Which is more accurate: digital or vinyl?

I know this is veering off the topic of the thread kind of...but one thing i think that is often or always overlooked is that when you listen to music live, you are having both a sonic reference to the experience but also a live visual reference/experience!

Take a moment to consider just how good listening to live music blind folded would be? This makes it a more fair comparison with our stereo systems.

That is...i think people tout the live event [the holy grail refernce/standard] as being so much better than our stereo's because of the visual aspect AND the physical aspect of being at the event!

I have never seen this addressed on any forums anywhere! but i think it applies to the discussion and topic.

You've heard of blind comparisons right? What are they for? So, that you are not biased/manipulated by what you see but are left only to discern with your ears alone. Its about quality control of test results/conclusions.

So, when people compare live music to their systems they should compare both blindfolded or they should at least take note of the fact that they are getting visual stimulus from the live event along with musical info.

In a live venue you can turn your head around and see the room, the people behind you, someone steps on your foot when you are on the concert floor, how can 2 speakers compete against all these extra senses being triggered and adding to the "experience of the "music""?

I would venture to guess that some very good system's are as good as or extremely close to the live event to the point where the differences are negligible. [blindfolded]

Is that audiophile heresy? (smile)

I can confirm some of the stuff i'm saying by giving an example.

Ever watched/listened to Nirvana unplugged with the lights low in your room and through your hifi?

This is a very well recorded dvd and when you combine great audio playback ALONG WITH VISUAL CUES (and in low lighting so where you are ..."gets blurred")...i have been BLOWN AWAY with the feeling Kurt cobain is still alive and singing right there before me! The audio recording of that event is just superb in my opinion. Anyways...if while watching the show, the tv suddenly died, the "powerful illusion" that i am there gets diminished because you lose the visual contributions to your "suspension of reality".

So, in defense of our systems, being at a live musical event is in someways an unfair comparison especially if you don't take into account the degree to which visual cues are adding to your degree of pleasure while at the event.

Comparing both blind is a higher quality comparison since you should be judging sonics with sonics NOT Sonics plus visual with just sonics.

I am not suggesting people need to go to live events blindfolded, i'm just stating ....whether they know it or not ...that its to some degree an unfair comparison. Not TOTALLY unfair but to some degree, AT LEAST... it is.

.

No doub't all senses in play at a live event.

I always close my eyes when attempting to assess listening live versus at home. Its a valuable exercise to use live events as a reference (as well as to listen to various "reference" systems in different settings) as long as you are able to filter out extraneous sensual factors and also take all the factors that make the difference with the sound alone (like room acoustics)into account. Otherwise, you are doomed to be continually chasing both a moving and nebulous target.

Vertigo said "I would venture to guess that some very good system's are as good as or extremely close to the live event to the point where the differences are negligible. [blindfolded]."

Absolutely not. In fact, depriving one sense heightens the others. It will be even easier to tell the difference blindfolded, as your sense of hearing will be heightened. A great many of the people in concert halls with their eyes closed are not sleeping - they are listening better.

There was another thread about this recently - there is no way a recording could ever be mistaken for live music, unless one has very bad ears indeed. If one cannot hear the difference, that is a problem, and your ears should be checked.

lf, i think it can be close enough to not matter to many. doesn't have to mean that hearing is bad.

RE ***It will be even easier to tell the difference blindfolded, as your sense of hearing will be heightened. A great many of the people in concert halls with their eyes closed are not sleeping - they are listening better. ****

Who said anything to the contrary? I don't even address that topic at all. Forgive me but , I think you misunderstood the whole point of my previous post. I won't go over it again.

RE***there is no way a recording could ever be mistaken for live music, unless one has very bad ears indeed. If one cannot hear the difference, that is a problem, and your ears should be checked.****

I think i have a pretty acute ear, and have heard a few systems, and have been able to pinpoint their strengths and their faults and the same goes for my own system. I have heard alot of bad systems and a few really good ones. In retrospect i realize i have lived with alot of bad systems posing as hifi. Also i own an acoustic guitar that is made of all real hardwoods and real bone nut and bridges, not plastic and laminates, so i have some understanding of what "real tone" sounds like.

Live events have sound problems too! just like home systems and i can pinpoint problems at live events.

I went to see dylan in 2008. The sound was atrocious and dylans frog voice (now in its 70's) wasn't much better (that is if your expecting to understand the words).

You know what i got out of that event? It was not the sound bit it was the visual that gave me the rush! and the knowledge that dylan was 20 feet away from me. It was not the sound. It was seeing him in person. If the sound of that night had been recorded from the perspective of someone standing on the floor and pressed onto a record, i'm sure my system could reproduce with great fidelity , how terrible it sounded! (smile)(laughing)

Some of the pinpointing of sound problems i can articulate and some of it i just know something is wrong but can't quite express in words what the sonic problem is. It takes time i think to develop an astute ear and having an astute ear as you know, is not simply about how well you score on a hearing test, though of course that is very important.

Anyways, my hearing is within normal range. I do have a slight loss on the top end frequencies (a little more so in the left ear) but again it is within normal range.

RE***If one cannot hear the difference, that is a problem, and your ears should be checked.****

Maybe what needs to be checked is SOMEONE'S SYSTEM.... if they feel the disparity between blind listening at a live musical event and blind listening at home are not even close or as pleasurable? If your system distorts, or the noise floor is too high, if it is too warm or too clinical, if timbres and dynamics are suffering in high degree, than my claim, naturally will seem to be absurd but...i stand by my conviction that really great system's, at certain moments are just as good or very close to live [maybe even better! because they are produced and polished further from the individual tracks that are laid down].

The technology has come along way and with careful system matching, exotic materials, etc, the sound is approaching ..."fantastic"