I think what I heard last night should be relatively easy for a good system to reproduce with a pretty high degree of suspension of disbelief. But to my ears it would require tubes driving a non-bright speaker and a non-analytical-sounding cartridge.
It is very hard to say, Davey, obviously. I’m not sure how to even go about thinking through in my mind the many systems I have heard, and then hypothesizing how they would have sounded with these two particular instruments alone when I did not hear these two instruments solo on any recording we played on those systems?
Perhaps I can think about it only in terms of recalling artificial or inaccurate brightness or not. I know I never heard any brightness which I considered to be artificial brightness from a Rockport speaker driven by Absolare or Viva (or tubes in general). There is zero artificial brightness in DDK’s very natural-sounding system.
Hi Ron
Isn’t this the great paradox in Hi Fi. Live sound completely unamplified is a completely different experience to hi fi regardless of the money spent
On Friday evening I had the great pleasure of going to The Stables in Milton Keynes to hear Pete Long and The Goodmen Band recreate the seminal 1938 Benny Goodman concert at Carnegie Hall. The band was made up of the best big band players in the UK. The Stables auditorium was designed by John Dankworth the world famous jazz musician and is in the space formerly occupied by the stables of his Rectory home. The Accoustics is beautiful such that every nuance of sound can be heard without amplification. Apart from the compère microphone the performance was completely unamplified.
Much as I love my audio this performance was in a completely different class. As you say there are no hard sounds just natural sounds. The line of four trumpets could part your hair at 50 paces. It wasn’t hard it was just the natural bite of the instruments. I initially the sound was quite gentle as the band warmed up on the first couple of pieces. However as they got going it was mind blowing. Sound levels above 100db on occasions bur it never seems that loud. I was completely blown away and it made me wonder how then original audience felt in 1938 at the original performance with the great BG himself.
Pete Long is a fabulous clarinetist and terrific compère. He told a great story about Benny Goodman. Benny was completely obsessed with his clarinet. In fact little else featured in his life In 1937 the young Peggy Lee was about to join Goodman Band. It was winter in NYC and very cold. Peggy was invited by Goodman to come to his flat to rehearse with Benny and his pianist. The flat was very cold and Peggy was feeling very chilly. She mentioned this to Benny who left the room. On his way he passed through the kitchen. He noticed his clarinet on the kitchen table and picked it up and stated playing scales and arpeggios. This continued for 20 minutes. He then went the the bedroom and on his way back he saw his clarinet and picked it up and started playing. Eventually perhaps 10 minutes later he returned to the rehearsal pulling on a cardigan. Peggy Lee continued to shiver!
My view (for what its worth) is that we audio enthusiasts should be seeking a mean tonal balance that enables us to get real pleasure from the maximum percentage of our record collections. The system needs to do justice to all genres. If it doesn’t it is doing something wrong.
Recorded sound, great as it can be, can never really compare with natural live sound. However in the absence of live music it can provide great pleasure. I once new a guy who said that the best is the enemy of the good. In seeking the best we lose the pleasure that we could gain from what we have.
Like you guys I have heard many superb systems including the SME music room Steyning, the life’s work of Alistair Robertson-Aikman, on 5 separate occasions. Beautiful as the system and the room are it is not perfect. For me this was a Eureka moment. It taught me that even with limitless resources perfection does not exist and never will. Given the name of this forum that probably makes me a heretic. I love high end audio, but I love music more and I know that my greatest pleasure in music always comes from live performance. I have never heard a hi fi system that can come close to reproducing the sound of the organ of Liverpool Cathedral live. It simply isn’t possible. However I have had a lot of fun trying!
I shall now retreat to my man cave, don my tin hat, close the hatch, and await the onslaught.
Kind regards
David.