What Characteristic Strikes You First About Un-amplified Music?

Folks,

If we were to all just list the aspects of live acoustic sounds that it would be nice to have re-created in our system, I’m sure we could come to much (though not total) agreement that live sound has those characteristics. But the list I’m looking for is one of order: what characteristics seem primary to your own perception?

So with this in mind, the question is: when you actually hear a live person singing or speaking, or a live instrument being played - e.g. sax, acoustic guitar, drums, violin, etc - and compare it to what you are used to in reproduced sound, what aspect of the live sound impresses you most?

Today when I went for lunch there was a guy playing tenor sax on the sidewalk. He was playing in the quiet Stan Getz style. As I often do, I stopped, closed my eyes and pondered "what is it that, with eyes closed, I’m hearing that I just don’t seem to hear when I’m in front of an audio system, eyes, closed, with the same instrument playing?"

And it’s almost always the same thing that sticks out to me: How LARGE the sound is of the real instrument. Even played at really quiet levels, the sax had a presence that was just BIG, and full, and rich, and just expanded to fill the surroundings so easily. So much body to the sound. In comparison, saxophone through the majority of sound systems is like a diminished, squeezed down, reductive toy-version of the real thing.

I experience the same when encountering, say, someone playing violin. It just sounds so much bigger, fuller, richer, thicker than their reproduced counterparts. Even when the player moves to the upper strings and plays the higher notes, the sound does not thin-out and become wiry as it does on a sound-system, it remains big, room filling, bold.

This is why, for me, I’m always impressed when I hear a speaker system that gives some of that thickness and richness to the sound of voices and instruments - for instance how I perceive this quality in certain wide-baffle bigger box speakers. (Though that quality isn’t the whole shooting match, which is why that isn’t my only criteria).

It’s also why I’ve gravitated to tube amps that I perceive to add that extra bit of body, roundness, richness. (I have Conrad Johnson tube amps). Even a nudge in the direction of added body is welcome.

So that’s the first thing that strikes me - it just hits me whether I’m looking for it or not. Others on the list of live voice/instruments can depend more on what I’m concentrating on. One big one is a timbral/organic quality. I often close my eyes when someone is talking nearby and listen to the quality of their voice. The thing that hits me right off is "that just doesn’t sound like any amplified voice I’ve heard." There is an immediately recognizable "human, organic" timbre to the voice that seems distinct from the electronic recreations through speakers - one is made of flesh and blood, the other of electronics, speaker drivers, etc.

Other aspects that hit me about live instruments are: richness in timbral complexity and ’effortless’ detail, in the sense that detail seems so smooth, just ’there to be heard into as deeply in to it as I want to listen, but not hyped." There is a rainbow of timbral complexity to a live band or orchestra that is homogenized in reproduced music. Then there is the solidity and acoustic "presence" - the "thereness" of a real voice or instrument moving acoustic energy in the room so you just perceive a solid object making the sound. This is different from the more airy, see-through imaging in many sound systems, and why I really desire density and palpability in my sound system.

 And...of course...dynamics. I guess that one seems so obvious I left it for last, but we all have the experience of hearing a drum set being played and just instantly recognizing the life-force behind it, that you typically don’t get in reproduced sound.

So, back to my original question of what characteristics of live voices and instruments stand out to you, in comparison to most reproduced sound?