"They are here" vs. "You are there"

Cbw – I have reread your posts in an effort to construct an argument that expresses your objection. Here is my best guess…

(Cbw-1) Increasing some colorations, like brightness, increases the audibility of ambient cues in the recording.

(Cbw-2) Increasing the audibility of ambient cues in the recording enhances the illusion that “you are there.”

(Cbw-3) Therefore, increasing some colorations enhances the illusion that “you are there.”

(Cbw-4) Therefore, increasing neutrality does not always enhance the illusion that “you are there.”

If this argument expresses your objection, then I think your conclusions are correct, but those conclusions don't constitute an objection to my views. While increasing neutrality may not ALWAYS enhance the illusion that "you are there,” in my view, it USUALLY does. To see this, it’s first necessary to look at premise (Cbw-2)...

RE: (Cbw-2). As I mentioned in a previous post, increasing the audibility of ambient cues from the recording does not NECESSARILY enhance the illusion that “you are there.” In other words, ambient cues BY THEMSELVES are not a sufficient condition for creating the illusion that “you are there.” There are other conditions necessary for creating the illusion that “you are there.” For example, a certain degree of transparency. In my view, colorations that grossly distort a recording in order to emphasize ambient cues probably won’t increase the illusion that “you are there,” since those gross distortions are likely to diminish the illusion that “you are there” in other ways – for example, by reducing transparency.

You may be thinking, “Instead of colorations that GROSSLY distort a recording, what about colorations that SLIGHTLY distort a recording?” In other words, could a small amount of coloration, just enough to emphasize ambient cues, but not enough to significantly reduce transparency, enhance the illusion that “you are there.” I believe the answer to this is: Possibly. This is where, I agree, things become subjective. Whether a small increase in ambient cues at the expense of a small decrease in transparency has the net result of enhancing or diminishing the illusion that “you are there” is probably a judgment that varies from listener to listener. But none of this casts doubt on my view that, USUALLY, reducing colorations enhances the illusion that "you are there." The reason is because reducing colorations tends to increase RESOLUTION. Which brings me to...

Regarding the issue of my “information theoretic” approach to resolution, my view is that resolution can be understood as “information about the music.” If you combine this with my suggestion that increasing resolution increases ambient cues, then you get: Increasing information about the music increases ambient cues, which is something I think is self-evident. But none of this entails that more information, BY ITSELF, is a sufficient condition for enhancing the illusion that “you are there.” As I’ve stated in previous posts, creating the illusion that “you are there” is not reducible to ambient cues. I would now add: It is not reducible to resolution. And it is not reducible to information. Hence, when you say, regarding my definition of resolution in terms of information…

…you would get vastly more information by dumping the low frequencies entirely in favor of enhancing the highs -- you'd maximize the information about the music, but the result wouldn't be music. So I think some other definition is in order.

It does not matter if “dumping low frequencies” would “maximize the information about the music,” (a point about which I am skeptical), because creating the illusion that “you are there” is not reducible to maximizing information, just as it is not reducible to resolution, or ambient cues. In my view, the resolution of (i.e. information about) ambient cues is the PRINCIPAL, but not the only, determinant of the illusion that "you are there." That is why I have spent so much time talking about ambient cues.

Returning to the issue of equipment colorations…

I acknowledge that SOME equipment colorations might enhance the illusion that “you are there.” This is a corollary to the point I made about listening rooms on 9/5, namely, that the illusion that “you are there” might be enhanced when the colorations of the listening room RESEMBLE the colorations of the recording space.

But the problem with relying on room colorations to enhance the illusion that "you are there" is that, while the colorations of recording spaces are infinitely variable, the colorations of listening rooms are largely constant. So even if the colorations of the listening room enhance the colorations of some recordings, they are likely to detract, confuse, or obscure the colorations of other recordings.

A similar problem arises for the use of EQUIPMENT colorations to enhance the illusion that "you are there." While the colorations of recording spaces are infinitely variable, the colorations of any given component are largely constant. So even if the colorations of a component enhance the colorations of some recordings, they are likely to detract, confuse, or obscure the colorations of other recordings.

I believe this limits the effectiveness of using colorations, whether in equipment or in listening rooms, to enhance the illusion that “you are there.” Another drawback, equally significant, to the use of colorations to enhance the illusion that “you are there” is that colorations tend to diminish resolution, and less resolution means less audible ambient cues from the recording itself.

In light of all this, I believe that the practical approach for the audiophile who listens to a wide range of music is to (1) minimize colorations both in the equipment and in the listening room; and (2) increase information about the music, to the extend that is possible. In other words, enhancing the illusion that "you are there" is, with a few possible exceptions, most practically achieved by increasing neutrality and increasing resolution.

Hi Bryon - I have just read through this entire thread now, and there are alot of very good comments by you and Al and many others about the effect of the listening room, ambience cues, etc. I would agree with most of it. However, I also agree with those near the beginning of the thread (I think Newbee was one) who stated that the recording itself is the very biggest factor in creating a "you are there" experience - a far bigger factor than these other factors under discussion for most of the thread. Someone said, and I will lazily paraphrase here, that you cannot put into your listening room something that was not in the recording in the first place. I would like to add to this by going back to my comments on mixing - you also cannot put back into the listening room something that the mikes may have picked up, but the engineer subsequently mixed out.

To take modern orchestral recording as an example - there will be at the very least several different mikes onstage, located in the middle of the orchestra. There will usually be absolutely no mikes anymore out in the hall, where an audience would be. These mikes are usually also much closer to the instruments than they were in the days of analog recording as well. This has the effect of pretty much entirely eliminating the acoustic ambience of the hall itself - in fact, many engineers don't even like to record in concert halls anymore. It is simply not a high priority for most engineers now to recreate the actual sound of the hall.

The engineer then takes these tracks, mixes them, and then adds digital reverberation to create a false ambience, one that he thinks sounds good. It may or may not sound anything like the actual space anymore. I guess my point with all this is to say that no matter how much you can make your listening room recreate the experience of a concert hall, it will not put back the sound of the original hall very closely, since the engineer has already removed that. This is not even to bring up the question of which hall would you like to recreate and why (this is another problem with the "absolute sound" concept).

This is one of the main reasons that most musicians who are audiophiles have a marked preference for the older recordings from the so-called "golden age," where folks like Mercury and RCA just hung a couple of mikes up out in the concert hall and therefore created much more of a "you are there" experience than anything recorded today. They were recording the sound of the music in that particular space.

Which leads me to another issue. Onhwy61 wrote "IMO the original question is another example of overstating the importance of soundstage/imaging in high end audio. As a system's resolution increases you'll hear more soundstage information, but in and of itself that information isn't really important to the enjoyment of listening to music. As an example, hearing Harry Belafonte's voice bounce off the different surfaces at Carnegie Hall is at most interesting. It's a good test of the lower level resolution of a system. But what does it have to do with Belafonte's performance?"

Well, my answer to that question is - a very great deal! Speaking as a performer, each different venue that we play/sing in changes our performance, sometimes radically so, much more than the typical audience member realizes. Belafonte, to use your example, must sing quite differently in Carnegie Hall than he does in the Copacabana or the Hollywood Bowl or Symphony Hall in Boston or insert your favorite jazz club/symphony hall here. To use a more personal example, if my orchestra goes on tour, as a French horn player whose bell faces "the wrong way," I have an even bigger adjustment to make than most musicians do, including the actual timing of my entrances, because of the differences in hall reverberation, liveness/deadness of the stage itself, etc. Note lengths can vary quite a bit from night to night on a tour, for another example.

So where am I going with this? Well, this is where the importance of soundstaging and imaging comes in for musicians when they are listening to a recording. I want to hear what that orchestra sounds like IN THAT SPACE. We LOVE listening to recordings of the same orchestra in different halls, or listening to different mixes of the same performance in the same hall (RCA did this in the 80's, the name of those recordings is escaping me at the moment). We like to be able, given a really good recording, to tell exactly how the orchestra was set up. One famous opera example is the recording done at the Met that Bernstein did for DG (of all companies!!) of Carmen, with Marilyn Horne in the title role. That recording has great sonics which really do create a "you are there" experience, but you need a system that has an appropriate soundstage and images well to fully experience it (a great many orchestral musicians favor horn speakers driven by tube electronics to achieve this). Or to use a jazz example, I love being able to hear the subtle differences that Ella Fitzgerald has in the same song sung at different venues on different recordings from the same label/producer. These are captured very well on those old Verve and Pablo recordings, and greatly adds to the pleasure of listening to the recreation of that particular performance (by the way Bryon, perhaps this helps explain why musicians consider recordings as performances than what I have said before). For me, these are much more important traits for a system than "neutrality," though I don't propose to start that discussion all over again. I am merely trying to explain why musicians place such a high priority on soundstaging and imaging. They are crucial to creating a "you are there" experience.

I also agree with those near the beginning of the thread (I think Newbee was one) who stated that the recording itself is the very biggest factor in creating a "you are there" experience - a far bigger factor than these other factors under discussion for most of the thread.

I was one of the people who suggested this earlier in the thread. In my view, the illusion that "you are there" is created by ambient cues during playback. The biggest determinant of ambient cues during playback is the recording. Then the listening room. Then the equipment.

I suspect the reason so much discussion has focused on listening rooms and equipment is because the characteristics of recordings are outside the audiophile’s control, except in the sense that he can make an effort to find recordings with interesting ambient cues, as Al pointed out. On the other hand, listening rooms and equipment are inside the audiophile’s control. So, while they have a lesser role in creating the illusion that “you are there,” discussions about them may lead to conclusions that are more actionable.

It is simply not a high priority for most engineers now to recreate the actual sound of the hall. The engineer…adds digital reverberation to create a false ambience…

As you seem to imply, recordings of this kind DO contain ambient cues, but they are not ambient cues of REAL recording spaces. They are ambient cues of VIRTUAL recording spaces. I suppose there is no reason why, in theory, a virtual recording space couldn’t be as interesting as a real one. In practice, the best recording spaces I have heard have always been the real ones. So it is regrettable that they are becoming less and less common.

I want to hear what that orchestra sounds like IN THAT SPACE…For me, [there] are much more important traits for a system than "neutrality," though I don't propose to start that discussion all over again. I am merely trying to explain why musicians place such a high priority on soundstaging and imaging. They are crucial to creating a "you are there" experience.

I agree that, for many recordings, creating the illusion that “you are there” greatly enhances the listening experience. I also agree that soundstaging and imaging are crucial to creating the illusion that “you are there.”

However, I believe that soundstaging, imaging, and the illusion that "you are there" are all connected to the characteristic of neutrality. I am hesitant to mention this, because I don’t want us to get trapped back on the infinite staircase of our neutrality discussion. So, leaving the term ‘neutrality’ out of it, and using the somewhat less controversial term ‘coloration,’ I would say that many colorations diminish the illusion that “you are there.” Here is an argument that expresses one of the reasons why:

(1) Decreasing colorations tends to increase resolution.

(2) Increasing resolution increases the audibility of ambient cues in the recording.

(3) Increasing the audibility of ambient cues in the recording enhances the illusion that “you are there.”

(4) Therefore, decreasing colorations tends to enhance the illusion that “you are there.”

(5) Therefore, increasing colorations tends to diminish the illusion that “you are there.”

There are various qualifications and exceptions I would make to the argument above, but it captures the spirit of my view.

Hi Bryon - we are generally in agreement here. Where I would differ with you would be on the subject of the listening room being much of a factor at all in picking up what you are calling "ambient cues" in the recording. The listening room is of course a big factor in the sound of a system as a whole, however I would disagree that it has much effect on this specific issue, depending of course on the type of recording. The equipment would have a much greater effect on it in general, particularly if we are speaking about vinyl (which I almost always am). If we are speaking of digital, then there are much less "real" "ambient cues" on the recording, but there are many more of them on orchestral recordings up until they became mostly digital in the late 80's. Particularly up until the mid 60's or so, just about all of the "ambient cues" on an orchestral recording will be "real" rather than "virtual." After that, even the good labels started using more and more mikes, though there were notable exceptions, such as Decca London's ffrr stuff, which sounds better than anything else done in the 70's (speaking very generally, of course) as far as regards this specific issue.

What you say about the room having more of an effect would be true, however, in the case of some of the multi-channel recordings out there which some others mentioned earlier on in the thread. Then you have more speakers to deal with, and the whole would be more influenced by the room itself. However, they have yet to make a multi-channel recording that any professional classical musician I know has ever thought sounded at all realistic, so I remain very skeptical about such recordings. Frankly, most of them end up sounding quite similar to a Bose -type system, where the music sounds like it's traveling in all sorts of crazy directions, which I guess some think sounds cool, but it certainly doesn't sound like a "real" acoustic space. But that's really not part of this discussion.

Newbee, I would say to you that it has always puzzled me when people state that musicians are not interested in good sound. As another fellow musician who contributes here on audiogon, Frogman, recently stated in a different thread, there are probably many more audiophiles proportionately among musicians than there are in any other single profession. It must be admitted that audiophiles are a VERY small percentage of the general population - the percentage of musicians interested in good sound is MUCH larger in comparison, even if it isn't a majority, a point I am not sure I would concede. A great many musicians simply cannot afford a high-end system - (I am one of the lucky ones with a full-time job with decent benefits, and my system is certainly nothing to brag about cost-wise compared to much of the folks hanging out on this site!) but that doesn't mean they don't appreciate a good system when they hear it. Most professional musicians have to put at least as much money into their instruments alone as many folks on audiogon put into their systems, not to mention other costs, and there just isn't enough left over for most to justify buying a high-end audio system. The total dollar value of the instruments you are listening to if you attend a professional orchestral concert would stagger you, and that is of course where our priorities must lie.