Home HiFi better than Live?

The whole point of my trying to get good sound from my first hifi system was to try to get Tracy Nelson's records to sound like she did in person. Getting close now, but it's taken 30 years. Of course, when I listen to her at home, she never gets up and walks off the stage because the sound system is bad. And then, there's her rendition of Seven Bridges Road, where she does the low and high harmony - you can't get that in a live performance.

Nor can you go out and listen to a young Tracy Nelson or Barbara Keith, or Eva Cassidy, Buddy Holly, etc., etc. For some people, I am sure, listening to a recording of certain performers beats listening to anyone else live.

If sound is the thing, nothing beats a real live unamplified performance in a small room with an audience there to listen, or an orchestra in a decent venue. Nothing's worse than trying to hear live performers through bad pa amplifiers and speakers and an audience there just to be there.

Sean,
I agree with you that the live amplified concert totally depends on the man behind the board and certainly the concert organization.

To organize Pete Gabriel concert where everyone wants to hear him live is impossible in small concert hall and you gotta have an arena where even mega-watts of amplification would not be enough or would only be OK for ones that relatively sit close enough to hear(but there is a probablility that you wouldn't see him now that sucks!)

To organize Krimson or Dave Sylvian concert NY Town hall is the small best great place where probably a kilowatt per channel is good enough. Man, I heard every note of Fripp, Belew and Gunn the way I can hear through my headphones!

I was spitting onto the floor after Roxy Music concert at MSG theatre which is pretty large and I had a horrible seat behind the column and at the very end of balcony and I could barely distinguish notes Manzanera playing. As to Bryan Ferry I only heard a reflected echo. After that I said to myself I go for the small clubs, cafe or concert hall performances no larger than 3000 people. The rest is too commercial for me IMO.

Sean ... interesting your comment about not capturing the energy of the studio in a live performance. When I was recording with a band we found it very difficult to capture the energy and dynamics of the live performance in the studio. The more the recording engineer tried to polish the sound the more it lost its drive. I thought we were pretty good live, and we got good audience reactions, but our studio album just sounds flat to me now.
I completely agree with your comment regarding the engineering at live events. Is there some school somewhere that teaches PA guys that all the audience wants is gut-churning bass ?

Interesting observation, Seandtaylor. Our church choir made a CD recording of various pieces we knew well and we also found ourselves so concerned about getting everything just perfect for the recording that we lost the emotion and feeling of the pieces we were singing. A far worse performance than when we'd sing at a service or concert. Perhaps professional musicians can handle it better, but I still think that, unless you're manipulating things for the studio recording, or the artist is having a bad day/night, a live performance is the more exciting one for me, particularly when the audience also gets into it and in turn spurs on the artists.

In an objective sense, live music on instruments (assuming, unamplified) and re-produced music through a machine are, as one would expect, different. We try to get the sound of stereo to sound similar, but all of the above factors mentioned make that unfeasible (and, yes, in particular with natural dynamics).

But, while trying to approximate the sound of live music in an objective sense may be valuable, what we are actually trying to do is catalyze the experience of live music as our minds react to it. Stereos, because you can listen to them under a different set of circumstances - alone, at home etc. - produce their own context that amplifies this catalyzation (the receptive mind that listens deeply responds to turning off the thinking mind through isolation, quiet, closing the eyes, etc.).

As for myself, live music can not be beaten, if its good music heartfully played together and the people around aren't acting like jerks (went to a Ravinia concert this past summer that was awful because the young people were talking so much in our location...). So, context effects the live catalyzation too.

If you could have Sarah Vaughn singing in your living room unamplified or the sound of the amplified stereo machine playing Ms. Vaughn, which would you choose? Humans have evolved listening to "live" sounds and those are the ones that most easily quell the beast inside our minds.

Brave question and position though. Thank you for that.