Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here.

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Is there room for dissent? (kinda long)

Posted by Bruce from DC on April 21, 2000 at 07:49:28

In Reply to: Re: Why do y'all listen to old mono recordings? posted by Rob on April 21, 2000 at 02:56:59:

I will certainly admit that not all stereo is equal. There's bad stereo and there's good stereo. And I certainly admit that, in any seat that I've occupied in a concert hall (the one's you pay for, not the one's that you get paid to sit in, i.e. the performers') instrument localization and all the stereo stuff that sets audiophiles to drooling is largely absent. It is timbrally altered and the multiplicity of reflected signals destroys most of the spatial cues that provide localization. A live performance experienced by a listener in a hall is primarily the product of reflected sound. A recorded performance in a hall picks up primarily the direct sound from the instruments. That's why Dr. Bose invented the 901 speaker 30+ years ago, to give the home listener a "concert hall" effect. ;-[}

Now, change the listening venue. Consider a brass band playing outdoors. Very little reflected sound. If you're close to it, you can hear those localization cues. Sounds more like what you hear on your stereo, assuming it has the power to reproduce brass and percussion at realistic levels. (horn speaker owners, you may stand and be recognized.)

But, when I listen to mono at home, it sounds like everything is coming from a vertical line equidistant between my two speakers. Never heard anything sound like that in "real life." If it doesn't sound like that to you, I suggest that some part of your system is seriously screwing up in accurately maintaining L-R phase. relationships.

In a previous discusion here, we talked about the worst of stereo: "synthesized" stereo generated from a mono source, "ping-pong" stereo (e.g. early Beatles records with all the instruments in one channel and all the voices in the other) and "fake" stereo used for recording jazz ensembles and other small groups (each instrument arbitrarily placed left to right, using pan pots; e.g. drum kit -- 100% right channel; piano -- 100% left; horn-- 50/50; sax; 60-40 and so on). I would agree that mono is better than the first two of these three and, for some, better even than the third of these three since none of these techniques capture any natural sense of "space." But, I don't think any of these techniques are/were common in the recording of classical performances.

The worst stereo sin for these recordings, IMHO, is the excessive use of multi-miking, which producers a sonic perspective like you might have from a helicopter above the performers. The recording of concertos is often problematic, depending upon how the solo instrument is placed. None of this, is worse than mono, IMHO.

The real choice is between "vintage" performances perhaps recorded in mono and sonically constrained by the limitations of the machinery used to make the recording. Unless the performance is unique and valuable (and many are), I'll prefer something recorded after 1960, in stereo, thank you. The choice is different when comparing sonically superb, but musically vacuous, performances which often can be found on "audiophile" labels. The Sheffield Labs "direct to disc" recordings of the late 70s come to mind, with the exception of the Harry James orchestra. The choice of those over other, less dazzlingly recorded, stereo performances, is much less obvious. However, now that recorded classical music is becoming more and more a niche product, perhaps the best performers and the most careful recording engineers can get together. If you're only going to sell a handful of recordings, the may as well be the best, in every sense of the word!

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Kimber Kable

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