What makes instrument immediacy, -separation & -bo

thanks for your input

yes i am seeking for the opposite of what live music in most venues sounds like - cause i want a unplugged session in a tiny jazz club sitting in the first row...

i am sure a bunch of people want that as well..

Having recently progressed through stages of mods to a BAT VK tube amp, I've heard the qualities of which you speak all improve together in the same amplifier driving the same speakers. It's particularly interesting to me that soundstage size & depth-of-field are as much a product of improvements to the amp's electronics as they are a result of speaker placement or room effects. Deep-hall effects are revealed in the far corners, but the performance also moves forward of the speakers toward the listener. The amp improves in its ability to retain accurate frequency balance & dynamics at reduced volume. Finally, the qualities of grainlessness, smoothness, warmth & relaxation, are in no way unreconciled to improvements in treble resolution & air, and punch. Great dynamics is the quality that binds everything together. It fits the instrument's body within the boundary of its image & delivers impact approaching live performance. You sense that it's the intruments that are jumping, not the amplifier. The acid test for live performance is bass control. Almost all amps fail to communicate accurate texture in the bass region.

agree with pbb....i would add that most recordings are inherently flawed (in an audiophile way)and were never intended to emulate live music.

What model Energy speakers did you like?

The early models spent a lot of effort on very wide and even dispersion and probably lead to their success as a start up company with people who left AR.

IMHO it is wide even dispersion which produces the most convincing small jazz club soundstage with precise positioning of instruments (of course you need a good recording to). A speaker with too much directivity gives the game away at once....the sound is coming from the speaker and it fails to be convincing!

Another huge factor is reverb which I should have mentioned...this is what gives the game away on the venue...as opposed to your room.

The kind of mixes you see are ones that are close miked in acoustically damped sound rooms and then engineered to convey a "real" presentation with instruments in various places (in fact it is generated by the sound engineer). These recordings do not convey any telltale room acoustics from the venue.

I have a few examples of some good recordings like this.

Dave Grusin's "Hommage to Duke"
Tower of Power "Soul Vaccination"
Steve Ferrone's "More Head" (with STP bandmembers)
George Benson "Live - Weekend in LA" (Harvey Mason's drums "On Broadway" are particularly interesting on this recording as you actually feel as though you are five feet from the drummer - perhaps a bit over done by the sound engineer but impressive nevertheless - definitely feels as if they are jamming in the room with you!)

An example of a good recording but one that definitely lets you know you are in a concert venue with lousy acoustics from the stage and hall (i.e. the opposite to what you seek) is Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense". Another of this type is Eva Cassidy "Live at the Blue Note".

At the end of the day, most of what you are seeking is down to the sound engineer mix, microphone placement and acoustics of stage or sound room. To recreate perfect positioning it usually requires separate sessions for each instrument in acoustically damped environments that are later carefuly mixed together - ever see typical video footage of a vocalist in a sound room alone with headphones and a microphone.....now you know why!

You also now know why those magical moments when a live recording sounds great are so magical....