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
Respectfully, I'm thinking that what you're hearing, Hifitime, is the lack of a tweeter blaring at you...with this obnoxious HF hash.
My favorite saying is, 'The best tweeter I ever heard, I didn't.'
It's true, very few loudspeakers capture the true harmonic structure of a violin without 'hyping' the HF energy...Sad, but true.
I know that, if I go for a few months without 'live violins' and then hear one, I usually blink a bit at first until my brain recalibrates the info. So I know what you're saying, completely.

Larry

An interesting range of responses.

Let's review (EOD (equal opportunity disparagement) --Trust, and wait until the end):

Elizabeth and Fin1bxn in the very high percentage camp, IrvRobinson who thinks "reproducing piano is almost too easy", the down-to-physics pragmatic science perspective of Br3098, Depotec who, while recording, compared one ear in headphones to one ear listening live (finding they were "VERY close") [which, the ears?], Elviukai who has calculated the cost of authentic sounding transducers to exceed NASA's budget in the 1960s, an invocation of a long-dead audio design star's opinion, Fin1bxn,a proponent of (relatively) modest priced electrostatics that feel like live music, and someone whose stratospheric spending, nor his friends' drastically irrational outlay get "sad to say [do you suppose so?] not even close to the real thing."

They --we-- all have differing perspectives on this question.

Does this cast a few things in high relief for you, as it does for me?

With 'authenticity of reproduction to live music' scores running the gamut from very low single digits to over 100 per cent ("sometimes ..recorded music can be more enjoyable than live"),

*Is it conceivable that people experience live music differently from one another?*

If you don't agree with that, at least I can better understand, now, why the audio-purchasing public supports so many products, particularly at the high end. (and why Audiogon does a booming business)

This thread --thank you, Peter Provocateur-- points up another thing: we expend a lot of energy talking, writing and socializing about music: all Thought Process, conducted between the ears. Coincidentally, that is where we hear every single nuance of live music, if or when we listen to The Reference, or accept it as such.

From the very broad spectrum of responses here (philosophical, economic, comparative (live to recorded in the same room), scientific, and deductive) it occurs to me that 1) when we're talking or writing or thinking about this enterprise, be it about equipment, recordings, comparison to live music, We Are Not Listening (sound like an Audio Club meeting?); 2) we are a group with *tremendous* imagination.

Use your imagination to listen Into the Music. And beyond the equipment. I'm still trying to learn it. And mood comes into it just as much --perhaps more-- than room treatment.

Make time for Listening. Not just to music, but to the quiet in your room BEFORE you turn on your equipment. Then CHOOSE to allow the music to transport you.

Life asks us, occasionally, to be a skeptic, someone who Jax2 a different drummer: often they, like the court jester, have something important to say. When you listen to music, turn out the lights, take off your glasses, make room in your mind for the same imagination that lets the written word leap alive from the page.

When you make this choice, the Muse-ic will be there to greet you, reward you, and expand your soul. It's in there. Just stop listening to the equipment. Put your skeptical, analytic mind aside and let the music rush in. The price or configuration of your system has naught to do with satisfaction: your decision to enjoy music is where the power lies.

After that choice, everything is play...

Thank you for your patience. The very best to you, and Happy Holidays!

David Kellogg
Lrsky,I know what you are talking about some speakers having treble glare or bright system characteristics.I won't have that in my system.I know what instruments sound like.I have musicians in my family.The conductor in an orchestra gets one of the best listening spots.I've stood there.They do get to hear a lot more than we can,in the audience.Mikes placed in the right spots get to hear a lot of what anyone sitting in the audience can't.Sitting in the audience can be like sitting in a room full of misplaced, room tuning,sound absorption devices.Just standing up improves what you can hear in an auditorium. I've been in quite a lot. Listening to a lot of live music still leaves me enjoying,nicely done,recorded music,at home. The musicians in my family enjoy recorded music also.
I wonder how anyone could put a percentage on recorded vs. live music either.I think the ones that have a problem with recorded music,may have a system that is not up doing what it should correctly.
Post removed