Most Realistic Recordings


I was recently listening to my daughter practice the piano and I was enjoying quite a full-body sonic experience. I later went to my system and picked out a few piano recordings that I suspected were recorded well, but as I listened, I just didn't have anything close to the same experience. The piano just didn't sound right, nor nearly as full as I had just experienced while listening to my daughter. I know what pianos sound and feel like. I grew up playing many different types and understand their differences. I've done some research on recording pianos and have learned they are particularly difficult to record well.

As I've delved deeper into this audio hobby/interest and acquired more respectable gear, the more general question that keeps coming to my mind is this: How did this music sound at the time it was recorded? (presuming it was a person playing an instrument, not something "mixed" or electronic). Meaning, if I had been in the room, would I have heard or felt the same? Or is there something about the recording setup/micing/mixing/etc. that has failed to capture the moment? Or has the audio engineer intentionally filtered some of that out?

Now, being an audiophile (i.e., a music lover) has many paths and many goals. For me, I love lots of different kinds of music and am not too caught up in the ever changing landscape of audio gear and the need to try something new. I hope to get to the point where a well-captured recording sounds realistic in my room on my system. I like full-spectrum sound (i.e., if the note/sound is in the track, I want to hear it). I know that accurate, realistic reproduction through any system is depends a great deal on the equipment and the room it's being played back in. I don't expect my system to give me that jaw-dropping "I'm there" experience (yet), but some day I hope to get there.

So, to my question above, I would very much love to hear if anyone feels they have heard an album, a track, a recording of some kind that could be used to test out the "realism" of one's system. What would you say is a recording that more accurately captured the sonic hologram of the moment it was performed. Any genre is ok. And if you think a particular studio/company does this well, I'd love to hear about it!

And, please, I don't want the conversation to about gear or room treatment. This is about the recording itself, the source material, and how accurately the entire moment is captured and preserved. I respect everyone's personal experiences with your system, whatever it's comprised of. So, please don't argue with each other about whether a recording didn't sound realistic to you when it sounded realistic to someone else. Let's be civil and kind, for how can you deny what someone else's ears have heard? Thank you! I'm excited to learn from you all!

tisimst

chowkwan -- Yeah, I admit to being a bit tough on the label... It doesn't help that right now I'm streaming an utterly first-rate DG recording of Haydn's London Symphony via Idagio.

I don't know in what numbers Robert Fulton (speaker and amplifier designer of Fulton Musical Industries---FMI, as well as recording engineer) pressed his ARK label LP's, but they are very special. Minimalist mic'ed, recorded in local Minnesota churches, Fulton managed to capture the sound of pipe organs and choirs far, far better than have most big-label engineers.

In his choir recordings, you can hear each individual voice---superb inner detail. His organ recordings are astounding, the "shudder" of the massive sound waves created by 32' pipe organs as you have rarely heard in recordings (if you have loudspeakers/subs which can reproduced 16Hz ;-). His recordings also capture the sound of the space in which they were made as well as I have ever heard.

While digging in LP bins, keep a look out for anything on the ARK label. 

Organ-try George Wright "Hot Pipes" his best organ recording on CD.  Great choir-Roger Wagner chorale in Green Leaves of Summer (only the Varese Sarabande CD, others are junk).  

I have a short list of really solid performances, some live, some studio, but all give the illusion of "being there." Media varies by selection.

"Jazz at the Pawnshop" Proprius (vinyl)-Live

Patricia Barber, "Nightclub" Premonition (vinyl)-Live

Albert Hobbs Band, "Love Remembered" Eidolon (digital)-studio

Glenn Gould "Bach: Goldberg Variations" Zenph re-performance (digital binaural)-studio

Little Feat "Waiting for Columbus" Mobile Fidelity (vinyl)-live

Joe Jackson "Body and Soul" A&M (vinyl)-studio

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band w/ guests "Will the Circle Be Unbroken, 40th Anniversary Edition" United Artists (vinyl)-studio/live

Jascha Heifetz / Charles Munch & BSO "Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61) RCA (vinyl)-studio

Some of the songs literally put you in the recording space. Hopefully you will get some good ideas from this post. Happy listening!

 

 

 

 

@fleschler 

Realistic to what?  A live performance or a recording stage/studio recording?

Neither, specifically. I was more interested in if you, as a listener, felt like a recording sounded quite similar to a live instrument/voice. Venue certainly influences the reverberation, but if you have been to a live event of any kind, you know what a real instrument/voice sounds like regardless of reverberation. So, that's what I'm soliciting: recordings that you believe (based on your hearing) very similar sonic characteristics to what you would expect from listening to a real instrument/person. I would like to try these on my system to see if I experience the same.

Hope that makes mores sense.