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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
larsman's avatar
larsman
1,893 posts
 
It's not about replicating 'live music' - it's about getting as close as possible to what the producer and artist wanted the record to sound like; it's all about their subjectivity. "Live music" will sound 10 completely different ways from 10 different perspectives. 
grossman616
123 posts
 
Nope, but at times ,if you have put together a good system you can get some goosebumps.We are at a level were we can get a rough approximation at times. If you have experienced a lot of live music, amplified or classical you know that we get a great echo of the real thing at home, if we're lucky.
rvpiano's avatar
rvpiano
2,653 posts
 
The real question is, “how much reality do you need” to enjoy your system? Does it have to be close to an exact match?  How close before your satisfied?  Pursuing that ideal seems to be the ultimate goal of the audiophile.
The element of your imagination has to come into the equation, or you’ll drive yourself mad.  You have to fill in part of the experience with your mind.
But this explains the phenomenon of “upgraditis.”
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
It's not about replicating 'live music' - it's about getting as close as possible to what the producer and artist wanted the record to sound like; it's all about their subjectivity. "Live music" will sound 10 completely different ways from 10 different perspectives.

Pretty good. What we are doing is putting art on display. Van Gogh saw an olive orchard, painted his impression of it. Beautiful painting, deserves to be seen in a good light, with space for perspective, all of that. Saw it in a museum, nobody was trying to recreate an actual olive orchard. We just want to appreciate the art of Van Gogh. 

Music systems are even harder, because the art isn't always like that. The recordings are the art, and they are as different from each other as a painting is from a sculpture. Nobody even can say what the recording is supposed to sound like! Not even the recording engineer! Even he, all he knows is what it did sound like when he was in the studio. If he even can recall. But even then what he recalls is a composite of what it sounded like all the many times he heard it, over and over again, this mix that mix final mix and sitting wherever, whenever.  

It is when you think about it freaking amazing it works as well as it does at all. No wonder someone sings into a can, play it back on a gramophone and even that sounds pretty freaking amazing. Even though, as always, it is just a representation and not recreating anything.

hoganpc's avatar
hoganpc
28 posts
 
I will add an emphatic "no". Having played First Tuba in a symphonic band for five years, no system I've heard can reproduce the power and emotion of  the live orchestral experience.  Jazz and intimate vocals, perhaps.
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