a bass drum in a trap kit, when you're in the room with it, is lighter and livelier than thunk of any reproduced recording.

But these are all very loose, subjective terms. Maybe Tony is getting at something very different.

Tim
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
Tony,

Thickness? or are you trying to describe the level of saturation present in the reproduction? Saturation as in the light or darkness of a color,vibrancy,ect.

Thickness may be not the right word to express, English is not my mother language , I try to express is sound from a instrument that is from a real image point with a solid body, but in reproduction, sound is from speakers but image should not stick with speakers as I know a good system should have sound stage image behind speakers, never feel sound from speakers, a delusive image can't have same solid feeling of the real one, so in only which repro can have more solid feeling of image than others will close to the real sound and sound better than others, this is the way I use to compare different sources and amps
tony ma
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Perhaps "density" is the word you are looking for Tony :) That sense of impact and solidity does happen because of changes in air pressure during compression and rarefaction....hence the density of the air molecules given a specific time and a specific space.
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
Density works. I just think of it as presence. My system images well. When listening to a good recording, I can easily find the instruments placed across the plane in front of me, and the images are solid and unmoving. When vocals are mixed to center, there are times you'd swear there was a speaker there. But no reproduction system I've heard gives each of the instruments and voices the presence in the room that is there with the real thing. I don't know how to describe it, but I know that no matter how good the recording, it still sounds like a recording. And the more complicated the ensemble/performance the less the illusion works. Simple recordings can come very close to creating the complete illusion, but I'm still sure that if I listened carefully, I'd know when the instrument was in the room. The problem with trying to use that difference as a metric for judging gear, I think, is that you'd always have to have the real thing to compare to the recording on both playback systems to make any valuable judgement. Otherwise, you're still just comparing the sound of two different systems playing an extreme wild card -- the recording.

Tim

Tim
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
"Presence" might lead to confusion since it is a recording engineering term that refers to a high frequency region :)
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
"Presence" might lead to confusion since it is a recording engineering term that refers to a high frequency region :)

Density, right, now my English is improving , another funny thing, to compare two real sounds from instrument will not the same as to compare the repro one. you don't has to be a expert, when listen side by side everyone can give the right answer , also those pro musicians can tell the difference of instruments, but they don't know the different between CD vinyl and tape. one young musician asked me to have a tape copy for him after he listened both digital and analog recording of his played at the same time , but he don't know he need a deck to repro. I am lucky to have a chance to listen those very expansive violins because my partner who is a DIYer of violin, and own a Guarneri's cello and violin + those musician brought Stradivari or Amati. they all have their own sound
tony ma
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
I guess that brings us to timbre :) Talk about tough to duplicate with an audio system. Repro can be very convincing but duplicating the actual vibrations exactly seems bound to failure due to the laws of physics.
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
Phelonious Ponk;27165. The problem with trying to use that difference as a metric for judging gear said:
In playing two vinyls, I think that will be easy to find out the DIRECT CUT one has more density image than the regular one, and the rest of the qualities must be better too, this is the point I try to express, not ask a recording sound like a real one, just dream to getting closer. when I built my own amplifier, that is easy to build with low distortion and extend frequency ( add more feed back will do ), but with high density image is a question , I don't think the pro has confidence to say yes
tony ma
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
But Tony comparing two vinyl records and judging which one is closer to real is like comparing to photographs without ever seeing the real colors of the scene they capture. Unless one is obviously mis-colored, you are really only going to end up deciding which one you like, not which one is more realistic. You have no reference. And of course there is nothing wrong with that, it is reproduction. Choose the one you like best and enjoy. Just don't indulge yourself in believing it is somehow closer to life because you prefer it.

Tim
 

tony ky ma

Industry Expert
Aug 21, 2010
630
5
930
Whitby Ontario Canada
Just don't indulge yourself in believing it is somehow closer to life because you prefer it.

Tim

Hi Tim
I got some experience in service Hi End gears for helping my friend's local Hi Fi store, a CONRAD JOHNSON pre amp with HUM, I found out the regulator IC of power supply has gone, after fixed , HUM was OK but life-like also down compare to when with the HUM noise, so extra circuit for better measurement but also gave up some sound quality, that is why I believe some numbers of measurement can't tell the real sound quality, final judge should be by listen although a gear is not perform the same in every system, at least in one system a gear sound with higher density sound should sound better than a thin one because the real one has more and more density, and there are no measurement numbers of the sound density it can only judge by yourself.
tony ma
 

fas42

Addicted To Best
Jan 8, 2011
3,973
3
0
NSW Australia
But to get that attack, that percussive strike to jump out of the background with as much impact relative to the other instruments is quite a hat trick. I've heard some really good systems, and none delivered the most dramatic transients life-like. Some of the "best" playback systems are actually not very good at this at all
I believe it's worthwhile reviving this thread because so far it has already dealt with a key issue of getting "realistic" reproduction, well focussed upon by Tim's post. The quote perfectly encapsulates what the problem is for many systems, and the answer is simple: minimise high frequency distortion.

All my delvings and fiddlings have reinforced that, over and over again. You MUST get the treble as right as you possibly can or it will never work, the illusion, that is. And again, as I have repeated, over and over again, it is VERY hard to get the treble right, which is why essentially all systems fail to some degree. How do you know when the treble is right? When you can't hear the tweeter working!! If you move closer to the speaker, and you can hear a bit of dirtiness, anything which is not completely musical coming from the tweeter then you won't get the good sound!

You should never be aware of a hissiness or anything that draws your attention to the cone, or whatever, moving back and forth. Ribbons, panels have a natural advantage here.

THAT'S where the "real" sound is, clean treble, but oh so difficult ...

Frank
 

Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
8,677
23
0
Can't say I agree with all of that, Frank, but I'm certainly in agreement with quite a bit.

Agreement? Yeah, ribbons and panels do seem to have an advantage in reproducing a transparent high end. Their weaknesses lie elsewhere. And minimizing distortion, at all frequencies is critical. Even that "not unpleasant" distortion, harmonic, is an enemy here. If you want a crash cymbal to sound anything like the real thing, eliminate as much distortion as you can. You want a kick drum to even present a reasonable facsimile of the kick you get on stage? Don't embrace it because it adds a pleasant warmth somewhere else in the signal.

Disagreement? There is no "real" sound reproduction. Real-ish? Sure. I think what you call "real" is what most of us think of as transparency. We reach for it. It is never quite in our hands. And it depends on a lot of things, though clean treble is critical. But it has as much to do with noise, flat frequency response, dynamic range (...), as it does with high frequency distortion. The illusion will flee just as readily from a bad signal to noise ratio, a slow response time, a poorly controlled driver, lack of coherence... But the thing I think we disagree on the most is how to get there. You believe in small electronic tweaks, and I don't doubt that you hear changes with them. I go to the fundamentals: Minimalism, which is impossible in the current "high-end" vision of what constitutes a good system, headroom, accuracy, simplicity and driver control. And, of course, the biggest thing we disagree on is how much any elimination of small distortions in the middle can really do, when the big ones are in the recordings and the transducers.

Your mileage clearly varies as does the mileage of many, many audiophiles with complex, euphonic systems with relatively high levels of noise and distortion. I'm sure we aren't all attracted to the same women either :).

Tim
 

Gregadd

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
10,517
1,774
1,850
Metro DC
Well, "body, mass, weight and thickness" are either frequency response or distortion or both. The added tape hiss can also affect perception in a positive way became the hiss is stereo and can add a false sense of wideness.

--Ethan

Ethan sometime ago I ran across a video where you compared live music to recorded music. I think it was an AKG microphone. Could you post that link,please?

Given you argument that the difference between live and recorded music is due to distortiin, (frequency response variation is a form of distortion) we ought to be able to measure that distortion and fix it. If not there must be something else mgoing on.
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
1,425
1,820
Manila, Philippines
Frank, you've been close to a real cymbal crash I'm sure. It's hissy and draws attention. That's real. Why pray tell should a tweeter not be hissy if the recording calls for it? I don't get the logic.
 

DonH50

Member Sponsor & WBF Technical Expert
Jun 22, 2010
3,947
306
1,670
Monument, CO
The main difference: people (performers) are present, or not? :)

Part of the difference I find in live vs. recording music are the time cues and frequency response differences from the reverberant fields. It is extremely difficult for a recording played back in a room to match the room in which the recording was made. Even if that were handled, the number of mics and where they are placed influence the sound field recorded (and thus played back). I think getting the recording to sound "live" is quite achievable; making it match the live preformance, not so much...

Of course there's the age-old issue of what people like to hear vs. what's real. IMO far too few people these days have any idea what a live performance sounds like, let alone what the individual instruments sound like. Without a reference, they are lost, even if they don't know it. At least I know what I like, and how it differs from a live performance (in both good and bad ways). As a musician, I struggle with this from the other side as well, and with the fact that people expect perfection in every performance in every way since that's what the recordings have led them to expect. Heaven help me if I miss a note in performance... ;)
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing