There actually are classical recordings where the orchestra or ensemble are playing in a real auditorium and the engineers use what audiophiles call purist recording techniques. They exist and they are rare. Most classical recordings involve multitrack recorders, EQ/filters and digital reverbs. The recordings are made in such a manner that mistakes can be "punched out" and corrections overdubbed. The multitrack recording is then mixed down to stereo with people making numerous decisions about the overall sound and manipulating it accordingly. It's expensive to get an orchestra together and audiophile approved sonics is not the first priority.
How can you evaluate a system with highly processed music?
Each to their own.
But can you really evaluate a system by listening to highly processed, electric/electronic music? How do you know what that sounds like?
I like to listen to voices and acoustic music that is little processed.
Instruments like piano, violin, etc.
And the human voice. And the joy of hearing back up singers clearly, etc.
Even if full instrumentation backing a natural sounding voice.
(eg.: singer/songwriters like Lyle Lovett or Leonard Cohen)
There is a standard and a point of reference that can be gauged.
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Anytime the discussion of music moves into the discussion of what, how, why the subject sounds the way it does I flashback to the movie Phantom of the Paradise... where our tortured 'hero' ends up with some 'studio time' although not the way he'd hoped for.... Changed forever how I thought about it....then Now? I've yet to stop laughing....;)
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@onhwy61: What you say is true of contemporary Classical recordings, but not of recordings made in the 1950’s and 60’s; all of those were recorded on a 2-track or 3-track machine (that’s all there was back then). Lots of recordings made in England and Europe were done so with minimal miking, including those made with the famous Decca tree, using only a pair of mics. In the 70's, 80’s, and 90’s there were a number of small audiophile labels (including Wilson) making Classical recordings using only two or three mics, recorded onto a 2-track machine. I have a bunch of them, and they’re not that rare, hard to find, or expensive. |
@bdp24 I agree with your comments. Big labels recording top orchestras with an all analog chain takes us back 40 to 50 years ago. Times have changed. |
Dear @mglik : highly processed or not I will add to what I posted that the first step is to know " what to look for " on each one evaluation we want to do and I think that to to do that we need to define all the MUSIC home system characteristics that will be under evaluation ( each one of us have each one characteristic list that not necessarily coincide in between. ) and obviously we have to have several first hand experiences with live MUSIC ebents ( any kind of event/experiences. ). Obviously too that we have to idenify in our " arsenal " of recordings 4-6 tracks for each characteristic that be as accurated as we can to really shows or where the characteristic really shines andafter all those we need 5-6 complete MUSIC scores to have the system whole evaluation and to be almost sure of our evaluation process we have to challenge it in at least 10-15 different systems to prove that each one of us prooooocess is " bullet proof ". I think that with out a well defined evaluation process we could have almost nothing.
Btw, I said " accurated as posible ", as posible because in both recording and playback process there are no true accuracy, just does not exist, but the other way around: several inaccuracies and we have to try to mantain any kind of inaccuracy at minimum levels. At the end we know that our ears sensitivity of sounds is very limited an non-accurated and is our main tool for system evaluation:
How The Ear Works (soundonsound.com)
R.
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