Is Live, Unamplified Music the Correct Reference for the Sound of our Audio Systems?

AudioKrakatoa!

Ron Resnick said:

Who here uses live, unamplified music as a reference?

How valid is it to use live music as a reference if it is hard to remember all of the constituent components of what that live music actually sounds like?

Who here uses something else as a reference? Is one’s own memory of other peoples’ stereo systems a valid reference?

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Ron, the problem is the recordings. Judging a stereo by how well it can sound LUM is fine, but you end up judging the recording just as much if you can really hear anything at all. I've heard a ton of live music events U and A. They all sound really different. But there are characteristics that stick with you, and some stereos, and some recordings may present. I have yet to find a recording that wasn't produced in such a way that it has no character of the production, or hasn't adjusted some of the instruments to fit the whims of whomever that didn't like the "in the room with you" sound entirely. I may have a few that get sorta close, but nothing complete. Because of these massive variances in recordings, it's impossible to purely try to diagnose a stereo whether it sounds LUM or not. There just isn't any music good enough to use as a full spectrum reference to then compare to your personal reference of live events.

Ron Resnick said:

I) OBJECTIVES
1) recreate the sound of an original musical event,

2) reproduce exactly what is on the master tape,

3) create a sound subjectively pleasing to the audiophile, and

4) create a sound that seems live.

II) MUSICAL PREFERENCES
Once objectives are declared, and only after objectives are declared, then I think the next logical step is to declare the type of music in which we primarily are interested (if, and only if, there is a preference for one or more types of music over other types of music).

III) SONIC PRIORITIES
As a third step in this analytical framework I LL21's list makes perfect sense to start with.

- Detail Retrieval
- Full-range Extension
- Midrange magic
- Effortless all out dynamic range
- Absolutely ruler-flat technical performance
- Absolutely extended, filigreed highs...but not one iota of harshness
- Deep propulsive bass

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1-4

It would be fair to say I largely encompass 2 & 3, but why I do so gives a priority towards 4.

The more faithfully you can reproduce what is on the masters, the closer you can get to 4 and 1. But this is entirely album dependent. If you stereo has some accuracy then it can reproduce a good album that was intentionally cut to sound like 4. In that case it also sounds like 1.

But other albums will not sound like 4, because they weren't made too - not in the least. That's a price you pay, where some albums are sublime, others are ok or whatever. If you try to accomplish 4, all out for all albums, you'll surely have a reduction in overall possible quality - there is no way around it, if you're forcing albums that don't sound like 4 at all, to sound at least like 4 and maybe 1 (in your own opinion).

Because I like vinyl it's no problem that I'm definitely about 2. There are so many good version of things that I end up hearing a ton of great albums sounding really good.

But what about 3?

Here's the thing, every stereo despite all attempts is still a fairly high distortion device because it has speakers. The complicated internal nature of all the electronics can sound vastly different despite low distortion in them, too. So the reality is no matter how much you seek any attribute, 3 holds a large sway because there is no way to escape it. There is no way to elevate 1, 2, and 4 beyond the fact that 3 is a predominant feature of how we want to display differences or choose distortion types.

So how can I be into 2? Well I think the easiest way to put it, is that it comes with 3 for the above reasons. And hardly any stereos I've ever heard come close to it. Either they don't have the ability to portray it fully, it sounds weak & pathetic, or it's very fatiguing. Most of them don't have great timbre, texture is absent, etc etc etc. It's wild, since so many of them "measure" well. Yet I can make gear that measures well and doesn't have those problems... 3 is still part of it.


LL21's list:

I don't look at any of this as my thoughts on a system for what I'm trying to do.

- Detail retrieval - A bad objective, most systems are good at supposed detail and yet true character passed them by like a Lambo vs. skateboard. All it really means is "how much RF can I pump into my system" which is an enemy to texture and true character.

- Midrange Magic - meh, I'm not into candied sounding stuff. If something really stands out with this, it's just weird. It also get boring in 0.02 seconds. So I have to say I have no concept of how Ron can say he wants midrange magic and natural in the same room... What???? Nonsense.

- Effortless all out dynamic range - Also a silly concern in the way people think about it. What we hear as dynamics and what is actually happening are usually two different things. If you come across a truly high crest factor recording, you may not be able to distinguish the parts that slam that crest factor by ear. You can watch meters jump 20w during a passage that sounds very dynamic, very powerful - but it really is only using a tiny bit of power so it isn't that dynamic. Yet you can put on a high crest factor and if you were not watching you'd totally miss the 200w+ moments on many albums, oblivious to the fact they happened. We judge a stereo on how dynamic it sounds, not the actual dynamic range. Frankly sometimes super dynamics don't sound more powerful or anything and just hurt the ears and we aren't even sure why exactly. It's mostly coincidence & bad designs as to why we are under the impression that so many things = dynamics. I can't count the systems I've heard with massively powerful amplifiers that don't really sound dynamic or powerful - unless you put on some annoying bass demo track like some sorta prick that wants to ruin everyone's hearing.

- Absolutely ruler-flat technical performance - What's the point? Should it be close? Yes it's good to start close, and 99.99% of gear is somewhat close. It is very unusual to see more than a few db variance. That variance isn't that big of a deal because no one has a room that would allow a ruler-flat response anyway. The moment you put the stereo into a room it chops that signal up big time - treated or not. Your goal is to make sure it's not having huge 10db+ swings in response.

- Absolutely extended, filigreed highs...but not one iota of harshness - Yes and no. Yes to eliminating fatigue unless it's part of the album. No to RF pumped highs. I want it sound normal like you experience in a studio, LUM, or anywhere else.

- Deep propulsive bass - Not in that sense. I like bass that sounds real, so it should be articulate. Going deep matters, but real > volume. So I'm not sure propulsive is exactly the term I'd use since it isn't specific to sounding real or deep.

Fast and evident ways for me to judge a stereo's true quality:

Firstly, it should be able to make albums sound unique. The character from album to album should be pretty obvious, particularly with vinyl. (digital is harder to tell, and I don't like to use it to judge) This is an overall sound that runs through the whole thing. It is imparted through the production and pressing process. If it's gone... Well then I'm not too impressed. Some stereos do it just a tiny bit but it should be obvious. Along with it comes better timbre, much more clearer resolution of everything, etc. But that does not specifically mean "detail" in any way what so ever. As in small sounds don't have to become large for this to be true (again, that would be an RF laden device). If this is done well it is very good evidence of being truthful towards the album.

If the first is true, you have the possibility for the stereo to really sound like 4 on a recording that is such. It will also be high on the 2 scale.

Secondly texture is very important to me. And thirdly is tied to it, "dynamics". I want things to have a solidness to them, and a weight. But part of that weight is the sense of dynamics. It should be very easy to read small vibrato, and small changes in volume. For them to sound right they need to have some sort of texture. Most stereos are very poor at this, and some are ok. RF laden is an enemy to this. It kills me when I can't hear subtle changes in voice levels. These are easy to hear when talking to someone, why not on a stereo? There is no great reason for that. If a stereo is doing well with that, then it likely have powerful drums, horns, etc, that have a natural and realistic nature to them in that they have force & weight from a solid feeling projection.

Those measure how good a stereo really is... I use other terms everyone else here does... but they are mostly prerequisites to ultimate judging. If a stereo can't do them, it is going to be a let down on most other aspects. It could be fatiguing, clinical, fuzzy, etc. It will never sound close to real or live if it's short on them. If these are not met, there just is no chance other important things will be where they need to be. If they are, then it's highly unlikely the stereo will lack much of anything - and if it does it may be negligible - but may need some tuning.

Ron Resnick said:

Just when we fear that no happy agreement in our subjective hobby is possible, we find a bit of hope! And Kedar and I come at these questions from significantly different perspectives.

I agree totally on:

1) The best reference (maybe the only reference) is live music.

2) We agree that musical preference significantly drives speaker preference.

3) I have posted and said many times that if I listened primarily to jazz I would get horns + SET and never look back. Horns reproduce brass and woodwind instruments more realistically and more "live" than any other speaker topology.

4) If I listened primarily to rock I would choose VSA Ultra 11 or Rockport Arrakis. (I have never heard EA MM7s, but I would add them to this list.) (At this level of dynamic driver speaker I see no excuse for not using an M-T-M design in the middle -- and not at the top -- of the loudspeaker.)

5) If I were 50/50 between rock and classical I would choose reconditioned Apogee Full Ranges or Ultra 11 or Arrakis.

6) Kedar did not focus on vocals because he believes vocals can sound good on pretty much everything; that vocals are among the easier sounds to reproduce. We agree that planars beat horns + SET for simple vocals.

7) For my personal mix of primarily vocals with acoustic accompaniment, some rock and a little classical and a little jazz, I choose planar speakers (Apogee, Analysis Audio, Magnepan, Martin-Logan, Pendragon, Genesis Prime) with carefully selected tube electronics (by "selected" I mean not skimping on power).

8) Digital is good, vinyl is better. (I predict someday Kedar will add "tape is best.")

Will you look at all this genuine agreement in our crazily subjective hobby!

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Ron,

It seems you agree on your preferences with Kedar, congratulations!

Anyway I disagree with 8. Different, yes, but not better.

The conclusion Ron is that a recording is a recording and live is live. Its almost like going to grand prix or watching on TV..you can never capture the raw scream of the motor and the notion of speed on TV, yet you see more of whats going on on TV

Ron Resnick said:

I, personally, do not care about "detail retrieval" per se or "ruler-flat frequency response" or "extension at the frequency extremes." Those attributes are not among my personal sonic priorities because, for me, they are not consonant with my perceptions of live music.

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Although I see your point on "ruler-flat frequency response" - but can not resist thinking what would happen if someday you find that your preferred future speaker are ruler-flat - I can not see how someone going to own full range speakers with active bass towers and super tweeters can claim he does not care about "extension at the frequency extremes."

microstrip said:

Although I see your point on "ruler-flat frequency response" - but can not resist thinking what would happen if someday you find that your preferred future speaker are ruler-flat - I can not see how someone going to own full range speakers with active bass towers and super tweeters can claim he does not care about "extension at the frequency extremes."

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It's how these things contribute to the music that counts, and I'd agree if you're looking at speakers like that then you must believe it matters an awful lot.

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And whether perception of live music matches the goal of full range frequency extension isn't a huge issue, if it's on the recording I want my system to reproduce it. I do not exclusively listen to live recordings and I also disagree live recordings don't often contain information at the frequency extremes either.

While you can have an entertaining speaker without technical excellence, in this day and age why bother? There's many examples of technically excellent speakers of all different types, and enough has been tested wrt flat frequency response and smooth polar plots to know that this is a main contributor to listener preference. While it's not the only thing, it's a basic foundation. I do not think the speaker needs to measure like a JBL M2 or have absolutely perfect dispersion, but effort should be put into these areas.

Ron Resnick said:

Just when we fear that no happy agreement in our subjective hobby is possible, we find a bit of hope! And Kedar and I come at these questions from significantly different perspectives.

I agree totally on:

1) The best reference (maybe the only reference) is live music.

2) We agree that musical preference significantly drives speaker preference.

3) I have posted and said many times that if I listened primarily to jazz I would get horns + SET and never look back. Horns reproduce brass and woodwind instruments more realistically and more "live" than any other speaker topology.

4) If I listened primarily to rock I would choose VSA Ultra 11 or Rockport Arrakis. (I have never heard EA MM7s, but I would add them to this list.) (At this level of dynamic driver speaker I see no excuse for not using an M-T-M design in the middle -- and not at the top -- of the loudspeaker.)

5) If I were 50/50 between rock and classical I would choose reconditioned Apogee Full Ranges or Ultra 11 or Arrakis.

6) Kedar did not focus on vocals because he believes vocals can sound good on pretty much everything; that vocals are among the easier sounds to reproduce. We agree that planars beat horns + SET for simple vocals.

7) For my personal mix of primarily vocals with acoustic accompaniment, some rock and a little classical and a little jazz, I choose planar speakers (Apogee, Analysis Audio, Magnepan, Martin-Logan, Pendragon, Genesis Prime) with carefully selected tube electronics (by "selected" I mean not skimping on power).

8) Digital is good, vinyl is better. (I predict someday Kedar will add "tape is best.")

Will you look at all this genuine agreement in our crazily subjective hobby!

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Great list Ron, and yes, while I see live and unamplified music as the most basic and essential external reference of all for me also that relates that I listen to a lot of this music as recorded as well. I see it more as a foundation of experience rather than an absolute and I do feel we need to better understand how we then relate what we hear and experience in live performance.

Some seem more focussed on the ‘sound’ of live acoustic instruments and others on the spirit of acoustic music when heard and experienced live. These can be two different things. Btw I think both things are valuable but music trumps sound for me ultimately. I also completely get that not everyone will need live unamplified music as reference at all just because their aims are different and therefore no less valid or the music they listen to is simply not grounded essentially in the non electric. Some like paintings and others prefer photographs so no absolute for all.

I find the context (the literal sound) of live unamplified music easier to achieve with my Maggie’s and the spirit (experience of perception) of live unamplified music with the Harbeths and Animas when they were here.

Speaker choice grounded in music type (and also room shape) is completely sage advice. Best amp to drive that speaker and match that music choice then becomes the trickle down that precludes one amp type as any universal best as well.

Ron Resnick said:

I find this confusing. Would you please elaborate?

What do you mean by the "spirit" of music? Would an analogy be a situation where you prefer to look at a photograph of a landscape hanging on a wall inside rather than look out the window and see the actual landscape itself (of which the photograph was taken)?

If so, why would this be?

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Ron, Apologies for the shorthand explanation... this is an area of viewing things that comes out more regularly in my work in teaching design.

What I am touching upon here is a way of understanding and defining the connections between the reality of things and then how we tend to then experience those things.

When we play a recording it is just a series of sounds... it is consciousness that interprets the sounds as music. Therefore sounds can be quantified and appreciated sonically as in frequency response or in terms of distortions but the spirit of these sounds is how they are appreciated as feeling. Tubes have sonic characteristics but these sonic characteristics can be described in terms of the spirit of how we experience them... tubes tend towards certain harmonics and these are experienced in one way and solid state tends towards other characteristics and measurements but the spirit of SS is then how we often describe as the way solid state more often tends to feel.

For another example sounds that may be sonically accurate but leave us without feeling is the nature or spirit of gear we often describe as analytical.

The Maggies do the literal characteristics of sound wonderfully... much better than the Harbeths that I have. Yet when sad music is played on the Harbeths, or joyful music, or confident music or even funky music the Harbeths tend to communicate that spirit more immediately and clearer than the Maggies even though they don't resolve sonically as well and aren't as linear, extended or as coherent. They don't relay the sounds as well but still communicate the subjective experience of music easier. They are more painterly in nature and the Maggies are more photographic. That performing well in objective terms doesn't necessarily translate in then in perfoming well in subjective terms.

This separation between a thing and how a thing is experienced is useful to understand in art, architecture, design and music when it comes to defining something. We can appreciate anything in terms of what it actually is and then also what this form or colour or sound then means to us. It is the notion that certain forms or sounds or colours are experienced in certain ways. Yellow colours are experienced as warm yet blue colours as cold. The colour is the literal context, the feeling of warmth or coolness is the spirit of the colour... squares and rectangles generally feel more ordered than say more dynamic chaotic polygons, major chords tend to feel more positive and uplifting in spirit and minor chords may leave us feeling more sombre or even sad, certain genres of music tend to feel in certain ways... its more than lyrics and ideas, its about the harmonics and chords and their spirit fundamentally... I am sure these are probably familiar concepts but just being framed under the differentiation between what is then subjective and objective and then the correlation between these two distinctions.

Music is a construct that in truth only exists in our perception. In reality it is just a series of sounds. It takes consciousness and therefore a subjective appreciation to realise that music is a connected construct that can have shared meaning and purpose and can be experienced by us as emotion.

So this is fundamentally a discussion about the split between any objective fact and the subjective interpretation of that thing. More than this it is about how something can communicate the context or reality of something better but not be as immediately involving in expressiveness.

So for some the painterly less exact image of a drawing just may communicate more deeply than the more accurate or realistic imagery of a photograph. Not to say that photography can't communicate emotion or that an accurate system can't be musical, just a system or image that is more expressive than reality may just better express by shaping and framing certain things in a way to make them more essential or more obvious.

Hope this makes better sense... its late on Sunday on this side of the world and its been quite a week so I may not be at my typing or writing best atm. I do believe however that by us developing a more acute and refined understanding of the correlation of the reality of a thing and how it relates to our experience of it is important and can add meaning and clarity for us especially in a pursuit that involves both sonics and music. The distinction between analytical and music is just one of the many areas where this breakdown may help in us relating the nature of these apparent opposites.

the sound of Tao said:

For another example sounds that may be sonically accurate but leave us without feeling is the nature or spirit of gear we often describe as analytical.

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This is impossible. Music propagates as sounds, as nothing else. Something that is sonically accurate therefore by default must be musically accurate and convey the nature, spirit, soul and emotions of the music.

If something does not convey these things it is by definition not sonically accurate. It may at first glance and superficially appear to be, but emphatically it is not. It cannot be.

Al M. said:

This is impossible. Music propagates as sounds, as nothing else. Something that is sonically accurate therefore by default must be musically accurate and convey the nature, spirit, soul and emotions of the music.

If something does not convey these things it is by definition not sonically accurate. It may at first glance and superficially appear to be, but emphatically it is not. It cannot be.

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Hi Al,

Actually music can propagate simply as an idea, and in fact, often does.

Here’s two examples:





Though dissimilar in content and idea, the markings on the paper clearly identify themselves as music to the one who perceives, and may indeed create sound in the brain of the perceiver, without any acoustic sound ever needing to be made.

I won’t elaborate further, as I posted my thoughts on this below, on a thread started by PeterA with a very similar title, a year and a half ago:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...as-a-Reference&p=424892&viewfull=1#post424892

Best,

853guy

DaveC said:

(...) While you can have an entertaining speaker without technical excellence, in this day and age why bother? There's many examples of technically excellent speakers of all different types, and enough has been tested wrt flat frequency response and smooth polar plots to know that this is a main contributor to listener preference. While it's not the only thing, it's a basic foundation. I do not think the speaker needs to measure like a JBL M2 or have absolutely perfect dispersion, but effort should be put into these areas.

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DaveC,

I must say I can not understand your endorsement. The tests on preferences you refer were carried by people who consider that the so called "small differences" do not matter in audio, that cables and tweaks are placebo, and proved it the conditions they used to establish these known models of flat frequency response and smooth polar plots. They consider that using life music as a reference is a dangerous path that should be avoided. Why should speaker designers or people that do not accept the outcome of these listening tests and that do not share these opinions follow this route?

Al M. said:

This is impossible. Music propagates as sounds, as nothing else. Something that is sonically accurate therefore by default must be musically accurate and convey the nature, spirit, soul and emotions of the music.

If something does not convey these things it is by definition not sonically accurate. It may at first glance and superficially appear to be, but emphatically it is not. It cannot be.

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Unfortunately people debate music and sound as if stereo reproduction was a perfect system, ignoring the fundamentals of stereo, its limitations and how our brain compensates for them - even know experts such as S. Linkwitz or F. Toole deeply disagree on it.

An interesting related subject is why many people who have great stereo systems prefer listening through them to listening to the much more accurate multichannel systems.

853guy said:

Hi Al,

Actually music can propagate simply as an idea, and in fact, often does.

Here’s two examples:

View attachment 38876

View attachment 38877

Though dissimilar in content and idea, the markings on the paper clearly identify themselves as music to the one who perceives, and may indeed create sound in the brain of the perceiver, without any acoustic sound ever needing to be made.

I won’t elaborate further, as I posted my thoughts on this below, on a thread started by PeterA with a very similar title, a year and a half ago:

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...as-a-Reference&p=424892&viewfull=1#post424892

Best,

853guy

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Hi 853guy,

unfortunately, this is beside the point. Of course someone reading the score can imagine the sounds -- in fact, the composer must imagine the sounds as he or she composes, since he or she can impossibly hear them (composing on the piano, though for some useful, is only halfway a medium towards the actual sounds). What is even more astounding is that the most innovate composers can imagine and write down sounds and harmonic/timbral combinations that nobody remotely has ever heard!

Yet the listener who does not read the music only perceives it through sound -- nothing else.

Of course, sometimes the faces of the musicians, if you attend a live performance, express emotions too, but that is also beside the point. And often the faces express nothing or not very much, while the most passionate performance is rendered.

On a stereo system, or if you close your eyes during a live performance (I find that often useful, at least for a while), music propagates as sounds only.

Al M. said:

Hi 853guy,

unfortunately, this is beside the point. Of course someone reading the score can imagine the sounds -- in fact, the composer must imagine the sounds as he or she composes, since he or she can impossibly hear them (composing on the piano, though for some useful, is only halfway a medium towards the actual sounds). What is even more astounding is that the most innovate composers can imagine and write down sounds and harmonic/timbral combinations that nobody remotely has ever heard!

Yet the listener who does not read the music only perceives it through sound -- nothing else.

Of course, sometimes the faces of the musicians, if you attend a live performance, express emotions too, but that is also beside the point. And often the faces express nothing or not very much, while the most passionate performance is rendered.

On a stereo system, or if you close your eyes during a live performance (I find that often useful, at least for a while), music propagates as sounds only.

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Sorry Al, I'm with Graham on this one. You can get as much accuracy as you can gear wise, go into +/- 1dB or lower territory and I will still guarantee that in the end, the end user will manipulate the acoustic output in a way that is most pleasing and not most accurate. That includes the majority of professionals as well. For the most part we remember how a musical experience made as feel not the sensory input per se.

I like 853's example of notation. Even that is subject to interpretation and expressive input. Why can't we just admit that that is what we do with our systems as well. We here care too much about the enjoyment of music not to. Who here has totally delegated his system to others? Let's have a poll.

microstrip said:

DaveC,

I must say I can not understand your endorsement. The tests on preferences you refer were carried by people who consider that the so called "small differences" do not matter in audio, that cables and tweaks are placebo, and proved it the conditions they used to establish these known models of flat frequency response and smooth polar plots. They consider that using life music as a reference is a dangerous path that should be avoided. Why should speaker designers or people that do not accept the outcome of these listening tests and that do not share these opinions follow this route?

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Because they are half-right.

It's not often in this industry that we get a balance of "subjective vs objective" viewpoints and imo that's too bad. Engineer types (I'm a ME) often won't consider subjective claims as enough evidence to form a hypothesis, in fact Amir came up with a list of reasons we can't trust our observations enough to even begin to form hypothesis. This is ridiculous, and I believe I've proven that by sending cables out for demo and getting extremely similar subjective reports back, that if analysed would surely show statistically significant trends. OTOH, folks with valid subjective observations are denigrated and because of this, they often reject any work done by objectivists... because they setup poor sounding systems and think they sound good many times.

As you probably know, I think Harman and Toole have confounded their research by not taking many things into account and have come up with a list of preference drivers that are only half-right. Despite this, I do think that achieving a smooth polar plot (which encompasses frequency response and dispersion) is an important objective because it contributes to the feeling of immersion, the creation of a 3-D soundstage, and the reflections from such a system do less to smear fine detail and spatial information.

My system has been designed to provide an immersive 3-D soundstage first and foremost, if this is accomplished many other things fall into place. The sense of immersion is the primary driver of listener preference, but Harman can't possibly know this because they use cables (and other gear) that are not capable of preserving much of this information.