resolution and imaging

Nice thread - proper imaging and soundstaging is an extremely high priority for me, as I am a professional orchestral musician. I believe a recording engineer should try to recreate the sound of the orchestra in the hall as well as possible, but most of them do not actually even attempt to do this anymore in this digital age. And I should also point out that the "imaging" of live music may sound very different depending on where you are sitting in the hall. Sitting as close as row D would not be the best perspective in most halls. To grossly generalize, sound travels up and back through the hall, so in a great hall, very often the best seats are towards the back and higher up in the hall, though maybe not the nosebleeds. In many of the great sounding orchestral recordings made before the digital era, this is where the mikes were placed. Even Mercury, which usually placed them above the orchestra instead of out in the hall, placed them at least a good 15 feet higher than the orchestra, and often higher yet. You almost never see recording engineers placing mikes anywhere near the back of the hall anymore, or that high either. And when they place different mikes on every section, or even on every individual instrument, on separate tracks, and then mix all of it together later, almost always this results in a complete loss of the sense of the original space, and there is nothing any playback system can do to remedy this - Humpty-Dumpty is broken, and you can't put him back together.

All of that said, though, I also whole-heartedly agree with those who said that the performance is the main thing - a recording can have incredible sonics, but if I strongly dislike the performance, I'm not going to pull it out very often. One should be able to enjoy a great performance, even if it wasn't recorded very well, or is played back on a mediocre system. OK, I'm done rambling for tonight. Goodnight, and enjoy the music!

as a musician, i am surprised that soundstage and imaging, which is not music is important to you.

when attending a concert, from my favorite seat, the last row of an orchestra, i am not aware of imaging or soundstage. thus many stereo systems sound artificial when compared to live music.

accuracy of timbre is much more significant as a cue to recognizing realism in musical reproduction than any other factor.

most stereo systems sound more focused than live music. the "resolution" one may desire becomes fatiguing and is like listening to music under a microscope. it is no surprise that many of today's stereo systems do not compare favorably to that which could have been configured during the 60's and 70's, especially with respect to extended duration listening sessions.

Recently I picked up a pair of MBL 101 E speakers . The effect is like being washed with a tightly woven fabric of sound in vibrant colors yet the imaging is not nearly as specific as any speaker I have worked with . I am not able to get the same pinpoint imaging yet what I am hearing is more like live music in real space

You can achieve both - you may need to pull the MBL's far off the rear and side wall by 8 to 10 feet to achieve it. Nearby second reflections really screw up imaging - big time.

accuracy of timbre is much more significant as a cue to recognizing realism in musical reproduction than any other factor.

Could not agree more - timbre and correct transient response is much more important to me to. However, if you can get both - why not?

"accuracy of timbre is much more significant as a cue to recognizing realism in musical reproduction than any other factor."

If I understand the point of Sns...with a increase of imaging and resolution come accuracy of timbre and other things. Atleast that's my experience....A good way for me to explain it....walking into a art gallery from 20ft away is a large Jackson Pollock painting....only from 2ft can you really see the detail and realise his method of painting.

In fact that is a good analogy....music has many nuances..and that is where the beauty is. Not in a analytical way just the whole spectrum of what I hear from the instruments...individualy,as a composite,the room,and voice or choral. The whole interacting together..the performance that is what I like.

I agree with mic placement...on a whole the classical labels have always done a better job. I listened to a Korngold recording last night...done on the Marco Polo label...everything I'm looking for was there...simply
beautiful.

Now in regards to the level of realism or accuracy. When I started down the road of voicing capacitors I was looking for tonal purity. It just happens that the purest tonal quality I have acheived so far....resolution,transparency,and 3D holographic imaging were all increased to a very high level... all these attributes are tied together with tonal purity among others.