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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
argyro
438 posts
 
I cannot give a percent but Tidals come very very close when associated with good gear and good recordings in decent rooms.
timlub
2,039 posts
 
Thanks for the links, he quoted even higher for the marching band, 125db @ 100 ft away. With a starting point of 100db per instrument, it would take 256 players to make 124db @ the instruments or 1024 players to make 130db... I don't have any idea of how spl falls off in an open outside area, Lets just say that they did it... That is much easier and its over. Now Peterayer, can your system reproduce the marching band with better than 5% accuracy?
irvrobinson
295 posts
 
Interesting, Timlub, the speakers that led me to believe I could come close to accurately reproducing piano were the original Legacy Focus (circa 1996). My previous A/D/S/ M15s could not. I also have to admit that the Legacy's proficiency on piano was a leap of faith for me, since the only way to buy Legacy speakers back then was factory direct. I actually talked with Dudleston at the time, asking him about piano reproduction, and after what I remember as a very long conversation he personally convinced me to place the order. I wasn't disappointed.

For you recording nerds, I used to use a Calrec Soundfield microphone (which I found used for $500 in a newspaper ad) and my absolutely mint Crown CX822 running Ampex 456 at 15ips. Modern digital recording sounds significantly better, but it's nowhere near as cool.
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mapman's avatar
mapman
22,203 posts
 
Shadorne,

Honestly, I've never measured SPL on a system. I take note of documented reference levels for common things like rock concerts, etc. With my current amps and OHM F5s, I have yet to push the volume to any level where distortion or clipping is heard because it is beyond any level that I care to listen at, and I do listen quite loud on occasion, close to rock concert levels I would estimate. You can't tell how loud it really is though until you try to talk and can't hear a thing.

Then again, my rooms is not big enough to accomodate a grand piano playing at its max either. So I'm going to wimp out and say my venue is my limiting factor for all practical purposes.
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