None of the sounds you describe will allow even a modicum of realism and therefore no suspension of disbelief.
An Explanation of the Term "Suspension of Disbelief"
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
For me too. I agree with Brad and Kedar. If the system is fatiguing or grating, or if for some reason it does not sound natural, I will not enjoy it. But I have enjoyed CDs over my truck audio system and music videos over my computer speakers. These two lower fidelity systems avoid the problems I hear in many systems that drive me out of the room or disengage me.
I think it's a mindset. Walking through NYC with ear buds I have had thoroughly enjoyable moments, in my car ect. Not looking for absolute fidelity in the moment might be the key! You are also somewhat distracted and just focusing on the music in tandem with your surroundings.
Rob
I think it's a mindset. Walking through NYC with ear buds I have had thoroughly enjoyable moments, in my car ect. Not looking for absolute fidelity in the moment might be the key! You are also somewhat distracted and just focusing on the music in tandem with your surroundings.
Rob
Walking through NYC with earbuds did you have the sensation that you were listening to music in a concert hall?
Um not all apples are red!
Rob
Of course not Rob. But red apples have degrees of redness. And we say either a particular apple is red or it is not red. The apples that are not red are obviously some other color. This was in the context of my natural sound thread and my point was that a system either sounds natural or it does not sound natural. And if it is natural, there are degrees of natural. There is both a spectrum, and it is binary.
This is in contrast to what Ron was saying about “suspension of disbelief“.
Somehow along the way the discussion morphed from music on some system maintaining the listener’s interest to you feeling like you’re sitting in a concert hall. Bonzo wrote that listening to some music over a sound bar from his computer can keep his interest. I followed that up by agreeing and adding the example of my truck stereo system. I never think I’m in Boston symphony hall when I’m driving my truck. My eyes are on the road and I’m in the truck driving through the streets. The point is the music holds my interest because the truck system and the sound bar are not greeting or fatiguing. The music played over those lower fidelity systems still maintain our interest because the system does not spoil it for us.
But carry-on.
No but usually that's where I am headed and usually doing a pre-concert listen to the artists
music. I like small standing room venues like Mercury Lounge Babies Alright Music House of Williamsburg and so on Get up close and personal talk to the artists.
Rob
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If I go back some 10 years with a different main system my focus and engagement Al was very different to the pattern of my focus now. Not saying anything about what others do because these can be such abstract distinctions in themselves but on reflection (this is just my take on it) I went through a time where I was constantly analysing everything about my setup and using music as a way of appreciating the sound quality of my gear. I hit a realisation that my choice of music was being completely shaped by this and I needed to get back more to where it all started for me, the fascination and flow and wonder at great music and for the musicians that make the most engaging forms of it.
I feel what has really accelerated that mode of listening back into the totality of the music as the core experience for me is that instead of thinking most often about the sounds my gear recreates that I’m thinking more about the shape of the music itself, the shape the conductor is making of the orchestration or the players are making at any points and then how they shape their performances in total or the relationship of the playing of a featured soloist to the accompaniment or with vocalists and how the whole of the performance is shaped and also where that has taken (changed) me in listening.
I hope it’s not too wobbly a distinction and it only reflects my personal take on it. I appreciate the quality of the sounds that the system can make but now I’m always bringing it back to how that relates to the performance rather than primarily equating with how my system makes it possible for me to hear it. It’s that summative step back to the start of how it began for me and focusses on the music the players make rather than listening to the sounds my system is able to convey. This becomes the way of increasing my core connection to the big picture of music.
The moments of sounds and fragments are fleeting. But in a great performance of great music in a system that gets the holistic balance right (to me) it makes letting go of any of the moments in focus on the parts to merge back into the flow of just following the whole and the way that then folds. I figure it is about some appropriate balance between the parts and the whole by recognising the interrelating parts but without the parts dominating the whole. I suppose that’s a point where the whole then is indeed greater than the sum of the parts.
I’ve probably not got the point captured exactly (perhaps at all) but the flow and the totality of the shape of the music and my (inter) relationship with it and the spirit of the music itself become the centre of the listening experience. My fleeting attention to the parts is following the interrelated threads of the music and how in great performance (of great music) these dialogues stay connected and then fold back into the whole of the music again. This whole experience then creates an appreciation of a totality that has shape, nature and meaning.
That way the musical whole has the greatest gravity in the experience and by repeatedly looking for this my expectation has shifted back to defaulting to the core of the music. The parts (the separate sounds) are fabulous but fleeting, they are peripherals and ephemerals that build to the whole.
I feel that shifting back to just finding the best performances as my primary everyday focus it has been more like a pole star that has navigated me back to my original balance. That always looking to the totality of music itself leaves no time for questions or system disbelief. The system is flawed but it’s not central (it’s a peripheral) but the totality of the music is central and real and at its best flawless. Taking my regular focus away from my system and back again to the experience of music is the best tweak that I’ve made to my listening in many (many
) years.
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If I go back some 10 years with a different main system my focus and engagement Al was very different to the pattern of my focus now. Not saying anything about what others do because these can be such abstract distinctions in themselves but on reflection (this is just my take on it) I went through a time where I was constantly analysing everything about my setup and using music as a way of appreciating the sound quality of my gear. I hit a realisation that my choice of music was being completely shaped by this and I needed to get back more to where it all started for me, the fascination and flow and wonder at great music and for the musicians that make the most engaging forms of it.
I feel what has really accelerated that mode of listening back into the totality of the music as the core experience for me is that instead of thinking most often about the sounds my gear recreates that I’m thinking more about the shape of the music itself, the shape the conductor is making of the orchestration or the players are making at any points and then how they shape their performances in total or the relationship of the playing of a featured soloist to the accompaniment or with vocalists and how the whole of the performance is shaped and also where that has taken (changed) me in listening.
I hope it’s not too wobbly a distinction and it only reflects my personal take on it. I appreciate the quality of the sounds that the system can make but now I’m always bringing it back to how that relates to the performance rather than primarily equating with how my system makes it possible for me to hear it. It’s that summative step back to the start of how it began for me and focusses on the music the players make rather than listening to the sounds my system is able to convey. This becomes the way of increasing my core connection to the big picture of music.
The moments of sounds and fragments are fleeting. But in a great performance of great music in a system that gets the holistic balance right (to me) it makes letting go of any of the moments in focus on the parts to merge back into the flow of just following the whole and the way that then folds. I figure it is about some appropriate balance between the parts and the whole by recognising the interrelating parts but without the parts dominating the whole. I suppose that’s a point where the whole then is indeed greater than the sum of the parts.
I’ve probably not got the point captured exactly (perhaps at all) but the flow and the totality of the shape of the music and my (inter) relationship with it and the spirit of the music itself become the centre of the listening experience. My fleeting attention to the parts is following the interrelated threads of the music and how in great performance (of great music) these dialogues stay connected and then fold back into the whole of the music again. This whole experience then creates an appreciation of a totality that has shape, nature and meaning.
That way the musical whole has the greatest gravity in the experience and by repeatedly looking for this my expectation has shifted back to defaulting to the core of the music. The parts (the separate sounds) are fabulous but fleeting, they are peripherals and ephemerals that build to the whole.
I feel that shifting back to just finding the best performances as my primary everyday focus it has been more like a pole star that has navigated me back to my original balance. That always looking to the totality of music itself leaves no time for questions or system disbelief. The system is flawed but it’s not central (it’s a peripheral) but the totality of the music is central and real and at its best flawless. Taking my regular focus away from my system and back again to the experience of music is the best tweak that I’ve made to my listening in many (many
Little disagreement here, Graham. Yet I think focusing on the music as a whole as it unfolds and following individual sound events are not mutually exclusive. I do that in a live concert too. And live sound, even though the seat or the hall acoustics may not always be optimal, does not have the flaws of reproduction. So if I engage in both aspects live, then if I do the same when listening to music on a system, it is not because of the flaws in reproduction. It's a feature, not a bug. It's my way of listening.
But of course, every listener is different, and if you find bliss in concentrating just on the gestalt of the music, then all power to you.
In addition, in some modern abstract music the sound *is* the structure and the flow of the music. Thus, following the sound events and colors, and their development, is the only way to follow the music.
Our system presents a continuous emotional involvement in the music. Can’t wait for the Taiko Audio streamer. It should improve with it according to our demo.
You still are treating "enjoy" and "suspension of disbelief" as synonyms, and they are not.
That's part of the problem with the discussion on this thread. Enjoyable listening and emotionally-engaging listening are not the same concepts as suspension of disbelief.
Failure to understand the difference is one reason why we are talking past each other.
Given that "this state" is different for different people, I believe it is not intentional. One cannot cognitively will it to happen. "And now (drumroll) I'm going to switch my music experiencing from my cerebral cortex to my limbic system." The more one's mind is paying attention to the music itself and not thinking about system or how to make it sound better, the more likely to attain a 'defocused' state. I go back and forth on whether one might be able to train one's listening habits to facilitate it, make it easier - maybe similar to meditation training.
You are correct that it is a phrase, not a term.
To me the problem is the phrase itself. Upon first encounter it simply does not parse well.
It characterizes my belief that I am listening to my stereo and recasts that into a notion of something I do not believe, namely, I do not believe I am listening to a live performance. And then, I am no longer doing (suspend) what I do not believe I am doing in the first place (listening to a live performance.)
To characterize one's activity or one's 'state' by describing what one is not doing smacks of pretention. It is ego-centric and does not communicate or explain anything to the reader.
"I no longer believe I am not listening to a live performance." It does not parse well.
It is a rhetorical coloration, audiophile puffery that communicates little. It is not found in actual verbal conversation. Maybe in Ron's circles it works. Be that as it may it is still awkward. You can find the phrase in a few audio reviews with reviewers re-using what other reviewers write. Ron uses it constantly so for some here it may be 'normalized'.
You'll write a stronger sentence when you put statements in a positive form: Why not say: "for a while I thought I was listening to a live performance"?
Or simply: "it sounded realistic."
But hey - say anything you want as long as you follow the terms of service.
Liking the sound of a HiFi system is not suspension of disbelief. All the things you mentioned are artifacts in one way or another from the reproduction (could also be the recording itself) and will be perceived as such and prevent that suspension. You can still say you like it but it won’t fool you or even trigger a “damn that sounds real”, response.
It is enmeshed definitely Al but I just had it all way out of balance. Back then I’d get caught up looking to as many of the parts of the sound as possible and wasn’t just seated in the flow but rather sort of tumbling through it wide eyed rather than just following it. I was at the beach today and the ocean was being completely inspiring and it was big and perfect and I was listening to the Smetana Quartet’s cycle of Beethoven string quartets via iPhone and iems at the time when I read your post. I was up to Beethoven’s String quartet No 13… talk about performance and music being flawless… gotta love me a whole ocean load of proper Beethovian gestalt.
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Your post, as a whole, being an illustrative example … Why not merely write the above comment and leave it at that!
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