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Do we ask too much of our audio systems?

In high school, I taught myself to play guitar and later started playing in rock bands for about 10 years. I used a low powered mono tube record player in my bedroom to study Clapton, BB  King, Page, Hendrix, Beck and all guitar heros of the time and learn how to play. In those years, I never bothered to upgrade my system, mostly because nothing seemed to be able to replay what I experienced playing live in a band, with a Les Paul in hand and a screaming tube guitar amp. As the years went by I built half dozen speakers and had a decent Pioneer front end, using a Philips TT. My system sounded better, but never equalled the emotion and involvement of playing live. So, I guess I grew into Audiophilia thinking nothing is as good as live music. Now I have heard some very good systems and speakers, but still wonder..."am I chasing something un-attainable?" Do we ask too much from our audio systems?
dtapo
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
I agree, you can get very close since sound at the concerts is often pretty bad (nose bleed seats or poor acoustics).  On the other hand some systems cost so much that it might be better to invite symphony orchestra into living room (multiple times) instead  :)
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,566 posts
 
dtapo, no, we are not asking too much but under the best circumstances
it takes spending at least $100K to get there from a sonic perspective but there is a visual aspect here also. When people listen to my system sound only they are generally amazed but only when I'm playing a concert video ( I have a 113" screen between the speakers) do they say stuff like, " This is better than being there. This is like having a front row seat," etc. I never get this with sound only. Listening by myself and as long as my wife is out of the house and I can advance the volume to the appropriate level and with a decent recording it can be better than being there. Large indoor concert venues are more often than not crippled by horrendous acoustics. You are just there for the light show.   
ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,047 posts
 
I don't think we ask too much of our systems, we only ask too little of ourselves in pursuit of what we know, deep down, we really want.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,774 posts
 

As Geoff states, at best a system can only reproduce that which is on the recording. Though I am as guilty as most of ya’ll, the amount of effort and $ invested in our hi-fi’s is comical in view of the quality of most recordings. The vast majority of recordings---especially in the "modern" era (1950’s forward)---are not of music performed live, but in a recording studio, with a LOT of electronic manipulation applied to the already often mediocre sound captured by the forest of mics---some of them real crap (the Shure SM57---a $99 PA mic---is used on the snare drum in a lot of recordings!)---used in studios. Have you ever heard the knobs on a parametric equalizer---found and used in all studios---turned?

Pop (non-Classical) recording engineers are trying to create a "good" sounding recording, not one that sounds like live music. The idea of getting studio recordings to sound like live music is ridiculous; the sound contained in most recordings makes that impossible. HP’s slogan of the absolute sound is idealistic, not realistic. I myself am thankful for just living in a time when music can be recorded and then reproduced (in whatever quality) in our homes AT ALL. Live music, and recorded music reproduced in the home, will always be very different things, at least in our lifetimes. Now, a Water Lily Records recording is a different matter. How many WL recordings do you own? ;-)

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,974 posts
 
For a long time, people thought that it was central to the purpose of paintings that they to capture reality. But painting moved past that. It is interesting that audio is still questing after the kind of realism which painting realized it didn’t need. Maybe audio doesn’t need it either. 
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