neutrality vs. realism

I would like to add my 2 cents to this question....

"to reproduce recorded music as neutral as possible or to give the highest possible level of realism?"...

I remember (many yeras ago) visiting Lyric Hi-Fi in NYC. The great Mike Kay demoed the Mark Levinson ML-1 per amp against Audio Research SP 3a-2. The Levinson, to me was more neutral, clean as spit and polish and astonishingly fast!! The ARC, however, sounded (to me) more like the concert I went to two weeks earlier! For me...it was as simple as that!!

Rick

Ok, this thread has not been as interesting or funny as I expected. The essential problem is that stereo doesnt do real life. It's a 2 dimensional medium. So, you can either strive for neutrality, each component adding to or subtracting from the signal as little as possible, and listen to what the recording engineers intended. Or you can play with frequency response to try to make things three dimensional and flesh things out and sound realistic.

I read a review of a preamp a year or two ago that I thought was strange. The reviewer said it sounded different from his reference, but couldnt say which was right. Then he said it sounded different from no preamp, cdp straight into the amp, which would seem to suggest it was not neutral. The he said it sounded more like the real life performance he had just attended than either his reference or no preamp at all.

Some time ago, Carver Corporation marketed a preamp with a "sonic holography" circuit. What was that? Just an equalization from flat, or deviation from neutral, in order to sound more like real life.

A famous guy who quit hi-fi (and who I won't name) said: "Audiophiles don't give a damn about whether their systems sound like real music as long as it pleases them. It was inevitable, though, when the vast majority of music-lovers never hear live, unamplified music to compare their playback with." I think that's the answer to the original query above.

Althouh I dont really care if my system measures flat, so long as it sounds to me like the real life voices of my favorite performers (or the real life sounds of specific instruments), I think I like all of my equipment because it is neutral. I think it sounds like real life because each component is as neutral as it can be and either the recording engineers did a really good job or I seem to somehow fill in the blanks.

That's the only way we can make any progress, if every one has the same goal of neutrality. All of the high-end stuff that doesnt aim for neutrality leads us astray.

"Realism" is unattainable. The recording microphone is in no way as sophisticated as the human ear; something is always lost when a microphone picks up sound. And since our rigs are at the mercy of the source media, the best we can hope for is the most minimal of sound degradation through OUR audio chain. Even if you had the "theoretically realistic" system, you are still going to be subjected to the recording anamolies that will tell you it's a reproduction and not the real thing.

So it now boils down to what our individual tastes prefer - because no two people will hear the same thing. We all have an inherently personal response to live sound: different experiences, physiology and tastes. So if there was no equipment coloration, we would then respond to the recording losses and may or may not like what we hear. That's what neutrality will do.

But if we like what we hear, and even if it's attributed to even-order harmonic distortion, cross-over distortion, cable losses, whatever, then we spends our money and makes our choices. We will never attain the realism we hope for - but oh the fun in trying.

Paul, only 2 dimensions? i experience 3 dimensions with most recordings and regularly have that "this is really happening here and now" sensation. there is resolution in the software to recreate the 3 dimensional illusion if you can reach it and then present it unrestricted.

as my system has developed these "happening here and now" occasions are more and more frequent.....in fact, normal with my vinyl set-up now.

is it real life? of course not.....but it does get close enough to take me to another place that i like and is truth. the tiny little things that my system does now are the major reason for the increase in the moments of suspended reality. these tiny things are what happens when you approach the technical limits of your equipment or room and the musical message might normally break down....as you refine your system you control the musical message at these critical moments and the picture becomes complete and real.

Oh Mike, I dont disagree with you at all. I get a lot of enjoyment out of my stereo system too. And I even think I get a sense of that palpable 3 dimensional presence stuff. But really, all you have is left and right, and from that you can derive depth. But, the sense that the sound is coming from 3 dimensional performers spread around a soundstage is an illusion or an artifice. Of course, if you close your eyes in a real live performance, can you tell how fat the soloist is?

A friend said this: "when you listen to a stereo you are listening to two channels creating a virtual image at a listening position in the room. It is radiating quite differently from a live stage of instruments and it is attempting to achieve a very limited result: a facsimile at your head. The representation of a stage of instruments at the virtual stage in front of you is very inaccurate. In stereo there are two speakers emitting one instrument as opposed to a live event where each instrument has one source region. Having it sound live will only happen rarely by coincidental alignment of factors and even then it won't be fidelity to the original event, it will only have a sense of generic aliveness."

That illusion of generic aliveness is what I think you and I are enjoying from our stereo systems. Especially when we are listening to a favorite vocalist.

Regards,

Paul