Another Alternative Way to Review Systems?

[LL21]

An open, good-natured query about reviewing systems:

What would happen if you played 3 different forms of live music in the same room as the system under review...and recorded each performance...and then played it back through the system in the room?

While clearly bringing source material creates a "constant" when going from room to room...something which is waaay more practical and also important in its own right as a "constant", i admit to often being curious about doing it the way i suggested.

i suspect if i had the chance to compare systems/components this way, i would be surprised about some of the components i ultimately choose.

Obviously, you cannot bring around a 100-man orchestra, hip hop group, jazz ensemble around with you every time you want to audition something!

but for dedicated setups (or even shows), i would imagine a few local string quarters, 1 soloist, and and some simple electronic music would probably give people a great experience about "live" vs "reproduced". given how much money companies spend on shipping equipment, paying sales people to attend, renting rooms...bringing a high quality mike, recording equipment and paying a few local musicians to play live for a day/alternate to the recording would be an educational test.

Thoughts?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-live-versus-recorded-listening.html

Sorry.

Tim

 

[LL21]

Thanks! i read the article...interesting. i think that some of the reasons he is not a fan of this methodology are not entirely convincing. For example, visual cues...have people sit backwards. For example, the music and performance must be the same...record the live event and play it back immediately. Recording quality may not be good...focus on well-placed mikes, etc. instruments and speakers need to be in *** same place...on the one hand, they would be if they were in *** same room. plus, with respect to EXACT placement, isn't that the point of 2 speakers creating a "soundstage"?

in the end, i acknowledge...there is no perfection. There is no perfect test. but it sure would be fun, and i do suspect that part of the reason some people like equipment that does not measure well is (in some cases) perhaps because the equipment is doing things well that we are not measuring. Does a live vs just-recorded-2 seconds-ago comparison help us figure out what else we should be measuring? maybe/maybe not. but again, i think it would certainly be another education in helping me open my ears about how to listen critically in a regular room when listening to my own cd's.

thanks for finding that article so quickly!! interesting read...

 

[Ethan Winer]

Here's my take on this: Recorded Realism

--Ethan

 

[LL21]

Thank you! interesting. i would love to have a full-out assault system set up on stage in an orchestral hall, and have jazz ensemble or string quartet playing...record it right there and play it immediately back right there on stage on the speakers. i wonder what kind of tuning people would do on their systems then.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I do not believe this is at all useful. The live group is recorded with the room's ambience. The recording is then played back in that same room and that superimposes yet another influence of the room acoustics. If the recording sounds like live, something is fishy.

 

[LL21]

You are surely corret on that point. We always getting 2 rooms in the playback of any recording...the room in which the original recording was made...plus the room in which the playback is being done. I My only thougt was whether in doing this A/B comparison back-to-back with the actual live performance, does that A/B actually help in the evaluation of the system? After all, if we're in a stereo store playing CD's where we've never heard the original live event, then we are really guessing... at least this way, we can say we heard the actual live performance, and got an immediate playback 2 seconds later via the system. just a theorectical question in any event, since its unlikely people would go thru this trouble just to evaluate a system.

 

[fas42]

The recording is then played back in that same room and that superimposes yet another influence of the room acoustics

I would have to agree with that. There are 2 layers of identical ambience here, a bit like some pop recordings where the vocal sound is overdubbed multiple times with itself to get an effect. It may be a very impressive effect, but it is an effect nonetheless.

Frank

 

[RBFC]

You'd have to have the live group in another room, with the mike feed hooked into the stereo playback system to "double-up" the room ambience. The recording played would need to be recorded from the same room, perhaps in an alternate take of the same piece. Even this approach has some inherent problems. Perhaps a "tape monitor" loop that allowed A/D and D/A to compare to the live analog feed...?

Lee

 

[Kal Rubinson]

What's needed is an anechoic recording of the group to be played on the test system for comparison to their live performance in the test room. This was done in the past by AR and others. Of course, it assumes the mics and recordings are perfect.

 

[RBFC]

What's needed is an anechoic recording of the group to be played on the test system for comparison to their live performance in the test room. This was done in the past by AR and others. Of course, it assumes the mics and recordings are perfect.

Thus, the preference for listening to the same performance: one straight through and one through the A/D->D/A loop.

Lee

 

[LL21]

The key here is we have 2 choices: playback recordings where there is already ambient noise on the track (ie, any symphony performance, live band, etc.) where we were not at the performance and have very little honest idea what it truly sounded like. Or be at the live performance, and be able to play it right back through a system. Neither is perfect...i would have thought the 2nd would be better...because we can compare live to recording (ie, A/B).

The challenge in making this anything more than theoretical is the fact that even if people offered this service in special demonstrations...we would likely end up with a capella or small ensembles...which would be great for testing this kind of music...but much of what makes a great speaker is its ability to play other kinds of music too...orchestral, etc which requires dynamics, slam, etc...and in the case of a live performance roughly 70 musicians.
As a consumer who is always tryingt to gauge which equipment seems to playback my music more like "natural, live music"...i often find i wish i had actually heard the recording so that i could really have a better ability to gauge the equipment's playback.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Thus, the preference for listening to the same performance: one straight through and one through the A/D->D/A loop.

Lee

Same problem with duplicating the room contributions.

 

[RBFC]

Same problem with duplicating the room contributions.

Agreed, but at least it's apples to apples.

Lee

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Agreed, but at least it's apples to apples.

Lee

More like apples to candied apples.

 

[RBFC]

More like apples to candied apples.

hahaha!

Lee

 

[LL21]

Recording a live performance and playing it back in the concert hall 2 seconds later still has to be better than playing a recording in a living room when one was not at the original live performance. In that one sense, apples to candied apples is still better than, using your analogy, apples to apple sauce. hah...ok i think i've taken this thread too far...

 

[Ethan Winer]

The live group is recorded with the room's ambience. The recording is then played back in that same room and that superimposes yet another influence of the room acoustics.

Yes, unless the microphones are placed so close to the instruments that contribution from the room is very small. Of course, with some types of instruments that adds a new set of problems. Many acoustic instruments send different frequencies off in different directions, so there's no one nearby location that can capture the entire range.

In the larger picture, I'm more interested in a recording that sounds pleasing rather than sounding accurate to the original venue. Most of the time when I hear a live concert, I wish I were home hearing a good recording in my own living room.

--Ethan

 

[LL21]

Ethan - i am inclined to agree with you. Most of the time, i really try to focus on whether the playback makes me feel like i am listening to real music (or just sound). When i do focus on the sound from my system as compared to live, i generally apply my own "general sense" of live musical instruments (rather than interpolate/guess what the actual recorded event must have actually sounded like). I generally use piano since i studied for 12 years...between the complexity of sound from keys, reverb, pedals, hammer and also the enormous dynamic range of live piano...it is a good test for me (one of many).

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Recording a live performance and playing it back in the concert hall 2 seconds later still has to be better than playing a recording in a living room when one was not at the original live performance. In that one sense, apples to candied apples is still better than, using your analogy, apples to apple sauce. hah...ok i think i've taken this thread too far...

I am not so sure but that this simply introduces a new set of unfamiliar uncertainties, rather than resolving the old familiar ones.