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Plus and Minus

Got into a discussion with a few fellow musician audiophiles.  

Issue one:  The fidelity of home playback versus live music.  After much bantering about, it became, 'How can you tell?"  If you didn't hear it live or you don't listen to live music, how can you say your playback system is true to live?  Interesting question.  I put forward, if your monkey bone tells you it is live - then it is live.  After all, who's to say what you hear and what someone else hears is true to live or not.  If you like it - its live to you.

Second issue:  How can you tell if a tweak is positive or negative?  If put it in, did it bring you closer? When you take it out, did it make it worse?  I put forward the notion that if you put it in and listen to it for a bit and then take it out, the question becomes did it take you there or take you away?  After all, you listened to your system without it and you know how it sounded; putting something in changes it (presumably) and only after taking it out can you judge if you really like it or not or are you enamored with it.  On this, there was general agreement.

Lastly, does 'how much you paid' factor into the equation?  That was universally shot down.  There are incredible audio values in a specific piece that belay its cost.  You just gotta hunt them down.  There was agreement that there was a law of diminishing returns.  I put forth the notion that the chase for the best knows no boundary save the wallet.  The smiles and nods were universal on this point.  The law being:  If you can afford it ....

Funny hobby we have.  The monkey bone should guide us and the wallet supporting us; yet, we argue about what each other hears and neither side has the same bone n' wallet.  :-)
128x128keesue
thecarpathian
4,356 posts
 
Monkey bone?
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,832 posts
 
To hear it live would have to be done in an acoustic manner. Any amplification or engineering of the music while playing isn't live, except in the sense that it's being done right in front of you. So your friends can't really argue that you don't know what it sounds like unless you were there, unless that live (doctored) performance is the standard against which things are being measured. 

As for tweaks, I experiment before settling on what I feel sounds best. I've even gone back, after some time, to see if I hear anything differently, only to find out it was a waste of time to do so, since I heard it right in the first instance. 

Our ears are very refined so when that sound hits my monkey bone, gives me the warm and fuzzies, blows my skirt up, or makes me forget my troubles, that is when I know it sounds right, because it's so convincing as to suspend disbelief and I relax and enjoy for no other reason than that.

As for costs, it's all personal and rather selfish, in my case. I have my priorities and sometimes better music wins out, allowing me to indulge, within my limits.

All the best,
Nonoise
jdane
183 posts
 
I have no idea what you mean by "if you like it, it's live to you."  That completely undermines your original distinction between live and recorded--that's the question at issue.  (There are plenty of recordings I prefer to what I've heard live.  That doesn't make them less engineered).  Also "live" music is not stable.  It depends on the nature of the hall, how close you are, and where you sit.  So to say that a recording should 'reproduce' this sound can only mean 'reproduce' the sound at a particular point in a 3-dimensional hall.  Even then, I can't imagine any reliable way to test this.
keesue's avatar
keesue OP
42 posts
 
1. "I have no idea what you mean by "if you like it, it's live to you." That completely undermines your original distinction between live and recorded--that's the question at issue".

2. "Our ears are very refined so when that sound hits my monkey bone, gives me the warm and fuzzies, blows my skirt up, or makes me forget my troubles, that is when I know it sounds right, because it's so convincing as to suspend disbelief and I relax and enjoy for no other reason than that".  

3. "Monkey bone?" 

1.  The start of the discussion.
2.  The end of the discussion.. 
3.  The no clue.

No need to respond more.  It kinda says it all, eh?  :-)







jdane
183 posts
 
OK.  I thought we were talking about the difference between live and recorded sound (which is the topic you defined).  But  we were actually talking about whether we like shih-tzus better than bulldogs, or whether we are more moved by weather balloons or quadratic equations.   
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