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How close to the real thing?

Recently a friend of mine heard a Chopin concert in a Baptist church. I had told him that I had gone out to RMAF this year and heard some of the latest gear. His comment was that he thinks the best audio systems are only about 5% close to the real thing, especially the sound of a piano, though he admitted he hasn't heard the best of the latest equipment.

That got me thinking as I have been going to the BSO a lot this fall and comparing the sound of my system to live orchestral music. It's hard to put a hard percentage on this kind of thing, but I think the best systems capture a lot more than just 5% of the sound of live music.

What do you think? Are we making progress and how close are we?
peterayer
Post removed 
depotec
19 posts
 
No way does a good microphone get less than 50% of real sound, at least not voice. I recorded a lot of voice on a mono Nagra with a Neuman Mic and it was VERY close to reality. I could compare one ear in the headphones to the other ear hearing live, and a good mic and a mono Nagra is amazing. Music may be far more difficult and stereo is strange.
br3098
996 posts
 
Elizabeth,

I do not believe that even the best home systems are anywhere near 90%-95% percent in terms of realism, but I will qualify my statement by stating the obvious. There are many, many factors involved in what we consider to be "real" sound - too many to discuss in detail here. So, equipment aside, I will limit myself to three.

1- space/distance/time acoustics (aka room ambiance). This is pretty self-explanitory. Your room is not a concert hall. Or a sound stage. Through technical gimmickry (hardware) you can kinda sorta reproduce the same sound, but not really.

2- our perception of sound and how we process it (psychoacoustics). Neuron action potentials and other interesting stuff.

3- simple physics. A speaker is not a piano, a guitar, or a human voice. Although you can mimic those sounds closely enough that it the differences between live and recorded are almost indetectable to a spectrum analyzer, most people can still hear the difference. Well, except Bose customers anyway.
depotec
19 posts
 
One can monitor the playback head of a Nagra and compare it to the line as well. Amazing machine.
irvrobinson
295 posts
 
I agree with Elizabeth. I've played a recording of a flutist, with the flutist that made the recording standing between my speakers playing along with herself, and I can tell you the recording - which was far from SOTA - sounded a heck of a lot better than 5%. More like 90%. And that was before I upgraded my speakers.

How many other people here have tried this test?

Where audio systems fall off IMO is when you need a lot of volume to be accurate. Some live instruments are LOUD. As for reproducing a piano, that's almost too easy. We have a piano, so I know what one sounds like live, and a great stereo can do a remarkable job reproducing it. Now my wife's 22" bass drum, that my system has a little more trouble with.
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