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Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here. |
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Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here. |
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In Reply to: Important fundamental differences between live sound and playback that make them incomparable posted by Analog Scott on September 3, 2019 at 12:52:29:
Of course one can compare live sound to playback but there are essential differences in the nature of the two that make them incomparable in many ways. First essential difference that is often lost upon audiophiles is how we physically listen to both is different. With live music we are free to move our head and in fact as we listen to anything in the real world we unconsciously move our head in the direction of that which we are focusing upon. We hear things differently from straight on than we do at an angle. With stereo playback we simply can't do that. If we turn our head to focus on a sound coming from the aural illusion of imaging the illusion actually breaks down. We can't adjust our head for better aural focus with stereo playback. It may seem like a subtle difference but it is a huge difference.
Of course, no one listens to their system with their head in a vice grip (although I must point out that your observation about "better aural focus" in the imaging is less of a problem in a MCh system!). I don't know about you, but when I move the position of my head at a concert, the imaging and the frequency mix change too. And even if you're focusing on something, you don't keep your head in a vice grip at a concert either. In any case, depending on where you're sitting in hall, and if you're back far enough, there might be very little imaging in the sound at a concert. Nevertheless, we've probably all sat in locations close enough so that the imaging at a concert is quite noticeable. So. . . along the same lines. . . microphones can be placed at various locations too, and our judgement about the accuracy of a recording will depend on the recognition of how the recording was microphoned, compared with our own experiences at the same distances where we perceive the microphones to be.
Of course how we experience live music is also essentially different than playback due to the irrepeatablity of live music. You simply can't listen for the different qualities of live music in ways that you can with playback. [Why not?] And we do tend to be less focused on sound quality at a live performance and more spread out in what we are taking in. [Still, I think we can be plenty focused even so] The performance, the performers, the event etc etc etc. If one is going to try to use live music as a reference one would have to actually have the live music and the playback in a fast switchable set up with the visual cues eliminated. [That's your assertion - I don't agree with it.] That simply does not happen for us as audiophiles.
And this leads to a big issue that most audiophiles including frequent concert goers simply don't realize about live music. Much of what we perceive in concert is dictated by visual cues. All of our ideas about aural imaging are hugely based on the fact that in live concerts imaging is for the most part just that, imaging. It is based on what we see and not so much on what we hear. Our sense of imaging is dominated by the visuals. And this is very important, in any decent concert hall at least 80% of the sound we hear is reflected and 20% or less is direct. Reflected sound obscures aural cues for imaging. If we actually could literally take the sound we hear at the concert hall and transcribe it to the listening room with complete absolute accuracy most audiophiles wouldn't even like it due to the near complete loss of aural imaging. The truth is that even if we could build a system for recording and playback that gave us a perfect replica of the sound we heard in the concert hall we would not like it without the same 3 dimensional visual cues.
I do agree with some of what you say in this last paragraph, but as I said before, if you're sitting back far enough, you aren't hearing that much imaging at a live concert. You're claiming that listeners at live concerts compensate for this by using visual cues - I suppose that that's somewhat true for the majority of listeners. For myself however, I've been very aware (depending on how far back I'm sitting) of the reduction in the imaging at live concerts. As for your last sentence, we're doing just what you describe with systems such as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Sure, some listeners don't like it. Me? I love it! ;-)
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- RE: Important fundamental differences between live sound and playback that make them incomparable - Chris from Lafayette 09/3/1913:58:29 09/3/19 (0)
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