Better than Live??

[Groucho]

Is everyone listening for the same thing, though? Have you ever listened to an album, or watched a live music event on your home theatre system and afterwards realised that, effectively, 'you were there'? i.e. your suspension of disbelief was almost total? I have. But is it really just the same as reading a book i.e. when you are in that state of mind, you only need a few cues to maintain the illusion? In which case the quality of the equipment is almost irrelevant as long as it's merely 'good enough'.

I am the sort of person who, when watching a film or TV programme that uses real, interesting music in the background, will find myself listening to the music rather than following the plot, and I have to go back and force myself to listen to the words instead.

I wonder if I am literally incapable of listening to an audio system that is playing real music without simply listening to the music rather than the system (or extraneous factors such as the acoustics etc.).

Is this why they invented the special 'audiophile music' that seems so popular around here? You can listen to it on a purely technical level without actually liking it, or engaging with it emotionally. I also have my suspicions that it is popular precisely because it is so undemanding in every way, that an audio system with small speakers can reproduce it pretty much as though 'you are there' (or 'it is here').

Do audiophiles tailor their musical tastes in order to fit their system rather than the other way round?

 

[GaryProtein]

. . . . Is this why they invented the special 'audiophile music' that seems so popular around here? You can listen to it on a purely technical level without actually liking it, or engaging with it emotionally. I also have my suspicions that it is popular precisely because it is so undemanding in every way, that an audio system with small speakers can reproduce it pretty much as though 'you are there' (or 'it is here').

Do audiophiles tailor their musical tastes in order to fit their system rather than the other way round?

There is an increasing catalog of audiophile music and for the most part, it stinks. I won't spend five minutes listening to it. Groucho is right in that many audiophiles do alter their tastes, or what they listen to, in order to listen to a high quality recording. He is also right that most of that crap is so undemanding on the system that it is laughable.

 

[Champ04]

Listening to just about anything at home is better than having to stand to see a concert and/or listen to a bunch of singing, yelling, clapping arm-waving concert-goers who can't just sit still and just listen. The show is on the stage-NOT in the audience.

Wow. Strangely enough, this answers so many questions for me.
I used to think that the majority of "audiophiles" were douchbags who wouldn't know the sound of "live" music if it flew up their arse. Ah well, I still think there are a lot of those out there.
But it never occurred to me that people would be so against the live performance. Man, it's all these elements of the live performance that I think make it unique.
Maybe it's a right brain / left brain thing. Maybe this describes the age old argument over "detailed" versus "musical".
I enjoy every last spec of resolution and transparency that my stereo gives me.
Ironically, I'd still rather forgo some of that "accuracy" for the chance to be in the moment and part of a live event.

 

[mep]

Yeah....Mark you know I meant nothing of the sort.

Tim

Honestly Tim, I didn't. However, you being a guitar player and constantly being around musicians playing instruments live, I would have expected you to fall more the other way in the "live vs. recorded" debate. You of all people should know that what we hear live is not what we hear when the sound is recorded and how much information escaped the recording. I know you know.

 

[LL21]

For me, the reason i enjoy the system is not just for the music...its a hobby and a passion for the system too which can in its own be a heckuva lot of fun. Why does a guy who loves his sports car enjoy polishing it on the weekends? Isn't he supposed to just drive it? But polishing it, looking at it, thinking about driving it on Saturday with the top down...revving it up well past 80 on the highway...that's the hobby part of it...not the driving.

...for me, its the same with the system...i love the idea that come friday nite, it'll be on til late and probably 15 hours on both Sat and Sun while my wife and i work at our big desk in the living room. Album after album...i try never to play an album twice because there's so much great music to get thru...and on a system that has taken me years and years to assemble one piece at a time. Hunting and searching for that one second hand piece where i've read every review til the pages are tattered while i waited to get it. That in itself is part of the enjoyment.

That is the hobby part which obviously I dont get when we go out to listen to a concert. So the system for me is part of the experience which i also enjoy. When I listen to music on the system, i enjoy the great music first and foremost, but i admit i also enjoy the fact that the system plays it so well too...both kinds of fun at the same time.

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

If I may be so bold as to state that 90% or more of commercial recordings aren't made by persons who understand how to capture the sound of an orchestra, that would be the fundamental point of my argument. My GBSO recordings are quite different from the commercial fare. I think 'outside the box' and don't constrain myself to 70 years of incorrect assumptions about sound and recording. The result are recordings which, when played back on a properly set up system in a properly treated room, produce uncanny clarity, detail and sense of 'being there' that has been commented on by just about everyone who's experienced a playback in my facility. It's always in the first five seconds that people's jaws drop as they hear the opening of a Rachmaninoff recording that I made in 2010.
Part of the sense of space is the infrasonics captured from the venue space . The rest is the balance achieved by using mics aloft, but with focused pickup patterns that capture intimate details of up close miking, with the balance heard from 4th row center.
To anyone that wants to assert that no sound system can reproduce snare drums or other loud percussive sounds (try my .38 S&W as a reference), I strongly invite you to make the cross-country trip to my place to the annual B.A.S.S. meetup next weekend, for a life-changing experience. People came last year and just about all of them have a new perspective on what High Fidelity could be.

 

[NorthStar]

-- And what about if 5,000 people show up at your place, Mark?

 

[GaryProtein]

If I may be so bold as to state that 90% or more of commercial recordings aren't made by persons who understand how to capture the sound of an orchestra, . . . .

I think you are being polite phrasing it that way!

The situation is really bad.

 

[NorthStar]

I think you are being polite phrasing it that way!

The situation is really bad.

Of course it is Gary; money driven, not audio passion.

* But we're here to share the good news; ECM record label, Channel Classics, JVC XRCD, AudioQuest, Analogue Productions Originals, FMI, Chesky, Concord Jazz, etc. :b

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

-- And what about if 5,000 people show up at your place, Mark?

I doubt there are 5,000 audiophiles in the whole world! LOL!

Commercial recordings (orchestral) are either dark and lacking in detail, flat and two-dimensional (from overhead miking), or multimiked and EQ'd to produce a 'synthetic' sense of detail, thus sounding harsh. My miking technique produces surprising detail, while retaining balance as the audience hears it. I've surveyed people who listened to my recordings and every one of them judged that I had mikes 3-5' from the instruments, based on the amount of detail they were hearing, as well as lack of noise and excessive ambience. When I tell them that the mics were actually 30' away, and 18' up over the 4th row center, they can't believe it. That's the power of using a specific mic pattern and combining it with 'the best seat in the house'.

 

[NorthStar]

-- Mark, your recordings, are they available on CDs?

 

[microstrip]

Commercial recordings (orchestral and instrumental) are much better than many people suppose. Unhappily most people will have the wrong idea of their quality because their systems are not able to play them adequately.

As many others, at one phase of my audiophile life I accepted the audiophile paradigm that Deutsche Grammophon CD sounded bad. However, at some point I listened to Bartok piano concertos in my favorite version (Géza Anda, Ferenc Fricsay conducting the RSOB) in an top system and it sounded much better than usual. It sounded natural and enjoyable, something I did not expect at that time from a DG CD recording - in one word it sounded great! Since that time I started carrying my well recorded commercial CD for shows and listening sessions - surely triggering snobbish comments from distributors exposing poor systems "Oh, it is DG, it is natural it sounds poor" or "You know this system shows all the defects of your recordings" and so on ...

However my most revelatory experience with commercial recordings was with DCS top digital equipment. In an appropriate system the damned thing shows detail in natural colors and image layering with such a natural perspective that it fools your mind into a real event very easily. However, used in the wrong room with non synergistic equipment it will sound cold and sterile. If it was not for the very high price and my primary reaction against the quick obsolescence and even faster devaluation of digital playback equipment I would own a Vivaldi system ...

I am addressing the quality of mainly classic music and jazz - I have not experience enough with pop/rock or ladies singing with a small band, although I love Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, to express a qualified opinion on those.

Just to end I must be lucky. I own a few tens - perhaps more than an hundred of the so called audiophile recordings (LPs and CDs) from known audiophile labels and almost all of them have excellent musical content that I enjoy a lot. Does it mean that I only picked the good ones?

 

[Groucho]

I own a few tens - perhaps more than an hundred of the so called audiophile recordings (LPs and CDs) from known audiophile labels and almost all of them have excellent musical content that I enjoy a lot. Does it mean that I only picked the good ones?

By 'special audiophile music' I mean the sort of music that is played on this video, linked to in another post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GrX4xQFwzOM

You see if I had a pair of speakers like that, my first thought wouldn't be to try them with drippy middle-of-the-road female vocals/piano/bass.

At what stage do people migrate from the Stones or Stravinski and decide that it is a manly pursuit to listen to stuff that's not much more exciting or interesting than lift music? Do young men foresee the day when they'll be listening in rapt silence to cocktail lounge music over a pair of speakers they're about to spend $140,000 on? (plus a few grand on pieces of wire to link them up). Might they be forgiven for thinking that their future selves have gone stark staring mad?!

 

[garylkoh]

Thanks, micro. I guess I'm a lousy audiophile as I didn't know that DGs sound bad. Much of my classical collection is DG.....

IMHO, Live and Recorded are completely different things. Live music is an experience, and recorded music is a possession. Sometimes, when I go to a live event, I also want a recording to take away with me (just like I take pictures when I travel). Saying to me that Recorded is better than Live is like telling me that receiving postcards from your friends telling you "Wish you were here" is better than travel.

On the other hand, there is danger in travel. The recent stories of women being raped in India, catching the novovirus on cruise ships, being trampled by a herd of stampeding elephants, etc. keep me enjoying the pictures and efforts of others. I prefer pictures (or movies) of stampeding elephants to actually being there.

We can have both, as long as we understand the limitations of both. In live concert events, as many here have pointed out, the quality of the sound is affected by the venue, your seat, the electronics used, the speakers used, and the mics used - some or all of the above. The experience, though,is affected by your fellow audience. There is no way that even the best seat in a rock concert will be able to capture the resolution and detail of a close-miked, direct-fed recording. The loudness would swamp your ears, and the distance between you and the speakers suck up detail in the air.

On the other hand, the visceral thrill of being in an audience of thousands, carried along by the energy of the band is an experience not to be missed.

With a recorded "live" event, you enjoy the intimacy and detail and sound of the event. Rarely, you can feel the energy. But does Ricky Lee Jones live at the Red Rocks sound remotely like being there? Not a hope! I don't care how expensive/good your system is. It isn't a particularly good recording, but it was a superlative event.

However, Ricky Lee Jones - the studio album - sounds far better than any live Ricky Lee Jones event. Is it better than live? Not unless I was there in the studio standing where the mic stand is.

Yes, I have stuck my head where a mic would have been in a recording. Listened, and then compared what I heard through headphones. Even that is not even close. The microphone, cables, and mic preamp already results in deterioration. But that deterioration is far, far less than what comes out of the speakers.

Then, of course with the skill of recording and mastering engineers, there are those albums where recorded is far better than 'live'. This video reminds me of that:

 

[Joe D]

Unless you are in an intimate setting ...you are at the whim of the PA system and the stoner running the board...so it is very possible when you have control of most parameters..is it live of Memorex ?

 

[NorthStar]

-- Deutsche Grammophon GmbH DGH record label; some classical music recordings are great, others not so great. ...I have few hundreds of those.
It depends of the year of production and the recording engineer.

Another good music record label is Reference Recordings. ...Mr. Johnson and his technical music recording developments. :b

Also, DSD from SACDs bring you closer to the music emotional impact than regular/standard Red Book CDs.
...In general, but there are record labels out there with PCM CDs that will cost you closer to fifty bucks a piece!
...And closer to the real thing.

I like what Gary just said; the live event is a musical experience you share with real life people,
the recordings are snap shots from various camera angles for your own personal collection.
And he said exactly the same thing than I; they are two completely different things.

What can we do to make both experiences more enjoyable?
1. Take a chance and buy good tickets for the good venues from the artists we like.
2. Take a chance and buy only good music recordings, from the artists we like, from the best music mediums.

And that's exactly why we're all here in these audio forums of the Internet; to learn some more and improve our level of happiness (and raise our degree of awareness too). ...For me it is anyway. Because if it wasn't I simply wouldn't be here in the first place.

Better than Live? ...You bet sir!

* BTW, Bruce (B.) here, and Mike too (Lavigne); they know some of the best music record labels too. :b

 

[caesar]

If I may be so bold as to state that 90% or more of commercial recordings aren't made by persons who understand how to capture the sound of an orchestra, that would be the fundamental point of my argument. My GBSO recordings are quite different from the commercial fare. I think 'outside the box' and don't constrain myself to 70 years of incorrect assumptions about sound and recording. The result are recordings which, when played back on a properly set up system in a properly treated room, produce uncanny clarity, detail and sense of 'being there' that has been commented on by just about everyone who's experienced a playback in my facility. It's always in the first five seconds that people's jaws drop as they hear the opening of a Rachmaninoff recording that I made in 2010.
Part of the sense of space is the infrasonics captured from the venue space . The rest is the balance achieved by using mics aloft, but with focused pickup patterns that capture intimate details of up close miking, with the balance heard from 4th row center.
To anyone that wants to assert that no sound system can reproduce snare drums or other loud percussive sounds (try my .38 S&W as a reference), I strongly invite you to make the cross-country trip to my place to the annual B.A.S.S. meetup next weekend, for a life-changing experience. People came last year and just about all of them have a new perspective on what High Fidelity could be.

MBL speakers put you there with good and bad recordings. That's what great engineering is all about.

 

[JackD201]

while i respect mbls are your current favorite i beg to differ that speakers listening puts you "there". they attempt to bring some fasimile of the event to you. . binaural attempts to put you "there". a big semantic difference but fundamental never the less.

A well calibrated system in a well designed room can. IMO opinion more than binaural which is more of a head trip skewed towards localization and ambience with little in the way of the visceral/tactile aspects of "live". Just speaking from my own experience. A massive pressure wave trump "oh it's over there" in my book and I am nowhere near where the Bass Pig is at.

 

[JackD201]

By 'special audiophile music' I mean the sort of music that is played on this video, linked to in another post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GrX4xQFwzOM

You see if I had a pair of speakers like that, my first thought wouldn't be to try them with drippy middle-of-the-road female vocals/piano/bass.

At what stage do people migrate from the Stones or Stravinski and decide that it is a manly pursuit to listen to stuff that's not much more exciting or interesting than lift music? Do young men foresee the day when they'll be listening in rapt silence to cocktail lounge music over a pair of speakers they're about to spend $140,000 on? (plus a few grand on pieces of wire to link them up). Might they be forgiven for thinking that their future selves have gone stark staring mad?!

I went big and am going bigger to play even bigger. Loud is easy. Presenting large scale music in appropriate scale effortlessly is what gets my heart racing.

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

-- Mark, your recordings, are they available on CDs?

Unfortunately, no, due to orchestra union restrictions. And the only copy that I've sent for evaluation went to Peter Aczel at the Audio Critic. Here's what he had to say about it:

“I played your Beethoven CD through my reference system and heard truly excellent sound. The bass/midrange/treble balance is much better than on nearly all commercial CDs; the low-frequency impact without any actual boost is particularly noticeable. The hall ambience is not excessive, as it often is; it's right on the money. ... I'd love to hear what you could do with the Philadelphia Orchestra, or the Cleveland Orchestra, or the Berlin Philharmonic in their native habitats.”

— Peter Aczel, The Audio Critic