How close to the real thing?

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.

Timlub,

A recording of that marching band would not sound like the real thing on my stereo system. That much is obvious. However, the fact that I can identify it as a marching band with certain specificity about types of instruments, orientation of players, type of venue etc leads me to the conclusion that it is better than 5% if you mean as it sounds from a seat high up in the stadium. If you mean how it sounds from one of the players points of view, no way. How real is it is very hard to say. At the very least it is dependent upon very subject perspectives, and there will never be agreement.

It's an interesting question, though. Suppose two people are listening to a piano over a car radio. One says, "You know, it's pretty damn amazing that we can be driving down the road in a car and recognize this music coming out of nowhere as a Mozart piano concerto. It really sounds quite good, and I'm loving it." The other one says, "No way. It sounds nothing like a real piano. Scale, timbre, dynamics, harmonics, they are all wrong. Switch it to talk radio."

After reading through this entire thread, I truly think either one of those guys could be right. One guy's 95% is another guy's 5%. I find the technology simply amazing and yet I realize that we still have a long way to go. To me it's not 95% or 5%. It is somewhere in that vast middle range. That's the best I can do to answer your question.

Hi Peterayer,
I was really being a bit facetious. I can't imagine a more difficult task but to record something so loud and over such a huge area and make that come out anything like the real thing. I've read through this whole thing also and I agree with you brother. very subjective, lets just enjoy our tunes, Good Listening, Tim

Interesting in this discussion is that virtually no mention is made of that nasty stuff, "distortion", by name. My experience is that ALL systems distort, some nicely, adding a soothing patina to the sound, but the majority inject varying amounts of relatively low level, edgy, unpleasant and irritating distortion which then overloads the ear and brain when you turn the volume up. I'm talking here of non-linear distortion, not frequency or phase response effects.

As mentioned, many musical instruments are naturally LOUD, but nasty, amusical, low level distortion is not part of unamplified sound. If you eliminate the majority of the unpleasant stuff from a system, which is typically very difficult to do, then even a very ordinary setup can sound hugely realistic.

One easier way to get there, as some know, is to use highly efficient speakers with powerful amplifiers; if the components are virtually idling when in normal use then you have a much better chance of keeping "bad" distortion at bay ...

Frank