Realism Check

[ClaudeJ1]

My best friend and fellow audiophile went up north to a museum. They had an old fashioned (mechanical roll type) reproducing piano from the 20's. They had a roll that featured George Gershwin performing a piano duet with himself using this device, obviously performing his own composition. He said he was blown away by how great it sounded. Just like he was right there doing it long after his death.

 

This same friend has a CD recording of the same work transcribed digitally to a modern Yamaha Grand and recorded with modern microphones. He said the recording played back on his system sucked compared to listening the the original reproducing piano.

 

I can see why PWK advocated going out to listen to live acoustic instruments (in his case, symphony orchestras).

 

The best our audio systems can do is give us an ILLUSION of the real thing, but it's not even close.

 

So I can admire PWK's goal of trying to get as close as possible to the "real thing," which is a live acoustic performance and NOT comparison to another speaker.

Edited September 29, 2014 by ClaudeJ1

[Schu]

Some music can ONLY be played on a "player piano" because it would otherwise be impossible to physically perform live.

 

 

that being said... I would MUCH RATHER listen to a mechanical device playing an acoustic instrument than a recording of a mechanical device playing an acoustical instrument.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Schu

[Chris A]

Live performances can be very good or otherwise.  An example of "otherwise" that led me back to the notion of "good acoustics in live acoustic music":

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/117181-the-pwk-no-bs-tribute-thread/?view=findpost&p=1584781

 

I believe that PWK was talking about acoustic music and not really amplified music.  His background was in playing in wind instrument bands - today called a wind symphony or marching band. 

 

I also believe that he valued string orchestras in terms of "recalibrating your ears" since I find this to be the most difficult of all to reproduce at home.  Violins, violas, cellos, double basses--all playing in large ensembles--are very, very different in sound (IMHO) than most recordings that I have or have heard.  It takes a lot out of a loudspeaker setup and outstanding recordings to do this well.  Any "tinkering" with the recorded product by mastering engineers always spoils the sound in my experience.

 

The same applies to player pianos (percussion instruments), live drums and percussion keyboards (xylophone, celesta, glockenspiel, etc.), brass instruments, woodwinds--in fact, all acoustic instruments.  They all have impact or initiation dynamics in the near field that are typically suppressed by recording, mixing or mastering engineers.  If you leave these dynamics on the recordings (pianos are one of the worst abused instruments in this regard--their recordings always sound like mush it seems), you get realism in play back.  At least, that's been my experience. 

 

Put any acoustic music with dynamics in originally miked recordings through the mush mill that mastering engineers usually call "standard processes", and what you get out of the back end isn't worth much.

 

Chris

Edited September 29, 2014 by Chris A

[ClaudeJ1]

Put any acoustic music with dynamics in originally miked recordings through the mush mill that mastering engineers usually call "standard processes", and what you get out of the back end isn't worth much.

 

This is why I like AIX recordings with full 135 db dynamics (no compression), but a limited catalog on Blue Ray, unfortunately. 96Khz/24-bit is amazing.

[russ69]

The best our audio systems can do is give us an ILLUSION of the real thing, but it's not even close.

ditto

[ChuckAb3]

It's not surprising that most of the musicians I've talked to about stereo over the years love Klipsch speakers. A great horn loaded speaker is much closer to the real thing than other speaker builds.

[Quiet_Hollow]

It's not surprising that most of the musicians I've talked to about stereo over the years love Klipsch speakers. A great horn loaded speaker is much closer to the real thing than other speaker builds.

My cat would certainly agree. With the new 5.1 arrangement its fun just to watch her ears scanning all around like radar when we watch movies. I was playing Invaders From Mars the other night, and caught her running right up to speakers when she heard the crickets playing. She just stared at the speaker (like that RCA dog) , waiting for a bug or something to creep out of there.

[akdave]

It seems like most live music now, even orchestral music, is augmented with mics and speakers.  Acoustics of the theater certainly come into play, but I wonder how much we lose by the added amplification and processing of even live performances these days.

[Islander]

With my system, with really good recordings, the most lifelike reproduction seems to be that of drums, with pianos a distant second.  The amps are powerful enough to produce realistic dynamics, and it sometimes sounds like the drum set is right there in front of me, especially when the volume is set pretty high.

 

The sound of other instruments is very well reproduced, but the drums are so much more realistic (with the right recordings, some vinyl, some DVD) that it can sometimes be a bit distracting.

[Chris A]

 

The best our audio systems can do is give us an ILLUSION of the real thing, but it's not even close.

ditto

 

I will politely demur...I find the real bottleneck to be the music/soundtrack put into the system. 

 

This is something that I've proven to myself and others--time and again.  If you use typical commercial music tracks--you will find that it will never sound like the real thing.  This is the reason why I drag the record producers' reputations through the mud on product quality.

 

If I put something spectacular onto disc player--it can get really close, to the point where even the dog and the cat start looking around or watching the screen. We also find ourselves getting up and walking around sometimes to make sure.

 

Is it real or is it...http://audiophilereview.com/audiophile-news/is-it-real-or-is-it.html

Edited September 29, 2014 by Chris A

[Coytee]

 

 

to the point where even the dog and the cat start looking around or watching the screen. We also find ourselves getting up and walking around sometimes to make sure.

 

I agree, especially with the dogs.  Mine include jumping to attention and starting to bark their little furry heads off.

 

Yes, it's true, my dogs have no heads.

 

[ClaudeJ1]

It's not surprising that most of the musicians I've talked to about stereo over the years love Klipsch speakers. A great horn loaded speaker is much closer to the real thing than other speaker builds.

For lack of a better term, it's the CRISP edges of transients that make a speaker with reasonable phase coherence (since all speakers have some phase shift). The crack of a snare drum or the skin resonance of a tom tom on a good recording, along with the attack of a piano is a big part of this. Lush, spooky real female vocals, raspiness of male baritone/bassy voice, it's all part of the GREAT ILLUSION, that very few of us get to experience. We are in the top 1% or less in the general population.

 

And of course DYNAMICS from rustling of leaves to thunderclaps at 120 db peaks. Only the most efficient speakers (horns) can do this without puking a woofer on your lap in the process of trying.

Edited September 29, 2014 by ClaudeJ1

[LarryC]

For lack of a better term, it's the CRISP edges of transients that make a speaker with reasonable phase coherence (since all speakers have some phase shift). The crack of a snare drum or the skin resonance of a tom tom on a good recording, along with the attack of a piano is a big part of this. Lush, spooky real female vocals, raspiness of male baritone/bassy voice, it's all part of the GREAT ILLUSION, that very few of us get to experience. We are in the top 1% or less in the general population.   And of course DYNAMICS from rustling of leaves to thunderclaps at 120 db peaks. Only the most efficient speakers (horns) can do this without puking a woofer on your lap in the process of trying.

It's also the complete, isolating absence of noise,  Tics, pops and hiss spoil the illusion immediately.

[Don Richard]

I will politely demur...I find the real bottleneck to be the music/soundtrack put into the system. This is something that I've proven to myself and others--time and again. If you use typical commercial music tracks--you will find that it will never sound like the real thing. This is the reason why I drag the record producers' reputations through the mud on product quality.

 

The human auditory system was originally designed to determine the direction and distance of a threat that is a single point source of a sound. Stereo reproduction systems create the illusion of a point source of sound by playing a sound through two or more loudspeakers which create a phantom point source, with the location of that point source determined by level and phasing differences between the loudspeakers. Our auditory system decodes these level and phase differences so that we hear a reasonable representation of the original sound, hopefully.

 

This is obviously an illusion that we are hearing, and that illusion will be more convincing with better recordings played through better equipment. But it is still an illusion that doesn't sound exactly like the sound that was recorded. And it never will.

[tromprof]

 

I will politely demur...I find the real bottleneck to be the music/soundtrack put into the system. This is something that I've proven to myself and others--time and again. If you use typical commercial music tracks--you will find that it will never sound like the real thing. This is the reason why I drag the record producers' reputations through the mud on product quality.

 

The human auditory system was originally designed to determine the direction and distance of a threat that is a single point source of a sound. Stereo reproduction systems create the illusion of a point source of sound by playing a sound through two or more loudspeakers which create a phantom point source, with the location of that point source determined by level and phasing differences between the loudspeakers. Our auditory system decodes these level and phase differences so that we hear a reasonable representation of the original sound, hopefully.

 

This is obviously an illusion that we are hearing, and that illusion will be more convincing with better recordings played through better equipment. But it is still an illusion that doesn't sound exactly like the sound that was recorded. And it never will.

 

 

This is why modern surround sound is far superior to stereo IMO.

In the end it is still a Playboy centerfold. No matter how how stimulating, it ain't as good as the real thing.

Edited September 30, 2014 by tromprof

[Chris A]

Pretty close--at least here.  However, it's taken the last few years of tinkering to get it sounding this good.

 

One of the more interesting discs that I own is a particular DVD-A of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band - in which all 5.1 channels are used independently, and with extremely high dynamic range. It's a lot of fun when played back at on-stage volume:

 

 

However, one subject that I will expand on again is the difference between sitting on stage and hearing the instrumentation around you spatially in large ensembles, and contrasting this with sitting in the audience, about a third of the way back.  A lot of people believe that there is a lot of spatial separation of instrumentation in the audience--and there really isn't in real life.  This is something that I had to get used to when I was no longer sitting on stage performing:

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/117181-the-pwk-no-bs-tribute-thread/#entry1584781

 

It also seems odd that there is so much insistence that "HTs can't sound anything like the real thing".  It seems like it would be prudent to ask first...you might be surprised what answers come back.

 

Chris

Edited September 30, 2014 by Chris A

[mungkiman]

http://www.anstendig.org/Stereo.html

[ClaudeJ1]

that being said... I would MUCH RATHER listen to a mechanical device playing an acoustic instrument than a recording of a mechanical device playing an acoustical instrument.

Indeed that would be a universal truth. The only downside is accessibility. 

[ClaudeJ1]

It's also the complete, isolating absence of noise,  Tics, pops and hiss spoil the illusion immediately.

 

This is why I cashed in an old life insurance policy and bought a Sony CD player in early 1983 as soon as they became available. I immediately stopped buying LP's. When I compared Donald Fagen's "The Nightly" (one of the early adopters of digital studio recordings) on LP vs. the CD, it was night and day. No ticks, no pops, nothing to spoil the illusion. BTW, it remains, to this day, as one of my reference recordings. It has withstood the test of time. 

[ClaudeJ1]

This is obviously an illusion that we are hearing, and that illusion will be more convincing with better recordings played through better equipment. But it is still an illusion that doesn't sound exactly like the sound that was recorded. And it never will.

 

I agree completely with that notion. Danley Synergy Horns bring us one step closer (at least easier in a smaller package) to that wide band "point source."