What uncontroversial audible differences cannot be measured?

[Fitzcaraldo215]

5 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

Oh c'mon ... sitting in a club watching Buddy Guy play right in front of me has never been captured by any recording ... and we were drinking lots of beers ... can't remember needing to pee until after the show  ... also ChicagoFest, Saturday July 4th, 1981 ... CTA ... crowd went bezerk and that's never been captured. Could go on and on. Grateful Dead, great sound... of course there are many crappy bands with bad sound.

 

Sitting in front of a quartet: priceless.

 

I know, I know convenience. But trust me, if you've ever been up close to a hot cellist intently playing... recordings never do that justice 

I have limited experience with live rock, more with jazz and a whole lot in classical.  Paul is certainly entitled to his opinion, and there are times when it might be true.  But, I suspect, especially with acoustic instruments in the right venue, that you are exactly right.

 

But, his points about classical music are basically total King of the Mountain BS, based on his "I know better than you mere mortals and my system, which I am not going to reveal, is simply awesome" mindset.  Classical recording engineers, and I know a few, for heaven's sake, totally reject his position, and are happy when they even come remotely close to live.

[loop7]

Great topic and revealing how small a part measurements really do play.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

I do not follow some of this. Playing any driver at full volume is likely to produce a terribly sound.  However, playing at drivers at its optimal volume, with plenty of clean  power, produces the best sound the driver can produce.  Is that what you mean? 

 

That's what nearly all people believe - basically, because for nearly all systems full volume does not correlate to optimal volume - just so we don't confuse things, full volume does not mean that the gain is elevated to the point where the amplifying stages are grossly overloaded - at no stage, with caveats, is the electronics chain clipping. One can get preamps with plenty of gain, such that the following power amplifier can easily be driven into severe overdrive - I can see the point of these, as there are recordings that are mastered at very quiet levels, meaning that the power amplifier has to be fed a much higher level for satisfactory listening volume.

 

So, with the car radio example, the unit does indeed degenerate into a garbled mess if the volume knob is pushed beyond a certain point, on most material. But if I happen to find a restrained piece of classical music on the dial, I can push to "maximum volume" with excellent results. The reason for the garbled stew on say a rock recording is that the radio's amplifier is operating way out of its comfort zone - but I could take the same speakers, out of the doors of the vehicle, plug a subtantial amplifier into the chain, and play that same track at the same volume setting; and I wouldn't get "garbled mess", it would be intense, quite decent sound.

 

At first I was almost amazed at how hard one can drive very ordinary speakers with zero ill effects - if the amplifier is up to it. But one soon learns that this is the norm - an intense, enveloping soundfield that makes it very difficult to hear oneself speak is in the reach of nearly all speakers - but usually they are driven by amplifying chains which are far below the competence needed to do this.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

I know, I know convenience. But trust me, if you've ever been up close to a hot cellist intently playing... recordings never do that justice 

 

Fitzcaraldo215 may not wish to listen beside me, but this is the type of experience I chase. I want the "hot cellist" right in front of me, and I do whatever it takes to make that happen. Many people get that already in various ways, and what upsets people like Fitz is that I do it using very conventional gear, which is carefully optimised. Their concept is that good sound requires expensive components, and that's dead wrong - the latter make it easier to get there, but are not a necessary ...
 

(BTW, this editor is a nightmare - you get a formatting tag in there somewhere, and it's diabolical getting rid of it ...)

 

 

 

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

 

Oh c'mon ... sitting in a club watching Buddy Guy play right in front of me has never been captured by any recording ... and we were drinking lots of beers ... can't remember needing to pee until after the show  ... also ChicagoFest, Saturday July 4th, 1981 ... CTA ... crowd went bezerk and that's never been captured. Could go on and on. Grateful Dead, great sound... of course there are many crappy bands with bad sound.

 

Sitting in front of a quartet: priceless.

 

I know, I know convenience. But trust me, if you've ever been up close to a hot cellist intently playing... recordings never do that justice 

 

LOL!  I must admiit I have enjoyed almost every concert I have gone to immensely, even ones where things sometimes went wrong. Well, if you count out the Ring Cycle, which I tend to find less than thrilling. (I prefer "I killed the wabbit!" myself...) 

 

I don't think a recording can compare to the experience of a live concert, but I don't think the sound at a live concert compares favorably to the recording either.

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I have limited experience with live rock, more with jazz and a whole lot in classical.  Paul is certainly entitled to his opinion, and there are times when it might be true.  But, I suspect, especially with acoustic instruments in the right venue, that you are exactly right.

 

But, his points about classical music are basically total King of the Mountain BS, based on his "I know better than you mere mortals and my system, which I am not going to reveal, is simply awesome" mindset.  Classical recording engineers, and I know a few, for heaven's sake, totally reject his position, and are happy when they even come remotely close to live.

 

For the record, I do not wish to change your opinion, which I personally find to be  King of the Elitist Mountain BS.  Fair?

 

[jabbr]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I want the "hot cellist" right in front of me, and I do whatever it takes to make that happen.

 

You are going to have to hang out more in conservatories then. You can't get that in your listening room unless you put a ring on it  ... well or good wine... But sitting in  chair won't make that happen...

[Paul R]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Fitzcaraldo215 may not wish to listen beside me, but this is the type of experience I chase. I want the "hot cellist" right in front of me, and I do whatever it takes to make that happen. Many people get that already in various ways, and what upsets people like Fitz is that I do it using very conventional gear, which is carefully optimised. Their concept is that good sound requires expensive components, and that's dead wrong - the latter make it easier to get there, but are not a necessary ...
 

(BTW, this editor is a nightmare - you get a formatting tag in there somewhere, and it's diabolical getting rid of it ...)

 

 

 

 

I doubt that is what gets him upset - he does not seem upset to me at all. 

 

I think you are being a little inaccurate in the way you are describing what you are doing. If you push the entire system up to the "optimal" volume - meaning the volume at which each component is providing the sound you enjoy the most, it will never be at the edge of a speaker's or the electronic's performance. 

 

Yes, even a cheap speaker can usually play pretty darn loudly before it gets in the distortion envelope enough to sound bad. Bose has proven you can do that for decades, and Bose speakers (in specific the 901s) still sound pretty darn good.   You can certainly play inexpensive speakers louder than most people would enjoy or tolerate. 

 

But, the key is, a really good speaker can play just as loud, and most people will tolerate or even enjoy it. In [mysterious] my experience, you do not get that with low cost speakers from a AIO Home theater system. YMMV of course, and in the end, it is what you enjoy listening to that counts. 

 

One big danger of audiophile is getting your system so good you can no longer enjoy less than stellar recordings, or just about anything that is really fun. Some people listen almost exclusively to their system (which is work to me) and not nearly as much to the music that is playing on that system.  That's part of of the audiophile scene, and perfectly okay for those folks, at least as far as I am concerned. 

 

I keep Sonos and a Naim Mu-So around for music that just sounds crappy on a very resolving system. I really want to enjoy the music.

 

 

 

 

[fas42]

There's hot and there's hot  ... in my younger days I mixed in with a fair few from the music making crowd, so I certainly know what's the experience is like inside a normal room. As an example, I was sitting on a lounge opposite one of the most highly regarded classical guitar players in the world, as he idly picked up his instrument and demonstrated some aspects of playing "difficult" pieces of music. These sort of experiences tend to stick in your mind, and give one a reference of what such sound can be like.

 

[Paul R]

14 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

You are going to have to hang out more in conservatories then. You can't get that in your listening room unless you put a ring on it  ... well or good wine... But sitting in  chair won't make that happen...

 

(evil grin) Unless you add 4K video and trick your mind into hearing a bit differently. Preferably over 7 or 9 channels....  (/evil grin) 

 

[fas42]

A very crude recording of the Buddy Guy style of thing being played on that home theatre setup, done years ago,

 

 

Amateur hour for the recording, I had huge problems with the recorder clipping, and you can hear the circuits being pretty hopeless in handling the dynamic range - the mic had to be turned to face the rear wall to help solve this.

 

Sorry for the quality, but it may give some an idea of the impact it produced.

 

[fas42]

13 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I keep Sonos and a Naim Mu-So around for music that just sounds crappy on a very resolving system. I really want to enjoy the music.

 

 

OK, I look beyond that - a highly resolving system can also project a soundscape which is fully involving on "crappy" recordings - to me, this is a measure of the competence of the playback system. Along these lines I have an incredibly "dirty" CD of tracks of Ike and Tina Turner playing in clubs - has studio tracks which are "super hot" in the mastering - this would be impossible to listen to on a conventional audiophile rig ... but, a playback system can be coaxed to deliver the musical message intact - and this then becomes fabulous to listen to ...

[jabbr]

44 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I don't think a recording can compare to the experience of a live concert, but I don't think the sound at a live concert compares favorably to the recording either.

 

 

Clearly depends on the artist and type of concert e.g. Radiohead studio vs in the waaay back of Lolapalooza where you can't see and yes the music is all blurred. I've seen James Taylor in several cities and venues over the years and sound quality clearly varies. Its very hard to get good seats to big acts.

 

The big problem nowadays, particularly in classical is that recordings are a vanishing revenue stream and so there's much less focus on making great recordings  Live concerts are how artists make the $$$.

 

[kumakuma]

25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

A very crude recording of the Buddy Guy style of thing being played on that home theatre setup, done years ago,

 

 

Amateur hour for the recording, I had huge problems with the recorder clipping, and you can hear the circuits being pretty hopeless in handling the dynamic range - the mic had to be turned to face the rear wall to help solve this.

 

Sorry for the quality, but it may give some an idea of the impact it produced.

 

 

Can you remind us what we are supposed to be hearing in this video?

 

I compared it to the original with the same speakers and DAC and I didn't hear anything earth moving in your version.

[fas42]

10 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Can you remind us what we are supposed to be hearing in this video?

 

I compared it to the original with the same speakers and DAC and I didn't hear anything earth moving in your version.

 

Everyone hears differently, but what I am looking for are the signs that if if I happened to have had the same, rather poor quality recording device - it was a low cost Fuji camera - in the environment where a guitarist happened to be playing, that the type of sound would be comparable. It's not meant to sound "spectacular", or a pristine, super nice, playback system - rather, it should not give away clues that it is in fact a recording being listened to ... that's the idea

[jabbr]

46 minutes ago, fas42 said:

A very crude recording of the Buddy Guy style of thing being played on that home theatre setup, done years ago

 

When I saw Buddy Guy my first time in a small club, he was playing fantastically fast. He held out the guitar with his left hand only, still playing, thrust the guitar essentially in our faces. I just sat there awestruck. You can't really imagine this if you don't see it.

 

So clearly being "there" involves more than just hearing  

 

[kumakuma]

21 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Everyone hears differently, but what I am looking for are the signs that if if I happened to have had the same, rather poor quality recording device - it was a low cost Fuji camera - in the environment where a guitarist happened to be playing, that the type of sound would be comparable. It's not meant to sound "spectacular", or a pristine, super nice, playback system - rather, it should not give away clues that it is in fact a recording being listened to ... that's the idea

 

I get where you're coming from but I would argue that using a low fidelity recording to show high fidelity is like handing an art appraiser a newspaper picture of a painting and asking him whether or not it's an original.  

[fas42]

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

I get where you're coming from but I would argue that using a low fidelity recording to show high fidelity is like handing an art appraiser a newspaper picture of a painting and asking him whether or not it is an original.  

 

Of course it's not going to work like that - I was very frustrated at the time that the quality of capture was too poor to be really useful - so I only did it a few times, as a record of what was going on. I only posted it because of the Buddy Guy mention, and Paul, and AJ, implied that a simple HT system can't do something worthwhile - just keep in mind, that these are plastic 3" speakers, driven by chip amps, rated at about 15W ...

[kumakuma]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Of course it's not going to work like that - I was very frustrated at the time that the quality of capture was too poor to be really useful - so I only did it a few times, as a record of what was going on. I only posted it because of the Buddy Guy mention, and Paul, and AJ, implied that a simple HT system can't do something worthwhile - just keep in mind, that these are plastic 3" speakers, driven by chip amps, rated at about 15W ...

 

I agree that sounds better than it should have although I would have edited out the conversation with the missus at the beginning...

[fas42]

22 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

When I saw Buddy Guy my first time in a small club, he was playing fantastically fast. He held out the guitar with his left hand only, still playing, thrust the guitar essentially in our faces. I just sat there awestruck. You can't really imagine this if you don't see it.

 

So clearly being "there" involves more than just hearing  

 

 

My "Buddy Guy moment" was at a Billy Thorpe concert, indoor, 20 feet away from the band - no PA apart from the voices - this mob don't hold back, all knobs at 11 ...

 

 

[fas42]

Just now, kumakuma said:

 

I agree that sounds better than it should have although I would have edited out the conversation with the missus at the beginning...

 

Which was deliberately left in to give a reference marker for the quality of the recorder, and volumes ...

[Johnseye]

3 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

When I saw Buddy Guy my first time in a small club, he was playing fantastically fast. He held out the guitar with his left hand only, still playing, thrust the guitar essentially in our faces. I just sat there awestruck. You can't really imagine this if you don't see it.

 

So clearly being "there" involves more than just hearing  

 

 

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

My "Buddy Guy moment" was at a Billy Thorpe concert, indoor, 20 feet away from the band - no PA apart from the voices - this mob don't hold back, all knobs at 11 ...

 

 

 

I lived a block away from Buddy Guy Legends in Chicago back in '89 and further up north for another 10 years. I was a bit spoiled as I got to know a waitress there and it became a regular hang out spot. I'd sit at the bar with Buddy drinking cognac talking about nothing. At his performances he'd walk out into his back alley and walk up the fire escape playing guitar. He'd always walk around the club playing. Good memories. 

 

And oh yea, Billy Thorpe. Children of the Sun. I was actually listening to to that tonight showing my neighbor my system. Always a fun song to crank. We used to sit in my friend's truck back in college cranking that up. He had a great sound system in that truck. 

[Ralf11]

so what was his favorite cognac?

[Johnseye]

34 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

so what was his favorite cognac?

 

Almost 30 years ago I can't remember mine let alone his.  Extremely down to earth person.  His band at the time consisted of a younger woman playing keys who he was was screwing, an amazing young guitarist protege and a drummer.  I'll have to see what happened to that guitarist.  Around that time Eric Clapton showed up at his club and sat in with him for a show.  I unfortunately wasn't there.  One of those regretful moments in life.

 

This was also around the time Stevie Ray showed up.  Maybe the year before.  Just before he died.  I had been out seeing Dead shows.  Trade offs.

[semente]

8 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I have limited experience with live rock, more with jazz and a whole lot in classical.  Paul is certainly entitled to his opinion, and there are times when it might be true.  But, I suspect, especially with acoustic instruments in the right venue, that you are exactly right.

 

But, his points about classical music are basically total King of the Mountain BS, based on his "I know better than you mere mortals and my system, which I am not going to reveal, is simply awesome" mindset.  Classical recording engineers, and I know a few, for heaven's sake, totally reject his position, and are happy when they even come remotely close to live.

 

This is the thing.

One may like the sound of reproduced instruments (there's certainly the ability to capture more sounds like mechanical noises and produce/create more instrument separation) but even the best recordings reproduced by the most accurate playback still sound like reproductions and not like the real thing; instruments may sound close but not real.

 

As I've mentioned previously it's like comparing the juice of a freshly squeezed orange with the contents of an Orangina bottle.

 

And at this point we are only talking about sound, ignoring the importance of the phenomenological experience of sharing the musical event with the artist and a group of fellow listeners.