Real vs. Reproduced Sound. How Close? ..What Percentage?

[Digi&Analog Fan]

I know it is hard to quantify sound  but in the spirit of casual fun, with no lab coat in sight; just how close (percentage wise) does your system come to the sound quality of real music on better recordings? Live unamplified music is the highest standard of sound quality. Lets forget about image size as far as classical music is concerned, as reproducing something as big sounding as a symphony in a living room is a little unrealistic, but how about other aspects of the about? If you play bluegrass, how close is your sound to sitting around hearing a bunch of guys jamming on acoustic guitars. Or listening to some jazz guys jam?  Do you think doubling your sound quality would get you there or would you need more still? Along with your percentage figure, if you feel like divulging the combination of equipment you use, that's cool. If not, that's ok too. You might feel like mentioning some recordings and the format (CD, LP etc.) that bring you the closest to live music.

[Digi&Analog Fan]

With my system I would hesitate to estimate much over 50%. If I play a great quality recording of a singer, the tendency is to think, " hey that's perfect. They sound like they are really in the room on an elevated stage." But if they really were in the room I think the former sound when switching back and forth, would be exposed for what it is; a reproduction. Can you fool someone into thinking there is a singer singing in the next room? Oh yes, definitely. Can you fool someone blindfolded and not knowing where they are at,  into thinking there is a symphony orchestra playing? If they've heard a symphony orchestra a few times; no, probably not. Could you fool someone into thinking that there are a couple dudes playing acoustic guitar around the corner? Most definitely. Could you fool someone blindfolded into thinking they are standing in front of a live jazz drummer playing drums with Buddy Rich speed, frenzy and energy? I don't think so. 

 

 Some Jazz Direct to Disc lp's bring me the closest to the feeling that you are listening to live music. Before tape recording was invented in the first half of the last century, every single record was Direct to Disc. Of course I wasn't referring to those. Are there pre 1940's records (78's etc.) with what you would consider great sound by today's standards? Some say you would be amazed at what they were capable of doing soundwise as far back as the 1930's.

[Digi&Analog Fan]

Great response! What I would add to ability of getting out of the way of the music is "dynamic jump". If I was trying to guess whether the sound of drum playing is real or simply a recording, if it was a recording, I think I could always tell because with a real drummer the dynamic range of the strikes are immediate and I mean iimmediate! My ears can always hear the fraction of a second that it takes for the dynamics of a loud thwack to "build" when its coming from a speaker. With real drumming the dynamics don't seem to build, they just sound "immediate" loud. For me its always the sure giveaway and I do not have to think about it for long. The drums, they have a sudden immediacy that I have never heard a reproduction have. Like a car going from 0 to 60 in instead of a measurable time; just instantly. The other thing I think is that for how simple an instrument a cymbal is, it seems to be the darndest instrument for gear to reproduce properly. It should sound 100% metallic, never diluted with shushy white noise. I think I could always tell on those. Of course the system you heard could. have been the one that would have been the first. I couldn't picture being fooled on drums though, but it would come closer than fooling me on a symphony orchestra, that's for sure.

 

  You are right on equipment itself not having openness etc. The openness is just there on the recording, and only the best equipment lets it come through entirely without any hindrance. Probable the forte of my system is image height. If you listen to instruments playing where there is like a 100 foot ceiling , like one of the buildings I know locally and have listen to live music in. The sound just goes higher and higher up. The microphone must be able to catch and pick up this amazing height of sound. Depth doesn't seem to go 100 feet back in my opinion. Or the microphones don't seem to pick it up. Mic's sound like they do height better than depth to my ears

 

 My system can pass the live vs. test even in the same room with many recordings, but it also depends on who's the listener. It would be harder to fool someone like you or myself.

[Digi&Analog Fan]

I've always known depth as separation between the instruments along with subtle timing and phase cues. A Carver preamp I once had with a Sonic Holography button, had the best depth I ever heard by bushels of any reproduction II've heard, and basically all it did was phase shaping and create interference patterns to enhance the illusion of increased separation, which it did wonderful. Unfortunately its overall sound lacked some refinement in other ways. When our ears sense instruments are far apart our ear/ brain system "infers" spaces. You can hear there is space (depth) between instruments if they are separated enough, but the spaces themselives are framed in silence. The obvious positioning of instruments from left to right, happen on even the most reverberant-less recordings, and depth is nothing more than the same kind of seperation, only front to back instead of side to side. 

 

 I do not know if perfect treble is important in timing and phase cues, but if the treble is a little off in either direction it messes with the harmonic overtone structure of instruments timbres and can make them sound phony. Distortion can too, and distortion and brightness or the sense of brightness are definitely related. Edginess is usually a by product of both distortion and brightness. A recording or a system that has both distortion (the nasty types) and brightness makes clarity its true enemy. Distortion, like IM distortion plus brightness and peaks=awful listening fatigue and a less than pleasant listening experience. A guy who made live 30 ips tapes of musical events for a living, concurred that its depth, that is the thing that comes out curtailed by far. Even at 30 inches per second.  

[Digi&Analog Fan]

I have also heard the kind of  "depth" on others systems but it sort of needs you to pretend that its "genuine". Like people who have speakers too close to the wall behind the speakers and you can hear all kind of early reflections because of it. There might be a sense of "not really believable depth", because the depth does not "gel," because of all the early reflections from the wall behind the speakers and it confuses the ear/ brain system. These are usually people who have cables lying on the floor, criss crossing each other and with AC cables, and who are cable doubters and link their components with wires that lose sound quality like a bucket with a big hole in the bottom loses water. Through experiments I believe resonances and vibrations can also degrade sense of depth.Their sound never sounds that great and never has the  believable type of depth that really gels, without requiring mental gymnastics while listening. When they hear my system they almost have a heart attack. 

[Digi&Analog Fan]

In general, speakers and musicians really like free space. Definitely experiment.