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

morricab · Feb 25, 2018

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.

Agree, this is what I call "fake" neutrality or "fake" accuracy. Often backed up with technical data that says distortion is so low it MUST be inaudible...and yet there is no life.

I have never really felt speakers in isolation are one way or another...always in context to the electronics. I have heard Maggies sound soulful...with 18 watt Audio Note P4 monos and Silvaweld OTLs.

thedudeabides · Feb 25, 2018

Ron Resnick said:
I)

1) recreate the sound of an original musical event,

2) reproduce exactly what is on the master tape,

Absent being there when recorded and absent hearing the master tape, these are impossible criteria to meet.

PeterA · Feb 25, 2018

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.

What are we really trying to do?

The original idea in a composer's head is corrupted the moment he transcribes it to paper. This two dimensional representation of the "idea" is then "interpreted" by different conductors and musicians, over and over again in time and place, and what we eventually hear in some concert hall, years, or centuries later, is but a mere representation of what was once an original and unique thought in a composer's head. Add the reproduction process to this chain of events, and we are far, far removed from what the composer originally intended. Nevertheless, part of that original thought remains, and we are driven to experience it as best we can.

The great jazz improviser, or the child banging kitchen pans together, composing as he plays is perhaps the closest we can ever get to that original thought. What we hear in our listening rooms is the result of the contributions from everyone who was ever involved in transforming that original thought into the sound waves coming from our speakers. Our systems are just tools to allow us to enjoy what we imagine was once an original thought in a composer's head. The task of getting there seems daunting, but it is not futile.

Our memory of live unamplified music, knowledge of audio science, and comparisons to familiar systems seem to be the only references we have to be able to assess the success of our systems. The more one knows about each of these and is able to implement that knowledge in the development of his system, the more likely it is that his system will sound convincing to himself and to others. This, within my personal aesthetic, room, and budget constraints, is my goal. Others have other goals. Live unamplifed music is one of my references and a measure of my progress as my system evolves.

microstrip · Feb 25, 2018

DaveC said:
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.

We fully agree on the half-right. However the critical point is establishing what is right and what it is not. People like to pick the thinks that support their empirical beliefs, forgetting they do not accept, and even claim they are wrong, on the fundamentals behind these empirically determined aspects.

IMHO the best part of the F. Toole book is the first part on the fundamentals and mechanisms of stereo and multichannel sound reproduction, not the part on building systems, that is strongly dependent on their preference studies. They are relevant to audio, but not so much to the people who want to extract all that is encoded in a stereo recording in a enjoyable way - the damned audiophiles!

microstrip · Feb 25, 2018

PeterA said:
(...) Our memory of live unamplified music, knowledge of audio science, and comparisons to familiar systems seem to be the only references we have to be able to assess the success of our systems. The more one knows about each of these and is able to implement that knowledge in the development of his system, the more likely it is that his system will sound convincing to himself and to others. This, within my personal aesthetic, room, and budget constraints, is my goal. Others have other goals. Live unamplifed music is one of my references and a measure of my progress as my system evolves.

Peter,

Not to all others IMHO - just read people opinions on other audiophile systems - for example at shows

. IMHO when we perfect our systems using our particular memories of real performances and audio knowledge we risk creating a system that will specialize in some areas we enjoy and probably will not have the general preference.

General preference is a statistically determined entity. Our small number of members and systems is not representative of it .

Folsom · Feb 25, 2018

thedudeabides said:
Ron Resnick said:

I)

1) recreate the sound of an original musical event,

2) reproduce exactly what is on the master tape,

Click to expand...

Absent being there when recorded and absent hearing the master tape, these are impossible criteria to meet.

I dont believe this. In fact I think it is often obvious when you get way closer. How could someone possibly know? Well we are a lot smarter than we understand. Saying we couldnt possibly start to understand original intent is like saying we cant read waves to find islands we cant see, cut wood without measuring, or predict what someone is thinking. We have the most powerful "computers" on the planet, in our head. As we accumulate experieces it becomes easier to calculate closer and closer to definitive answers. It shouldn't be that hard to have a pretty good idea what was intentioned. I can hear all the differences of volume on instruments on a good stereo, so it isnt hard to know when the drums were toned down a lot, for example.

For what you're saying to be true is actually more complicated. It implies our stereos will read wildly, fantastically, different measurements... and that just isnt true. We dont use effects pedals or many band EQ's, and even with those we cannot change a guitar being playex when it is played or how it is played... Despite how vastly different our stereos sound, they measure relatively similar in the broad scope of things. You can recognize the same song from stereo to stereo...

The very act of listening and comprehending that music is being played, is an understanding of intent from the musicians & vocalist. They dont nit-pick over the nuances that we do. Most of them will listen on dumpy stereos and yet they can talk for days about all of the decisions made by X band. They hear the sound being played, which most stereos on the planet will do, not the quality of the reproduction. Were it impossible for them to understand intent, then music makers wouldnt be able to colaberate. And yet they do, albums are often made without even seeing other people in the band... It seems impossible to believe we cant comprehend any intent.

To summarize, I think the very concept of not knowing what was possibly intended without being present in production, is nothing more than exercise in semantics pretending to be some sort of superior intelligence to hold over others that have points to make.

DaveyF · Feb 25, 2018

PeterA said:
What are we really trying to do?

The original idea in a composer's head is corrupted the moment he transcribes it to paper. This two dimensional representation of the "idea" is then "interpreted" by different conductors and musicians, over and over again in time and place, and what we eventually hear in some concert hall, years, or centuries later, is but a mere representation of what was once an original and unique thought in a composer's head. Add the reproduction process to this chain of events, and we are far, far removed from what the composer originally intended. Nevertheless, part of that original thought remains, and we are driven to experience it as best we can.

The great jazz improviser, or the child banging kitchen pans together, composing as he plays is perhaps the closest we can ever get to that original thought. What we hear in our listening rooms is the result of the contributions from everyone who was ever involved in transforming that original thought into the sound waves coming from our speakers. Our systems are just tools to allow us to enjoy what we imagine was once an original thought in a composer's head. The task of getting there seems daunting, but it is not futile.

Our memory of live unamplified music, knowledge of audio science, and comparisons to familiar systems seem to be the only references we have to be able to assess the success of our systems. The more one knows about each of these and is able to implement that knowledge in the development of his system, the more likely it is that his system will sound convincing to himself and to others. This, within my personal aesthetic, room, and budget constraints, is my goal. Others have other goals. Live unamplifed music is one of my references and a measure of my progress as my system evolves.

+1 Great post!

Coming from an ex-pro musician's perspective, if we are not creating music, we are creating something less desirable....noise. Unfortunately, it is only too easy to create noise.

I'm sure many of us can point to examples of noise that others believe consists as music---that's where the public ( listener) has their input as to the 'enjoyment' factor. For example, the rhythmic dripping of water from a tap...is that noise or is that music?? I'll leave that to the 'experts'.

the sound of Tao · Feb 25, 2018

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.

Al,

When we are listening to live music this is much more likely the case, allowing still for all the varying physical, cultural and emotional capacities and previous experiences of the human filters of the listener that are then being built in the listening experience and within the acoustic confines of the performance space then what we hear becomes much more likely a more direct and clear interpretation of the composers and performers expression. Its easier in live performance to hear the music coming through the sounds. This is a relatively (but not completely direct) experience of the sound which are played to be perceived as a pattern which we identify as music with all its interpretation, meaning and purpose.

Some music has no connection for us and is only a series of sounds to us... this relates to all sorts of cultural reasons. It is completely valid to just be focussed on the sounds and the contained beauty of them. We develop relationships with different music types and performers and instruments and even the familiarity of our own systems that makes the transition from hearing sounds to relating to them as music. Sure if questioned then we can all consciously identify all these sounds as music but whether we actually make a deep connection to what the music is or not might be a different matter.

When we play recorded performances at another time in another space being replayed using the integrated electronics and mechanical engineering of our quite vastly differing systems and rooms what we may be led to perceive between how we then experience the sounds and also what we relate to in the music may end up quite distorted which of course is the essential challenge of our game.

So music starts as a notion in the composers mind, is translated and developed in performance and then before it comes to us and our listening pleasure (hopefully) there are a range of ways that this is then corrupted/changed/added to sonically during the initial transcription in capturing in recording, mixing, compilation and editing, transferring and dubbing, before it then approaches our room and our very complex replay systems (hmmmm straight wire with gain my ass) and that all these steps involve complex layered processes that build a range of new sounds, new distortions that potentially take us further and further away from the original intention let alone the performance of the musician. The original arrangement of sounds to become music becomes less transparent and at its worst the music may become so disconnected that all that is experienced is largely the sounds and that emotional connection can become undone. The further this is altered from a direct experience in live listening of say an acoustic performance the further the resultant sounds get away from the original music.

Given that along the way varying people get involved in relaying the original intention of what they consider as ideally (think of the interventionist approaches in Spectres wall of sound or Karajan's creative direction of recordings of his orchestra's performances) or as truthfully (minimalist miking and intervention approach of other sound engineers) that all these processes create new opportunities to create a different music, and potentially also reduce and muddy the patterns in the sounds that lend themselves for us to recognise these sounds perhaps less clearly as coherent connected patterns of music.

What I was alluding to specifically was that some components and systems in the high end are often described in subjective terms as being analytical. The logical take on this is that they lead to an analytical listening perception, thinking rather than feeling. We can explore the range of ways that gear can focus our perceptual state into the conscious and perhaps in ways preclude unconscious connection which is just another framework for perception.

The idea that we are always in one perceptual state doesn't hold water. Our consciousness and minds and brains have a range of perceptual processes that are simply functionally different. So sometimes we are engaged in critical listening, others we are analysing or identifying, sometimes we are reflecting and at other times almost completely unconscious (especially back in the 60's, or late at night perhaps when we are over our 60's). Piaget describes the sharp change nature of transitioning from perceptual state to perceptual state. These can be triggered by a range of influences including what the mind perceives as inconsistencies within the patterns. We go from relaxed and whole reflective connection to a focussed and analytical awareness because our attention is called to something. When we identify the anomaly perhaps in the sound field and rematch the pattern we may well relax back to appreciating the music in whole again.

So the sounds may appear accurate at any time but where they lead us to focus on may take us to a different perceptual state. They may represent sounds that are within measurement technically correct but contain elements or have lost elements that don't allow us to get into the state that accesses the music contained within the notes.

I am exploring ideas and concepts here in a kind of rushed way first thing in the morning with my coffee in hand before work and have to race off. So if they are incomplete and loose (more like a bit stream of consciousness) I really need a quick review and good solid edit for clarity before I post which I just can't do right now so I may come back later when I have more time.

I really get that these are essentially conceptual notions and that biology and neuroscience is still trying to get a genuine hang on perceptual states though in truth people have been trying to define these things, the way we are conscious since the earliest of cultures so the chances of me cracking the code this morning over a cuppa are indeed relatively poor.

thedudeabides · Feb 25, 2018

Folsom said:
For what you're saying to be true is actually more complicated. I

With all due respect, it's not. It's really quite simple. You were there when the recording was made or you were not. You heard the master tape or you have not. Trying to replicate that "experience" is an entirely different issue. Along with all the vagaries and subjectivity that goes into "chasing the unobtainable".

Many on this forum seem to make it (or want to make it) much more subjectively complicated (and spend large amounts of cash to attain the impossible) than it really is. I suppose that's the nature of this hobby when taken to an extreme, obsessive level.

Folsom · Feb 25, 2018

It's irrelevant because you are not butchering the music. The intent in the music never had to do with the nuisances we bicker about. Your car stereo is sufficient to leave you with the intent of music.

Better stereos simply make it easier to hear the differences between the production choices and gear. It's not a mystery, either you hear it or you don't. When you hear the intent you can hear the deliberate choices that affect it from production. It's not hard, at all, on a nice stereo. And in this you know there isn't any reason you had to be present to know if you're hearing what you're trying to. If the production did something funky, you'll know that it doesn't sound exactly like it did in person in front of the event instead of behind the glass, because it'll be evident if someone turned the drums down or added echo to them. With that revealing experience you'll also be aware that you are in fact hearing what's on the master tape because it dispels the clear difference between hearing it by ear and by mic + production.Obviously the prerequisite is that you had in fact heard drums before. How it's being played will be evident no matter what, but the sound of production or lack there of, is the factor in which you judge the stereo.

This is mental block scenario. Something sounds impossible because it is hard to imagine, but it may not even be difficult.

I'd like to point out that the production team often has not a clue as to what the master tape really sounds like, because so many listen to it on such terrible speakers & amps that it is distorted and EQ'd drastically so that the signal out is not a very good representation of the signal in.

JackD201 · Feb 25, 2018

Folsom said:
It's irrelevant because you are not butchering the music. The intent in the music never had to do with the nuisances we bicker about. Your car stereo is sufficient to leave you with the intent of music.

Better stereos simply make it easier to hear the differences between the production choices and gear. It's not a mystery, either you hear it or you don't. When you hear the intent you can hear the deliberate choices that affect it from production. It's not hard, at all, on a nice stereo. And in this you know there isn't any reason you had to be present to know if you're hearing what you're trying to. If the production did something funky, you'll know that it doesn't sound exactly like it did in person in front of the event instead of behind the glass, because it'll be evident if someone turned the drums down or added echo to them. With that revealing experience you'll also be aware that you are in fact hearing what's on the master tape because it dispels the clear difference between hearing it by ear and by mic + production.Obviously the prerequisite is that you had in fact heard drums before. How it's being played will be evident no matter what, but the sound of production or lack there of, is the factor in which you judge the stereo.

This is mental block scenario. Something sounds impossible because it is hard to imagine, but it may not even be difficult.

I'd like to point out that the production team often has not a clue as to what the master tape really sounds like, because so many listen to it on such terrible speakers & amps that it is distorted and EQ'd drastically so that the signal out is not a very good representation of the signal in.

Yes, yes!

For those of us interested in the recording arts this is a big deal. A funny story coming up.

I was in Seoul this last holiday break and I returned to the underground shopping area in Myong Dong where many records are available at prices very fairly linked to the LP conditions. After about two hours of selecting stuff I went to check out. The owner of the store and I got to chatting and I asked him what aside from the usual collectibles are highly prized by Seoul locals. To my surprise he shuffles a box behind his tiny desk set within a cavern of LPs and pulls out a Toni Braxton LP. Ummmm ok, I thought. The lead single of this song was an instant pop hit. So much so that at some point it was damn near unescapable in the 90s. I could understand the collectibility part since LP pressing really fell of sharply as the CD came to its period of domination. So I said, okay, lets give it a listen. Well, it sounded the way I remembered it to and I was still non-plussed and 30 yrs later still had that "overplayed" feeling about the song. Yet, I decided to buy the LP anyway because there seemed to be other tracks I wasn't familiar with and I was really digging Braxton's voice at here prime before it got too dark and smokey with age.

Now, I never owned any version of this album ever. Hearing it was always either while turning the car radio dial or as background music while doing mundane stuff like going to the grocery or getting a haircut. The intent was always clear. It's the story of a young heartbroken woman and presented at least on the surface as one of the all time poster childs for musical melodrama. Now, listen to it carefully even on youtube and listen to it with decent headphones. While still corny to me on more than a few levels, there's really a lot more going on around her and that lifts the value of the piece considerably. Now magnify that with a good front end and the horns and SETs I am babysitting now where the strings are no longer obscured like on youtube and hot damn. I get what the Korean collectors are jazzed about. I guess my point is that I agree with Folsom on the intent part but also that we just might be passing on a lot of albums and that could be a sad thing. Ultimately there are two other songs in this album that were not beaten to death and make the album a keeper. Please try not to be distracted by her hotness

Al M. · Feb 25, 2018

the sound of Tao said:
So the sounds may appear accurate at any time but where they lead us to focus on may take us to a different perceptual state. They may represent sounds that are within measurement technically correct but contain elements or have lost elements that don't allow us to get into the state that accesses the music contained within the notes.

This correlates well with the point I was making.

Folsom said:
It's irrelevant because you are not butchering the music. The intent in the music never had to do with the nuisances we bicker about. Your car stereo is sufficient to leave you with the intent of music.

That is only very partially true. Yes, the intent of the music comes through on a car stereo for simple pop or a good amount of rock music. However, the intent is often severely compromised on a car stereo when it comes to complex classical music, for example, be it for 1 or 100 musicians.

Here nuances are all deciding about accurately conveying intent, or not.

cjfrbw · Feb 26, 2018

Yup, what Jack said. I have had that reaction to radio cuts that that been beaten to death and trivialized in the car.

Get a nice vinyl LP of the Carpenters, Abba, or even Captain and Tennille with a great stereo system, and it's a whole new experience to find out there was a lot more in there than you thought.

I was embarrassed that I like "Muskrat Love" on vinyl.

marty · Feb 27, 2018

JackD201 said:
Please try not to be distracted by her hotness

Have some mercy, man! Not really possible.

NorthStar · Feb 27, 2018

Un-break my heart, I enjoyed the tune Jack. I like her voice.

RogerD · Feb 27, 2018

It would have to be one hell of car stereo for me to really appreciate Stokowski's Bach or Puccini's tuba blast in Madame Butterfly...just saying.

JackD201 · Feb 28, 2018

marty said:
Have some mercy, man! Not really possible.

I know Marty. I can watch that video on mute. LOL

JackD201 · Feb 28, 2018

RogerD said:
It would have to be one hell of car stereo for me to really appreciate Stokowski's Bach or Puccini's tuba blast in Madame Butterfly...just saying.

I bet you could if you were being driven in the back of a rolls Roger

Heck I might even appreciate grey poupon!

caesar · Feb 28, 2018

Hi Ron,

A different perspective for you: Recorded music played on a high end stereo system is different that live music…attending a live concert and listening to a reference system are completely different experiences...so live unamplified music just serves as a conceptual model of how stereo works.

This simplification is no different than saying that when you plug in your toaster into an electrical outlet, electrons just flow into it like water…

And if one compares his stereo to live music, he will fall short of that ideal, as every gear presents its sonic signature slightly differently, but not like live music ...

I wrote this before, but ancient Greek philosophy is timeless

:

....I don't want to get in trouble with the mods discussing religion and philosophy, but this approach of using live music as a reference is Platonic. And for those of us who are not Platonists, it’s not rooted in the way things really work.

I remember talking with the very nice lady who runs and voices VTL a number of years ago. She told me she goes to classical concerts and then comes home and compares what she has just heard with recordings of the same performance on her reference system. Ditto for David Wilson who travels to Vienna to do the same. So both VTL and Wilson claim to actually design their gear based on their perception of real music.

But comes along a guy like "Sterile" Jon Valin, plops in the chair that Ms. VTL and David Wilson just sat in and listens to the same recordings on the same system that VTL and Wilson have put together based on their reference for live music. Instead of calling it “real”, he calls that VTL- Wilson system too dark, rich, and colored - "as you like it", using his term. Since “Sterile” Jon is the self-proclaimed authority, he instead prefers soulution and magico q5, which emphasizes upper midrange and treble. To him, it is the most real there is, yet other guys working in his magazine do not agree... Wilson guys will go ahead and call Valin an f*ing moron, since they are right, based on their perception and preference, and all the hard work they have done.... good thing these guys don't carry guns! ...

Look, everyone who is serious in this hobby listens or has listened to live music. Even the guys who design by measurements validate by listening…

All gear presents slightly different elements of realism, and fans can pick and choose which elements of realism they prefer. Once you choose a brand or sound that you like, spend roughly double the money on a piece of gear you have or like, and you get more of those elements that trigger your imagination of realism of live music. Or choose different gear, and it will highlight different aspects of live music...

So to those of us who are not Platonists, using “live music as a reference" is all about imagining. No different than kids playing and imagining superheroes using plastic dolls. But hey, it's hobby and if people find it fun, than that’s great. For me, I accept the limitation of playing recordings on my stereo and enjoy high end audio as it’s own experience.

....

Now since then, we have had the famous fight between Great Peter Breuninger and Sterile Jon Valin about which turntable they imagine as real in their mind is best. I think Sterile Jon got really lucky that Great Peter didn't connect with a big hook to the liver, followed by an uppercut to the point of the chin...

It would be sayonara to TAS as we know it .... And thank God those guys didn't carry guns!

Maybe this year we can see Sterile Jon and Snooty Peter McGrath fight about whether Magico or Wilson sounds "more real" with live unamplified music . The winner of the fight will definitely determine which speaker is better

Jeffy · Feb 28, 2018

No, Live music like classical has no precise imaging and the tone of instruments are way more warmer than audio systems portray them. It's more like a mono system. Now to believe if your system is accurate you would have to be in the place the recording was done and hopefully the recording is done like a decca recording. The studio then has to do a proper recording tape or 45 vinyl record. Now that person may be able to judge how close the system sounds to the event. Listening in the recording studio to studio monitors and their equipment does not cut it.

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

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