What do we really consider "natural" sound?
What do we really consider "natural" sound?
I've been pondering this question for years, and I have come to a conclusion.
But first, let me diverge a little bit and ask: Never mind sound, let's ask, what is really a "natural" visual experience? Don't laugh, it may not be as straight forward as you think, so a simple "everything we see" is not going to cut it for me. When we look at the stars with a naked eye, is that a natural visual experience? I'd say Yes, but to an incredibly minute and highly irrelevant degree. Why? Because I don't see really much, other than tiny dots in a big wide space; collectively, they look beautiful, but each individual one is as boring as a pig. When the first pictures of Saturn's rings were published decades ago, was that a more natural visual experience, albeit only two-dimensional? What about subsequent pictures showing even more rings, to the point that we started assigning numbers to them? What about even finer pictures since then, depicting things that looked like rocks in the rings, but we still couldn't tell what the rings are really made of. What about Cassini's crystal clear pictures from recent missions? We now know there is so much more going on with Saturn's rings that what we originally thought, or what is observable with the naked eye. Which one of these visual experiences is more "natural" and why?
But enough with the allegory... back to music. What if we ask similar questions about musical instruments and the sound we experience. Is the sound of a live violin as we experience it from 20m away "natural"? How about 100m? What if you put your ear right on it, much like a microphone, or a violinist. At what [far or near] distance does it stop being natural? How do room reflections change one's perception. Is the violin's sound perhaps un-natural if you stick your ear to it? Is it bright? Aggressive? At which distance does it lose its presence? Is it always sweet? How far into a Hall do you have to sit to lose the sense of naturalness and presence?
So the conclusion I have come to is that, to me, it's primarily about timbre. If I can distinguish and recognize an instrument from any distance and still deem its sound realistic, as if I were a musician, then that's natural. To that extent, I use timbre to identify instruments and their degree of naturalness - not presence, not dynamics of any kind, nothing else. As such, everything else is secondary and perhaps unimportant, and MAY include the room, reflections, position, relative distance to other instruments, dynamics/loudness, et al. This definition of naturalness covers having your ear right on it - like a microphone - as well as being as far as possible to still conclude timbre is real. More than that, the close-up sound of a violin has tremendous resolution and macro- & micro-dynamics, which is not necessarily true if you are sitting far far away, especially in a large hall; it just isn't the same, yet they are both natural to me, but to varying degrees and for varying reasons. The same goes for just about any instrument, other than perhaps organ.
Which brings me to the next topic: is what I am hearing at home, from my system, natural? And how does my analog fare in that department against analog, and vice versa - that's what PeterA effectively asked upthread. Well, the only answer I can give right now is that it varies, much like the visual analogies I gave above. Whereas before my analog was far superior to anything digital with just about every recording, this is no longer the case. With things like strings, I still prefer my analog in most cases; probably voices too; with a lot of other instrumental recordings available both on CD and LP, I would say it's like splitting hair and it may vary on the mastering. And when it comes to RBCD HDCD, my digital is now far superior to analog with the same Reference Recordings, period.
So what is going on here... well, the latest DAC modification, which really builds on top of prior analog-section shielding documented in these pages, has dropped the noise floor so much that the gap between my analog and digital is a virtual tie. Part of it, I think, has to do with the slight residual hiss in the XP-25 and LP surface noise. So I am predicting that the new Spectral phono - when God blesses its release - or similar will tip the balance yet again. However, again, HDCD is so clearly superior right now, that we will have to wait and see how a better phono stage will do. Folks who have heard my analog understand how good it is, and therefore, it may come as a surprise what I've just said about HDCD. Consequently, my modifications have tremendously improved timbre and the sense of space in the Alpha DAC; regarding the latter, instrument positions in the stage are very clearly delineated, set in jet-black background; and I am certainly hearing tiny things I have never heard before.
The reality as I hear it is this: my analog sounds really good, yet a little rounded off and polite; you get the kind of information (and I am talking about timbre, micro and macro dynamics) as if one were standing at a fair distance from the instruments, certainly not on stage, but not too far away. HDCD sounds much closer to what the microphone would pick up, and that includes all the additional micro-detail and micro-dynamic information I could care for, as well as wider dynamic headroom. It's incisive with close-miked recordings, yet still natural by the definition I gave. Yet, it can still be a lot of fun, like Sunday At The Village Vanguard. Effectively, I am getting varying degrees of naturalness from both media, and I would argue that's a great thing. Frankly, these comparisons no longer make sense, if timbre and other important characteristics can be perceived to be relatively true to a highly believable degree. At the same time, we must not lose all perspective, and neither type of sound is the best one will ever hear; far from it. The intent here really is to convey only the varying degrees of naturalness that I am hearing...
The conclusion is basically this: I am finally now having fun with digital, as well as analog. More on the latest mod and its audible effects coming soon...
-ack