You are arguing a very different point. The debate is whether what we hear at home can approach what one would have heard in the real venue.
Actually, I thought the debate was whether or not “audio science” explains everything we hear.
It is not whether elements "survive" the transformation through production of finished music. Of course elements do that. A female singer doesn't become a male singer in the process
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You obviously haven’t heard Cher sing in past 15 years.
The question is if I magically did an A/B between you sitting in the live presentation and through a stereo system, would they be indistinguishable. The answer is that you can't remotely, in a million years, achieve that with a stereo system with music as is produced today.
Amir, it doesn’t sound like you to not quantify any part of your question here. Nor your answer.
For example, a stereo system ranges anywhere from $20 to perhaps $3M.
Indistinguishable by you? Do you have well-trained ears? I’m not trying to put you on the defensive but having ears to hear should be a very important qualification to your argument here. For example, I once had a reviewer from out of state visit, didn’t bring his own music, to my surprise told me during his audition what he heard on my system was very much like what he heard on his. Only to receive an email from him several days later saying after listening more intently to his system, he now realized there was gobs more detail in mine. But the point being was his ears were untrained enough that he could not make the distinction at the time when it was needed. And this reviewer writes for a well-respected mag.
You also insinuate an awareness of all technological advancements available today as well as a million years down the road. I realize the million years is hyperbola to stress your point, but I would attest not only can you not tell what may come along next year, you haven’t even investigated every technology already discovered today that may prove your statement, not necessarily wrong, but at least inaccurate to a very good degree.
No microphone captures the room. Music is mixed, EQed, transformed, etc. To say nothing of the fact that tonally you have no idea how close your system is to the original one that was used in the production of music that the talent heard.
Rooms don’t generate a sound on their own. But music interacting with a room’s acoustics and boundaries certainly do and I would attest that much of this sound (ambient info) is already embedded in the vast majority of recordings available even though the vast majority of this ambient info remains inaudible below the noise floor.
I’m guessing it’s impossible for anybody to prove that ALL the ambient info made it to a given recording, but I can demonstrate that there exists far greater volumes of ambient info than anybody ever thought possible in virtually every recording.
This is the concept that we need to understand and forever put behind us the #1 marketing technique used to sell us audio gear, dating back to the days of Edison claiming the same "live" music reproduction.
Couldn’t agree more. However, it’s never wise to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Time and technology does not stand still. Furthermore, those who desire to pursue excellent with a passion must always be on guard developing the ability to discern a staff or two of wheat from the volumes of chaff.
That is what we buy as consumers. But no, that does not mean in any way or shape that if our equipment achieves nirvana, it somehow remotely matches what was heard in a live session. We are hearing a completely different presentation of the original art.
I’d agree in general, especially with where the industry stands today. But again, you can’t make such a blanket statement and maintain credibility unless you’ve been exposed to every technological advancement already made and you haven't.
It’s come up a time or two about comparing high-resolution digital photography and the awesome images that technology is able to capture of a live event to reproduced music and its ability to capture a live event. Now I really know nothing about photography but I do know it has the ability to an outstanding job of capturing a live event and I also know that photography has one very serious limitation that audio reproduction does not. That serious limitation is photography cannot exceed 2 dimensions. Whereas, even though many playback systems sound very flat and 2-D, audio reproduction somehow is able to produce a very 3-dimensional representation that I suspect very much reflects recording mic placement.
I was showing the frequency response of two loudspeakers: one that is a top brand in professional music production circles (Genelec) and one in consumer (Wilson). When fed the identical signal, both reproduce wildly different tonal response. That tonal response is a linear transformation that everyone, no matter how critical their hearing, can hear and differentiate. No way would the sound heard by the Genelec speaker be the same if you replaced it in the same production room with the Wilson. Therefore we have already radically changed what we hear versus what the talent heard. So no way can we say that we are replicating the "live" experience if in this case we forgive and forget the recording process that led to the final stereo mix.
This has to be taken in consideration with your other unqualified comments. The words reasonable and due diligence come to mind.
For example, might anybody with ears to hear use Genelec speakers to perform a magical A/B comparison between a live performance and you listening to a “stereo” system? Come to think of it, there are enough historic threads out there showing some question whether or not Wilson speakers are way off the mark also (not saying me).
But another perhaps more important point as you dissect each leaf of the trees from the forest of a music reproduction. Is it not possible that given today’s digital photography, (or maybe going back to the digital technology available 10 years ago) that science-minded types might microscopically dissect a digital image of a forest for it’s hues, shadows, light, colors, detail, square pixels, and conclude there is no way with all these imperfections and inaccuracies that digital camera technology has the ability to present a reasonably accurate image of this forest?
In other words, there are two major barriers to us claiming that we are approximating the live experience. The first one is that no one attempted, nor is it possible to capture a live session with 100% transparency into two loudspeakers.
Speaking theoretically, is it ever possible for one to exactly counterfeit an original?
And two, that the production and playback chains have no standards that would make the sound the same.
Agreed. But you just might be amazed at what you’re able to perceive from reproduced music once a noise floor has been greatly lowered.
These combined mean that no way, no how do you ever, no matter how good you think your system is, are hearing anything like what was heard either in the live recording session, or what final stereo production.
I’m well aware where the industry stands today from a performance perspective (it ain't pretty) and I think my numerous posts refuting Meridian’s outrageous (impossible) performance claims about the new MQA format demonstrate that.
In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’ve been implying here that there must exist at least one very serious performance-limiting governor attached to every last playback system regardless of price, quality, or how well-thought-out it may be. If that’s what you are essentially saying, well, I could agree more as I’ve been making that very statement for several years now.
Nevertheless, you seem awfully confident in your numerous claims here about what cannot be accomplished by any playback system. Per chance, are you a betting man?
