Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[fas42]

Found another article on someone discovering the magic happening ... https://6moons.com/industryfeatures/livingvoice/definitive.html. Again, Living Voice - the man behind the company knows what he's after, and has the resources to pursue it properly - and note the year, 2006. This type of thing has been achieved over and over again, for as long as audio reproduction has been around - but always remains a very niche area, in terms of the number of people who live in the space.

 

Why is it so rare? Because the care and attention to detail needed is beyond most people - they want a solution ... right here, right now !!! 😜

 

Anyway, the good news is that there are plenty of shortcuts to hearing the intrinsic "specialness" of recordings - something I've spent years exploring - and even less intense doses of high quality sound are extremely satisfying.

 

Those who are obsessed with the need to believe that higher standards of replay are just outright impossible are doing themselves, and the audio game in general, a significant disservice ... because the ideas of some of the people who pursue this goal irritate at time, the disbelievers use such to try and rubbish the whole concept - and everyone loses ...

[fas42]

On a single page on What’s Best Forum, comments related in respect to Mike Lavigne's highly tweaked rig,

 

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previously i had only heard most of the movie tracks in my home theater in my house. it has a an Anthem AVR 60 with 7.1.4 Revel Dolby Atmos speaker system that sounds pretty good. but nothing like what the big rig 2 channel does. the 'right' 2 channels smokes multi-channel.....no matter how many speakers......for music

 

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Tana Active Anti vibration under the Dart monoblocs
We were playing 1/2 inch 15 ips tapes and we decided to observe the active vibration compensation switched on and off. When we turned off the active control, the 3D soundstage collapsed. When we turned it back on, the 3D images coalesced in less than 2 seconds

 

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My experience has always been that good sonics is extremely fragile, it only takes a small negative factor or effect, and the soundstage collapses and the realism is gone. Last night showed how robust realistic sonics can be when you get RF noise and vibration management in the source and chain right. You can have an absolutely engaging, realistic and enjoyable musical experience despite challenged room acoustics.

Amen to all those comments ... there's nothing new or radical in what has to be done to achieve convincing sound; we are now at a point where people who can throw lots and lots of money at this task will achieve it - the trickle-down will take some time though, because better research has to be done into pinpointing cost effective methods ...

[fas42]

Ah, dear ... 😉.

 

For those who want to be reminded of what the energy of live music is like, here is a good sample, showing how easy it is to convey such even on a YouTube clip - I pulled this one up in seconds, but there are plenty more to delve into; this captures what I'm after in the presentation ......  do I hear someone coughing, "Dolby A!", somewhere in the background, 😝

 

 

 

[STC]

@Albrecht , are you the same Robert Albrecht in the Youtube?  

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

For those who want to be reminded of what the energy of live music is like, here is a good sample, showing how easy it is to convey such even on a YouTube clip - I pulled this one up in seconds, but there are plenty more to delve into; this captures what I'm after in the presentation ....

 

 You must have a highly active imagination.

With a total bit rate of 1,513 kbps for the Video AND Audio at 1280 x 720 there is very little bandwidth left for the Audio. 

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 You must have a highly active imagination.

With a total bit rate of 1,513 kbps for the Video AND Audio at 1280 x 720 there is very little bandwidth left for the Audio. 

This is the same guy who thinks that a bunch of mid-Fi components playing through a pair of cheap speakers out of a ghetto-blaster boom-box can create a state-of-the-art listening experience. Of course he has a “highly active imagination” and that’s being very kind!

[fas42]

Okay, did the usual for getting best YouTube sound ...downloaded the 160k Opus audio, into Audacity - unfortunately, the usual, peak values hitting clipping level; so dropped the amplitude enough so that resampling at much higher rates caused no problem, and exported a 48k WAV ... turns into a 60Meg file. Made sure Windows audio was not doing some on-the-fly conversion, and used foobar to play ... solid, dynamic sound, very clean, created a nice ambience - so vastly superior to what a PA rig does for music ... 😉.

[STC]

Wonder how the higher resolution would fair?

But the apparently the Youtube sound was pristine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[fas42]

What on earth is that, ST? The waveform is a mess, so sounds pretty awful, here, even after downloading.

 

Got hold of Media Monkey, part way through getting settings right - so far, foobar is still winning, comfortably, on this clip! Will continue the story on the step by step thread ...

 

 

[STC]

Just telling you that the YouTube sound was not a live. Obviously, you can’t even tell the difference. But maybe also the laptop sound can only reproduce lofi better than hifi   . 
 

 

[fas42]

6 minutes ago, STC said:

Just telling you that the YouTube sound was not a live. Obviously, you can’t even tell the difference. But maybe also the laptop sound can only reproduce lofi better than hifi   . 
 

 

 

And what tells you that the sound in the clip is not live?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Posted for @shtf because he was blocked by our firewall from doing so. 

[shtf]

On 11/22/2019 at 5:00 PM, fas42 said:

 

And what tells you that the sound in the clip is not live?

 

Thanks, Chris.

 

Frank, my earlier response before lost was something to the effect...

 

With all due respect, the audio of your live subway video sounded as if all the air had been sucked out of the subway station and as a result there was very little audio "energy" and was certainly no match for the live subway performers' energy.  To demonstrate live energy levels (per your earlier post) I provided this in-room recording of a recording of a live perormance to compare / contrast to your recording of the live subway performance.

[fas42]

3 hours ago, shtf said:

 

Thanks, Chris.

 

Frank, my earlier response before lost was something to the effect...

 

With all due respect, the audio of your live subway video sounded as if all the air had been sucked out of the subway station and as a result there was very little audio "energy" and was certainly no match for the live subway performers' energy.  To demonstrate live energy levels (per your earlier post) I provided this in-room recording of a recording of a live perormance to compare / contrast to your recording of the live subway performance.

 

Sorry ... "audio energy" ?? The sound in that clip you posted is terrible! Compressed, compressed, compressed - a poor PA standard ... if that is what people think live acoustic sound is like, no wonder we have a problem ... 😝.

 

Live sound is intense - not, badly distorted !! And what makes it intense is SPLs - most rigs can't do clean high volumes; they make a mess of it - the term for a system that does get it right is usually, "effortless" ... the tonality doesn't change as the volume goes up, but the, subjective, sense of intensity keeps being heightened.

[semente]

I think you'll like this. 😎

[fas42]

Hmmm, only OK quality - had a listen to a few videos on the KV2 channel - still only of a PA standard.

 

I have reference of how good sound reinforcement can be, from 1988 - Expo at at our Queensland capital, Brisbane. Main room in the Canadian pavilion; they were showing one of those "how exciting, and colourful is our country!!" videos ... but what bowled me over was the standard of the audio track - I couldn't pick a thing wrong with it; vastly superior to all the hifi rigs I had listened to over the preceding years: tremendous impact, zero obvious distortion, treble was totally there, and super clean; effortless dynamics, SPLs that just rolled over you, and never sounded compromised.

 

Every other PA, at other exhibits there, was a very feeble, highly compromised nothing, in comparison - still stands out like a beacon after all these years ....

[shtf]

On 11/24/2019 at 1:35 PM, fas42 said:

 

Sorry ... "audio energy" ?? The sound in that clip you posted is terrible! Compressed, compressed, compressed - a poor PA standard ... if that is what people think live acoustic sound is like, no wonder we have a problem ... 😝.

 

Live sound is intense - not, badly distorted !! And what makes it intense is SPLs - most rigs can't do clean high volumes; they make a mess of it - the term for a system that does get it right is usually, "effortless" ... the tonality doesn't change as the volume goes up, but the, subjective, sense of intensity keeps being heightened.

 

Sorry, Frank.  I thought you posted that Lucky Chops video to remind us what the "energy" of live music was like.  That video reminded me of no such thing. 

[fas42]

18 hours ago, shtf said:

 

Sorry, Frank.  I thought you posted that Lucky Chops video to remind us what the "energy" of live music was like.  That video reminded me of no such thing. 

 

Which is part of the problem in audio. Very hard to convey to another person exactly what one is thinking of, and concerned with, unless you are both in the presence of the sound happening - it always has to be translated through the hardware of what the other person is using, otherwise.

 

In my mind, I can 'translate' what's in the clip of Lucky Chops to a live experience - the clues are in the sound, I can "go there" and hear them playing, in front of me.

[kumakuma]

35 minutes ago, fas42 said:

In my mind, I can 'translate' what's in the clip of Lucky Chops to a live experience - the clues are in the sound, I can "go there" and hear them playing, in front of me.

 

Have you thought perhaps this isn't how most people experience recorded music?

 

It would certainly explain why your ideas are met with such derision.

[Ralf11]

well, not if they are sober anyway

[PAP]

On 11/21/2019 at 2:46 AM, fas42 said:

Ah, dear ... 😉.

 

For those who want to be reminded of what the energy of live music is like, here is a good sample, showing how easy it is to convey such even on a YouTube clip - I pulled this one up in seconds, but there are plenty more to delve into; this captures what I'm after in the presentation ......  do I hear someone coughing, "Dolby A!", somewhere in the background, 😝

 

 

 

Would love to see these guy recorded by Reference Recordings, 2L or maybe by Sound Liaison for their One Microphone series.

[fas42]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

Have you thought perhaps this isn't how most people experience recorded music?

 

It would certainly explain why your ideas are met with such derision.

 

I know how most playbacks deliver recorded music - and that's why my interest is in moving beyond that. A few people know, have experienced, how powerful, how intense, how "live", replay of event captures can become - and this is why it's called "magic" - in this thread, 🙂. It's a learning how to ride a bike moment - once it's there, you never lose it ... you can live without touching a bike for decades, but if presented with one, you can hop on, and happily proceed down the road ...

 

Very expensive rigs, where huge amounts of effort and everything else have been expended, can deliver this - it turns out that very normal setups, very carefully sorted, can also provide all the really good bits of this too.

 

This idea disturbs people, because Money is supposed to be what it's all about - but sometimes, knowledge and right focus also deliver. Of course, this is against the natural order of things - and must be struck down !! 😝

[shtf]

On 11/26/2019 at 2:10 PM, fas42 said:

 

Which is part of the problem in audio. Very hard to convey to another person exactly what one is thinking of, and concerned with, unless you are both in the presence of the sound happening - it always has to be translated through the hardware of what the other person is using, otherwise.

 

I think you may be overlooking the potential that everybody has varied hearing acuity and more importantly varied levels of discernment of what they hear.

 

Quote

 

In my mind, I can 'translate' what's in the clip of Lucky Chops to a live experience - the clues are in the sound, I can "go there" and hear them playing, in front of me.

 

Sure you can.  Just like a symphony conductor or even a 5-year old can "go there" listening on a transistor radio.   I thought one of the primary goals of high-end audio was to strive to reach a level of musicality during playback where one need not over-exercise one's imagination to percieve how the presentation could or should sound.

 

Out of all the recordings out there you could have chosen to illustrate "audio energy" or live energy, hard to believe you would choose this one.

 

[fas42]

21 minutes ago, shtf said:

 

 

Out of all the recordings out there you could have chosen to illustrate "audio energy" or live energy, hard to believe you would choose this one.

 

 

Because when I'm in a street somewhere, and a group of buskers appear, like Lucky Chops, a burst of live energy explodes in front on me - if those people are stoopid enough to try and put through a rustbucket PA rig, to "give it more impact", the energy is ruined.

 

The clip I posted had it in spades, and I downloaded the best quality version of it to confirm my impression - yes, it had everything I look for, the brass had fabulous bite - not one tiny shred of the awfulness that intrudes when people try and play with the sound, "to make it better" ....

[fas42]

And I was just reminded of an audiophile acquaintance who visited several times, years ago - he couldn't handle it 'loud' - he walked in the door, and immediately asked for the volume to be turned down; for him the sound had to be very "refined" and "controlled" - like a specimen in the museum, to be held at arm's length, and studied with all one's analytical prowess ... the 'rawness' of live sound is too much; perhaps, would have a heart attack if someone grabbed a saxophone, and blasted out some big notes, right in front of him, 😝