stehno said:You won’t find many examples, which in itself should be a testament, but every so often you’ll hear an “expert” exclaim something like what Jonathan Valin said around 2008, “We are lucky if even our very best playback systems can capture even 15% of the magic of the live performance.” I know a few who’ve said that even Valin’s 15% is being optimistic. BTW, I interpret Valin’s use of “magic” as “believability”. Not 15% of the overall music presentation. IME, Valin’s statement is not far off the mark. And yes, I’m well aware there are many who claim many playback systems are capable of sounding very much like live music.
stehno posted this in the Audio Science thread recently. I think it is a pretty interesting topic for discussion.
I once asked JV if he could put a percentage on this idea of our best systems capturing the musical event, and, at the time, he simply told me, "No". I recently heard Suzanne Vega's song, "Tom's Diner" on a CD reproduced on an excellent digital system with mini monitors. That studio recording was extremely believable to me, and if that recording were available on a clean and quiet Direct-to-Disk LP and reproduced on an even better system, it would probably be even more convincing. However, convincingly reproducing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a superb recording played on even the best systems available today, I think, is another matter entirely.
I have heard solo instruments and voices sound incredibly convincing on my system, and it is far from being one of the best systems available today. So I think we have come a very long way to being able to reproduce some sounds. But, as we all have experienced, a live performance at Symphony Hall, simply can not be reproduced convincingly in the home. It may sound extremely good in the best settings, but few if any of us would ever be fooled into thinking we were listening to the real thing.
To start to discuss this topic, I think we would have to define what we are trying to reproduce? How complex is the music - a single piano note or a cappella performance , a jazz quartet, or a full symphony? Haven't we all turned around while watching a movie believing the phone was ringing in the next room? Is the reproduction somewhat believable, or are we being asked to identify "is it live/real or just a recording" while blindfolded? The former would seem to have a higher percentage than the latter, surely.
Could an objectivist even attempt to measure such a thing? We could measure a group of listeners to see if they are fooled into believing something is real. If the sounds are simple, perhaps some would be tricked. If the material is more complex, it would be hard to fool anyone, I think. But can we measure, in percentage terms, how real something sounds? And if so, how close would he/she think that we are, in percentage terms, to reproducing a live musical event on the best audio systems available today, if we define more specifically the type of performance we are measuring?