Response to Mr. Tennis; (this is part of that promised email)
MRT"if one accepts the premise that live unamplified music is a valid reference, the experience of listening to live music is binaural."
"This is the classic and somewhat shortsited vision of how a human hears and more importantly how the microphones are setup. The recording happens in a space, that space unless anechoic will reflect and reinforce sound creating a tone, that tone is captured onto the recording. This is inescapable, that somewhat unimportant information is not as damaging to analog sound because it simply doesn't have the S/N ratio and the linear performance, so that medium masks effectively this information. The CD does not mask this information and two channel simply crushes that noise, ambiance and room tone back on top of the soundstage. Think of live recordings where all the people are clapping in a compressed area in front of you. That is not correct, that is simply the standard. Surround expands and sorts this off subject sound and places it properly in a soundfield.
MRT "I don't remember hearing the sound of a piano behind my head when attending a piano recital, in a large hall."
Then you weren't listening, the Piano likely filled the room with sound as if it was poured into the room, Think about it, room likely pulsed with the Piano's output, not that your hearing the primary key strike from behind but you were emmersed in sound....surround sound. Binaural gives us surround sound hearing not two channel hearing.
Think about it.
MRT "also, what does the representation of timbral accuracy have to do with the number of channels."
If there is audible "garbage" (artificial reverb, room tone and information, crowd noise) on the recording like I hear with CD (please note the garbage is not digititis, its simply unavoidable non subject noise collected by the microphones) this when crushed back onto the subject of recording can shift the entire spectral balance of the recording.
MRT "it is possible to create realistic timbre with one quad esl."
Not with a stereo digital recording it is not, one speaker will suffer the same fate as two, even three. You're not addressing the problem and simply creating a "flaw" that does not exist and accepting it as a medium problem, when infact I assert our playabck systems are what's incorrect. This is the point I make, digital is misunderstood.
MRT "now, back to the issue of digital. a good source is a good source, whether it is analog or digital."
So how do determine a good source? what objective repeatable solution do you have so we can all buy good sources? See this is the blindeness that has affected audio and has everyone chassing around with no direction. There is no good digital source for two channels, the better it gets the more the sound moves away from satisfying. We can't keep guessing, too many products, too expensive. We should know, but we don't.
MRT. "close your eyes and decide whether a recording of a piano, e.g., sounds like a real piano, to what ever degree."
The old days were good days when you there was only a few products that could do this. Now many many systems can do this pretty well, you can't run what you've brung anymore. Because room acoustics and component interaction all now matter a great deal. Because we all have great systems by 1980 standards, but its 2007, and to be great takes more than some demo at a store. That information has to translate to the home system.
MRT. "the source is much more important than the stereo equipment."
Which without getting into great detail is why I like surround, because the surround processor is the source where the DtoA happens. Giving me a great deal of control of the final sound. To me speakers are the gate keeper then the source.
MRT. "there are many decent examples of vintage (pre 1990) digital gear and some examples of decent current digital gear."
People don't want to spend $50K on decent
Actually right now except for audiophile brands that edit the sound there are many excellent digital products. People playing records are using a 2nd rate source in a proper setup. There's no argument except we "enjoy" the LP's more for LP's to be considered competition with CD. We need to find the system that allows us to enjoy digital more.
MRT. "The problem with today's high resolution components, is that they expose the flaws of recordings to a greater degree than some of the older components with less resolution."
Yes, but what if we could fix the "flaws" and remove them and turn them into positives? The pro's use awesome equipment too, and if we could minimize the "flaws" why shouldn't we? What if you were to discover that the things creating the perceived "flaws" in your two channel system become coherent waves of ambiant information and instead of hearing the piano in a glary two channel unidirectional presentation you get information that puts the Piano in the room, but not your room, the room it was recrded in. The added weight the surround information (no longer a "flaw")moves the bar for what sounds real and natural!
so pick your poison--euphonic coloration to cover up the sins of many digital recordings, or todays high resolution, less colored digital devices which are more accurate as to revealing what's on a recording.
See that's my focus, it doesn't have to be a "poison". It can be a step forward.
