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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
weseixas
519 posts
 
Hello frank ,

you stated 117 and 96 , those numbers are completely different from Atmasphere's.
weseixas
519 posts
 
Hello Frank,

Atmasphere is not going well over 110db and you stated 117 db, the power increase to do so would exceed his setup substantially. Also i did state the correct drop with increase in distance, you had left out such in your original calculations, so I'm not sure what you are alluding to when correcting your calculations.

In order to achieve realistic percussive energy and size of live music will require a minimum of 10 to as high as 20 times your RMS output to even come close to the dynamic pulls associated with live symphony music or the sound of a grand piano in the room example as previously discussed.

No Sota system can even be thought of with only 120w/ch IMO, lots of speaker radiating area and Power would be a necessity, to say the very least.
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
Frank, do you think lower power versions of the same basic amp circuits tend to have inherently less distortion than more power? I don't have super sensitive speakers (89db), listen acoustic jazz (trio to octets) 90% of the time, and I suppose I just don't listen to music that loud (I don't think)and there just seems to be something to the notion of using the lowest power amp that is sufficient to drive your speakers will sound better, not louder, than a higher powered version of the same basic amp (think Pass XA60 versus XA100)- and they key being "sufficient" power has to factor in speakers, room, and average volume levels. It is why I asked about the high power amp / high efficiency paradigm mentioned - it might very well do the macrodynamic thing well, but I somehow something would be lost going that route, at least to the way I listen to music - I suppose the fact that I have a smallish two-way (Merlin VSMs) and don't listen to alot of orchestral music on large multi-driver speakers also has alot to do with it. I find my 60 watt Atma-spehre M60s to play as loud as I could ever want, with huge space and purity, and microdynamics as described, and somehow feel a 1000 watt amps might destroy all that. That approach might be closer to the real thing in some ways, but not in others.
weseixas
519 posts
 
Ohhh, sorry guys , almost forgot, you also need a big listening room, you won't be fooling anyone in a small listening space.

THE ROOM IS UBER IMPORTANT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
weseixas
519 posts
 
Hello Pubul57,

Your speaker would be the limiting factor in producing the sound we are alluding to, that aside i do believe your system would benefit tremendously from an increase in power...

Maybe one day Ralph will allow you an in home demo of a pr of MA3, just before he delivers them to the Prince of Persia, you will for sure hear the difference between a "likkle" one and an Atmasphere Big 'un...

:)

Regards,
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