Solving the "complex music problem"?

Big difference.

You are listening to a great orchestral performance recorded in a great hall on a well balanced system. Think London Symphony in Kingsway Hall recorded by Kenneth Wilkinson for Decca. There is a passage in the score for solo piccolo. One hears within the soundstage a perfectly placed image of the piccolo with natural timbre and no placement waver. One can literally point to the image of the piccolo within the soundstage and say “There it is!”. Even as the piccolo ascends into its highest register natural tone is preserved with no high frequency splash making the piccolo sound the size of a tuba. Beautiful! “Actual” pin point imaging.

Then there is another passage where the piccolo is playing a unison passage with clarinets and xylophone creating a unique, even odd textural blend. The piccolo sounds as it should, blended and as part of the instrumental “mix”. Much harder to isolate it within the soundstage. Play this recording back on a system with speakers  (or, whatever) which have an accentuation (distortion) at say 2000-3000 Hertz. If the piccolo is playing in that range (not uncommon) the sound of that instrumental mix will lose the sense of blend and the sound of the piccolo will be accentuated as well. It becomes more isolated within the soundstage. “Illusion” of pin point imaging.

“Perception?”, yes. “Reality?”, no way.

Some people know what an aphorism is, others coach football.

@frogman

Great and insightful comments.

Not related. But I have an album that the cover notes extolling the magnificence of the recording capturing the ambiance of the venue… I was excited… put it on the turn tablet… no ambiance… no venue sonics. Then on the back cover, diagrams of how they clustered instruments and put plexiglass partitions to isolate their sounds and mic them separately. OMG… the recording was dead… no venue.

Then there was this recording of a solo violinist… famous guy. The entire back cover talking about the incredible sweet wonderful sound of his playing. My immediate first impression was that is a description of the sound of a Stradivarius. I have had the privilege of hearing several. No where on the album did it say the instrument he played. I went and research it… he played a Stradivarius loaned to him until he stopped playing. The sound was not his virtuosity, but the instrument he was playing. He is a great violinist… but every comment was about his instrument and not his playing.

My point? Hmm, not sure… but learning about sound… and music you realize you can discover amazing depth and understanding. If you attend real (acoustic) concerts and make really good choices in high end audio you can experience and understand the real world of music.

To me, it is a combination of things. I call it congestion. Where it loses its direct, immediate quality of conveying the sound of an instrument and begins to sound like a recording playing at you. Some people opt for more analytical systems to deal with this-I’m not sure that’s a good answer.

I’ve found that as my current system (circa 2006 or so) improved, so did the ability to separate out instruments and not get the impression of a congealed, congested presentation.

I also think it has to do with the recording and mastering. I’m not a fan of "audiophile" recordings for sake of sonics, but instead, chase stuff that is interesting to me-- that often involves a search and sometimes, the OG is it; the recording has been reissued by not from the master tape or even a safety.

For later records, it is less of a problem but still an issue regarding quality of pressing and mastering. I try and stick with OG records, but have various remasters of some things. I was shocked by how good an old Delmark OG was compared to the Chad recut. Buddy Guy with Junior. Finding an unmolested mono or stereo from back in the day is nigh on impossible, so we settle for Chad’s recut, which is very good.

But we lose something in the process. That’s why there is so much variation in SQ among records, even those purportedly cut from the tape.