Article: Realism vs Accuracy For Audiophiles | Part 2: The Real Sounds Of Live Music

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Thanks for this nice article.

 

Do we really need a very "accurate" system to be able to differentiate musicians playing the same instruments? I don't think so. Once you are familiar with their work it's easy to tell musicians apart even on a low quality system (small radio, phone, etc...), simply because their styles and tone are often so different (even if they were to use the exact same instruments - ex: same sax, same mouthpiece). 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

5 hours ago, hopkins said:

Thanks for this nice article.

 

Do we really need a very "accurate" system to be able to differentiate musicians playing the same instruments? I don't think so. Once you are familiar with their work it's easy to tell musicians apart even on a low quality system (small radio, phone, etc...), simply because their styles and tone are often so different (even if they were to use the exact same instruments - ex: same sax, same mouthpiece). 

 

Please dismiss this comment - improved accuracy may not be vital to distinguish musicians, but it certainly contributes to our appreciation of their "art". For example, listening to Ben Webster's "My Funny Valentine" (rec.  with Teddy Wilson on March 30, 1954), you can fully appreciate his awesome tone with an accurate system. There's no difficulty, however, in identifying Ben Webster even coming out of a cheap bluetooth portable speaker...

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Thanks for the recommendation - will listen to that concert ("One Night..."). Charlie Parker grew up in the "big band" era (not a term I like), played with several (including a year in Chicago with Earl Hines), so not surprising he fit in well.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I'm not that familiar with Charlie Parker, to be honest (sacrilege, I know, but I got a late start and am working my way there). Here's a partial "sologrophay" of his which I am sure you will find interesting and covers the early recordings (1940-1946) that have survived (I assume it is fairly complete): http://www.jazzarcheology.com/artists/charlie_parker.pdf

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

30 minutes ago, bluesman said:

This is yet another great example of the importance of accuracy in reproduction.  My bet is that many audiophile jazz fans have heard recordings of Bird on tenor and didn’t hear or notice a difference.  If you can’t tell a tenor from an alto on a recording good enough to differentiate between the two (which is almost all commercial jazz recordings), there’s something missing somewhere between the source file and your higher cortical centers 😗

 

In that particular case, I would say the system is certainly not at play - I would assume that most people who don't take note of the difference may simply not be interested in that aspect ? They may still appreciate the music, and still appreciate "audiophile" sound, if you see what I mean. 

 

Since I believe you are in the "music business", do you find that people who are very involved in music (musicians, collectors..) often don't necessarily have very "accurate" systems at home ? Open question...  I hesitate about the use of that term in my question - lets say they are not always very attentive to the performance of their home system ?

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

3 hours ago, bluesman said:

True for some.  But the note ranges of tenor and alto sax overlap by an octave and a half.  The alto’s range is from concert Db 3 (ie the one below middle C) up 2 1/2 octaves to Ab 5.  The tenor’s range is from concert Ab 2 up 2 1/2 octaves to E 5.  And most playing is within that overlap.  So even a slight midrange emphasis could make a thinner tenor sound more like a fat alto.  Throw in the many variants among mouthpieces, reeds, embouchures, and playing styles and you can find yourself loving an auditory mosaic that simply doesn’t sound like the player you think you’re hearing, if your system adds coloration similar to that of a thicker reed or a smaller instrument.

 

This level of distinction is far more obvious than the effects of many system mods and substitutions discussed on AS and elsewhere, and used by many audiophiles to “improve” the SQ of their systems.  If differences of this magnitude don’t matter or are inaudible to someone, I don’t understand how he or she could possibly hear or justify the effort and cost of “audiophile grade” stuff.

 

If there are audiophiles who don’t care enough about the sounds of music and of the instruments and musicians playing it to want to be able to enjoy the distinctly beautiful nature of whatever music they like (eg the very different sounds of Paul Desmond and Charlie Parker on the “same” song and instrument or the vastly different sounds of baroque and modern orchestras and instruments playing the same music), about what do they care?

 

I have a hard time following you here. What is your point exactly ? 

- we can't appreciate music without knowing how it is made ? if we don't care how it is made then we cannot appreciate it (and are not worthy of having a good system) ?

- or if we can't tell/care how it is made then it is because we can't hear it (system is not accurate enough and we are just wasting our time talking about audio and buying equipement) ?

 

No one denies that understanding "how" something is made can increase the appreciation we have of it. But here you are essentially referring to the "techniques" involved, and not other aspects which are just as fundamental, perhaps even more. Recognizing that there are different sound palettes in a musical piece is one thing, knowing which instruments are used to produce them is yet another, and explaining the effect produced is yet another (which does not require knowing the actual instruments). Obviously a system should be accurate, and an attentive listener should be able to hear all the nuances you describe.

 

If someone asked me - explain to me why you appreciate a certain musician, or a song ? I don't think listing the instruments would be of much value. It could give some clues as to the variety of sounds that are being heard. I don't need to know which brand of saxophone Charlie Parker (or anyone else) used to appreciate his music. It is an interesting piece of information, at best, but not really essential...

 

I think we can all agree that if one cannot hear the difference between Charlie Parker and Paul Desmond (even if you cannot name them) then it is probably not your system that needs to be changed but your hearing that needs to be checked. 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, bluesman said:

  I believe that we're far more likely to benefit from critical listening and learning more about our music than we are from tweaking our systems.  I'm pretty confident that almost every AS participant has a system with more than passable SQ.  And I'm equally confident that our AS friends and colleagues will hear many of the things I've written about, once they start listening for them.  

 

Physics and engineering are both great knowledge sets and paths to further improvement.  But you can't engineer a solution until you've defined the problem and validated your measurement system.  The music holds the keys to defining new goals, and science has the tools to buld the paths to them.  I, for one, believe that many audiophiles cling so hard to the physics and engineering of audio that they leave music (the reason they have audio systems) relatively unexplored.  We need both.

 

I was really confused at some of your previous comments, and I better understand the purpose/motivation now that it  is stated more clearly. 

Thanks. 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

51 minutes ago, Jud said:

I'll let it go for a bit to see if anyone else comes up with it. If not, I'll happily let the cat out of the bag in a while.

 

He's using a wah-wah mute. 

He's trying to get his trumpet to make   chinese intonations (hence the title) ? Is that the "humour"? Hope I have not offended anyone by suggesting this... 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

was way off track !

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

6 hours ago, bluesman said:

He made the wah wah sound with a guitarist’s wah wah pedal. Contrary to popular belief (and Wikipedia), he still played his standard trumpet -  but he mic’ed and amplified it, using guitar effects like the wah pedal.  And, apropos of the article that started this thread, you can and should be able to tell the difference between a Harmon mute and a wah wah pedal on this tune (and all of Miles’ electric albums).  They sound quite different.

 

Touché. They do sound different, and I assumed he was using some kind of effect on top. How can you tell the difference between an electric bass going through various effects, and a synthesizer, and does it really matter from the standpoint of music appreciation ?

 

From a listener's perspective, without comprehensive knowledge of the techniques/instruments used in a recording, can we still evaluate a system ? I think we can:

 

- "distortion" (opposite of "accuracy") can be evaluated using test tracks of music we are more familiar with. If I only listened to Japanese music and had never heard what a Shamisen sounds like "live", then you could be right, I may be hard pressed to evaluate the accuracy of my system. Or if I listened to those Charlie Parker tunes you mentioned where he was using a plastic saxophone without having this information and tried to "tune" my system to the sound of what I think saxophones sound like, then you are right, I would be misled. 

 

- "completeness" (detail retrieval) can be evaluated even if you have no idea what the "real" instruments sound like, and this is done by comparing the effect of various changes to the system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Technical knowledge of music informs our understanding and appreciation of music (as do other aspects - such as the historical/cultural context), regardless of what system we use - and that's where the value lies (and your posts are very interesting from that perspective). The evaluation of a system is completely different, and we should not confuse the two.