I hate live music, I hate crowds, I would have PTSD if my system resembled live too much
System that sounds so real it is easy to mistaken it is not live
My current stereo system consists of Oracle turntable with SME IV tonearm, Dynavector XV cartridge feeding Manley Steelhead and two Snappers monoblocks running 15" Tannoy Super Gold Monitors. Half of vinyl records are 45 RMP and were purchased new from Blue Note, AP, MoFI, IMPEX and some others. While some records play better than others none of them make my system sound as good as a live band I happened to see yesterday right on a street. The musicians played at the front of outdoor restaurant. There was a bass guitar, a drummer, a keyboard and a singer. The electric bass guitar was connected to some portable floor speaker and drums were not amplified. The sound of this live music, the sharpness and punch of it, the sound of real drums, the cymbals, the deepness, thunder-like sound of bass guitar coming from probably $500 dollars speaker was simply mind blowing. There is a lot of audiophile gear out there. Some sound better than others. Have you ever listened to a stereo system that produced a sound that would make you believe it was a real live music or live band performance at front of you?
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@esputnix , Yes, it can be done and in many cases improve on live sound. Others here disagree with me but I have been chasing this gremlin since I was 13 years old. As others here have already mentioned reproducing the dynamics of a live event is the most difficult problem. It requires a subwoofer system much more powerful than is usual. It also requires main speakers with extremely fast transient response and a lot of power. Other important factors are an appropriate room, avoidance of analog crossovers using digital ones if they can not be avoided, group delays need to be corrected and the frequency response of the entire affair needs to be perfectly flat in both channels to start (or as close as one can reasonably get). I then boost the bass at 3 dB/oct below 100 Hz. This is to create realistic dynamic force at lower than ear shattering levels. We all develop our own way of going about this and I think there are several paths to nirvana. I have heard three systems in 50 years that I would consider to be state of the art and capable of fooling one into believing an acoustic instrument was in the room and only one that put you in the 10th row of a stadium rock concert. Two of then were/are based on electrostatic main speakers, one on dynamic speakers. I think the hardest thing to do is getting the room right. It helps a lot if the room is designed specifically for two channel high fidelity playback. This is an option most of us do not have. We have to work with the rooms present in our houses. Although you do not have to buy the most expensive equipment out there to succeed it is still not a cheap endeavor. Forgetting about the room you are talking about spending at least $150,000 if not more. Many of us simply can not afford that much. On the bright side you do not need a system that performs at that level to enjoy music. You can do that with earbuds and your telephone. |
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