Veridian, Most of what you hear in a hall is, IME, determined by where you sit and what you are listening to. The closer you sit to a center seat, just in front of the orchestra pit, the more you you will hear instrument specificity, so long as it's not overwhelmed by by the volume. For example, listen to some Mahler in, say, rows 4,5,6 or 7. In his quiet sections you can easily hear the sound stage so long as your ears can still hear anything after listening to the blaring of the brass and impact of the booming drums. This is a sound you will never bring home on a recording, but if you could you could never reproduce it!
The joys of mid-fi
What I’m writing about here applies to classical music but might have parallels in other music too. I’ve brought this topiic up in different ways before.
Years ago when I was blissfully ensconced in mif-fi, I could easily compare different performances of the same classical work with the confidence that the sound quality would be essentially the same. There would be no issues of soundstaging, detail, et al that would make it hard for me to compare. It was easy to judge a performance on its own merits without complicating factors. Now, it’s almost impossible to assess a performance without placing SQ into the mix. A mediocre recording might be extremely attractive due the sound alone, Conversely, a very good performance might be shunted aside as “unlistenable.”
Oh, for the good old days of mid-fi! 😁
- ...
- 32 posts total
| Post removed |
Mid-fi are the days before the apple was given to Eve and Adam by the serpent. You can't go back before the Fall, @rvpiano , but you can pray for redemption. (And drink a beer.) |
Viridian, Sorry about that moniker thing. I should be more careful. I don’t pretend to know what ’you’ hear, What I should have used in its place was the word ’one'. I should have been more careful with the words selection but I thought that the inclusion of the term IME would make it clear that what I thought you heard, or in this case did not hear, was based on what I hear, not on what you actually experienced. How would I really know, I’m neither an audiologist, a psychologist or a mystic. BTW, FWIW, It is not of great concern to me whether you, or anyone for that matter, is interested in my contributions. But I post just in case someone might . |
- 32 posts total