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At This Time Can We Recreate Full Range Live Music In The Home?

I read on this web site some members claim they go to the symphony orchestra and are "convinced" their system reproduces the experience. I agree with vocals, light percussion, acoustic music, light jazz, the best systems come very close. My experience comes from being a semi professional drummer for 40+ years. I currently have acoustic and electronic drums in my home. I play in a huge open space with 20 foot cathedral ceilings. I think I can state that I know what live drums sound like. Can even the six figure systems reproduce the attack and decay of a 20 inch crash cymbal? I say "maybe" in the future but not now! What makes me laugh is we audiophiles myself included will spend many, many thousands of dollars trying to reproduce the sound of a $20 triangle or a $15 woodblock or a $10 shaker. Play the song Aja by Steely Dan. I can play on my system the drum solo by the great Steve Gadd at realistic volume levels-if you dare -but it is not the same as real drums!! I don’t know if I can’t convince people that are not musicians. Not putting non-musicians down. Quoting my dad, "You don’t have to be a horse to be a horse doctor." Another quote by John Lennon. Someone asked him what he was listening to. He responded, "Dripping water."  It would be interesting to know how many of the greatest producers/engineers are or are not musicians or vocalists.
Some statistics: Soft drums 105dB, hard drums up to 130dB, kick drum/timpani 106-111dB, ride cymbal 101dB, toms 110dB, ride bell 115dB, crash 113dB, snare 120dB, rimshot 125dB. I have a system that could produce 125dB, would I -NO WAY I value my #1 instrument -my ears. So the drums are playing at 125dB peaks, now add in the other 80+ members of the symphony orchestra-how loud now? I ask again, can we at this time reproduce accurately the power of a symphony orchestra in the home? For many of us this is the Holy Grail of being an audiophile - Keep Searching!
wweiss
emrofsemanon's avatar
emrofsemanon
292 posts
 
with sufficient amplification, my standard reference the maggie tympani III speaker system can do it. i heard such demonstrated in the best [acoustically treated] room @ definitive hifi [seattle] in 1982. it was like being at the front of a hemisphere of "being there" [at the recording venue]. no real substitute for watts and/or sheer square footage of speaker radiating surface/wideness of dispersion. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Wow, more of you are saying no than I would have expected. This tells me many have yet to hear a 1st class system. The best systems actually have better sound than you get at most concerts and easily match the volume levels if that is what you want. Everybody needs to go to a King Crimson concert then hear a top notch system play Monkey Mind. 
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
rh67, I have many excellent live recordings that replicate the live set up perfectly. But that is not the point. You do not have to match the live situation perfectly to have a "live like" experience. Studio recordings can be excellent but in many instances are surrealistic. 
william53b's avatar
william53b
211 posts
 
Easily, if you like Jazz.
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rauliruegas
13,048 posts
 
Dear @wweiss : "" can we at this time reproduce accurately the power of a symphony orchestra in the home? ""

NO, that’s impossible today and in the near future and the reasons are not because the live SPLs that we can get in audio systems.

In a live concert/event if we are seated at near field and not seated 40m. from the source normally what is between the source of MUSIC is only the air.

The power of live MUSIC comes from those instruments transients and its very fast developed harmonics that arrives to our ears/body through the air and nothing else in between. The power comes from there and we not only can listen it but can feel it all over our body.

That is what impedes ( no matters what. ) that we can’t mimic a live event even that the recording microphones are way better ( capture a wider range frequency with a dynamic range to wider too. ) that each one of us ears because that MUSIC when arrives to our ears from the speakers already gone and pass for " thousands " of " veils " through the long and tortuose recording and playback process.

All those " veils " are and makes a terrible sound degradation. Here in México city there are a lot of people playing MUSIC to take some money and they do sometimes fixed in a street corner and other times just walking along the streets and do it with acoustic instruments and when we listen say one of those gentlemans playing a trumpet and we are at 60m.-80m. from the source we can with any single doubt and we know that that sound does not comes from an audio system. Tha’s the power of live MUSIC .

We can name any room/system and no single of them can do that at any price in any " scenario ", it’s only a caricature of the real thing.

I'm totally sure that MUSIC coming not from a recording but live any one of us can immediatly identify if the sounds is amplified or acoustic.

We all reproduce MUSIC at home because we are MUSIC lovers and this is all about.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.
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