Some music recordings are pretty good at mimicking the venue's ambiance in its reproduction at home: Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
- The mic positioning techniques.
- The venue itself.
- The recording machine(s) used.
- The scale of your room and speakers.
- The low frequencies (subwoofers) available from your loudspeakers (= part of the overall ambiance).
- The quality of everything, including the smallest details like clean electricity, to the biggest details like cables synergy.
Try Tallis Scholars live in Rome or Neil Young's Massey Hall, if those recordings don't put you in the moment,I don't know what can.Two channel stereo can get you close,but a psychoacoustic enhanced system will reproduce all the ambient information that is necessary. All the information is present,it will hit you like a hammer,not just glimpses of the actual venue.
I don't have those two records, but when I listen to the live recordings I do have, among which is another Royal Albert Hall performance (Deep Purple this time), I don't see myself sitting in the venue.
A question: this psychoacoustically enhanced system, what exactly is that?
I don't have those two records, but when I listen to the live recordings I do have, among which is another Royal Albert Hall performance (Deep Purple this time), I don't see myself sitting in the venue.
A question: this psychoacoustically enhanced system, what exactly is that?
Roger added two front height speakers (smaller monitors) on top of his two large towers from his stereo system. ...Almost at ceiling's height.
He provided some pics in the past. If he reads this I'm positive he'll post one again. Then he can tell you more about; the connections, the interaction, etc.
I'm pretty sure that this is what he meant by a psychoacoustic enhanced system.
I don't have those two records, but when I listen to the live recordings I do have, among which is another Royal Albert Hall performance (Deep Purple this time), I don't see myself sitting in the venue.
A question: this psychoacoustically enhanced system, what exactly is that?
Not to that particular hall, but to other halls and performance venues. While they all might be different in terms of frequency response, the are similar in terms of sounding like a large space, and that feeling I don't get from a recording, meaning that I can hear that it's a large space but I'm not there. I've got The Fox Touch volume 1 (DMM in Garden Groove Community Church): I can hear that reverb time is very low for a church, but I'm not there.
I don't know if I can get with this, my setup has dynamics that are on par with the Legacy Whisper XD's (I've heard them with the same tracks). It can faithfully reproduce a full drum kit (made my mother believe someone was playing drums in my room when she was over for a visit). I've been around a lot of drum kits and play percussion myself - yes I believe my system has drums down pat. However there are other t hings I've heard other speakers do better than mine - so it all depends and it's very subjective. I believe I can faithfully reproduce the type of music I listen to, (mainly "black gospel" and jazz). As a choir director - I know what they should sound like - and I know good ones from bad ones. This question would also involve musical taste. A listener that's a club person, when you mention scale - I don't know many speakers that can do that outside of having a full on pro P.A., but in the audiophile world - that wouldn't be considered music - but it is to a party person. Type of musical taste will dictate these answers just as much as the gear itself IMHO.
All I can say (especially since I know that horn systems in general are looked down upon in audiophile circles - but like Nicodemus, people sneak around at night and listen to horns ) - is that I enjoy my present system very much and I'm not looking to change it. Now if some Whispers or Khorns were to come my way...maybe (but then I have to look at room size).
The weakest link is the recording/master/disk/lp, tape, whatever the medium is, itself. If the recording doesn't capture the essence of the performance, the best system can't reproduce it.
The really good systems can reproduce whatever is on the recording.
I enjoy popular music, but would never consider going to a live concert because I don't want my ears blown out, they sound lousy at best and they sound different in every venue the concert is performed--so what is real? Popular music, to me sounds best on studio recordings despite their inadequacies and the foibles and often flawed preferences of the recording engineers.
Classical unamplified concerts are very hard to record. Do you record how it sounds from the conductor's podium, the fifth row, twentieth row, someplace else? Do you mix in close miked and far miked sound? All this has to be considered when making the recording and that is why the recording is the weakest link. Some are spectacular, many to most are mediocre at best.
I am at or very close to the finish line. If something new and interesting comes to market, I may entertain it.
You've hit the nail on the head. The variables change!!! If you listen to a concert, you are generally listening through an amplification system and P.A. What is real? That's the question that needs to be answered.
I don't have those two records, but when I listen to the live recordings I do have, among which is another Royal Albert Hall performance (Deep Purple this time), I don't see myself sitting in the venue.
A question: this psychoacoustically enhanced system, what exactly is that?
30 years ago a friend and a electronics engineer built this passive circuit for me and it corrects the time domain in the room. When I lived in another house with a larger room the large speakers were spaced farther a part and only one pair of speakers were used. Now in my condo the configuration is a little different, I added another middle pair. The psycho speakers are powered by a separate amplifier.
I listened to the DVD version of Massey Hall last night and a great amount of low level information is produced by the psycho speakers,the same CD version is less so. My nuvistor preamp will output much more info out of the psycho circuit,the solid state and tube preamp that I have less so.
The psycho speakers will only reproduce information that is in the recording,if it's not there,the output will be less. Live recordings on a whole,sound better with the circuit, but it benefits most recordings.
What exactly does it do and to what part of the signal? Does it filter (high-pass, low-pass), does it equalize, does it generate phase shifts, does it generate delay? What psychoacoustic mechanism does it exploit?
What exactly does it do and to what part of the signal? Does it filter (high-pass, low-pass), does it equalize, does it generate phase shifts, does it generate delay? What psychoacoustic mechanism does it exploit?
) - is that I enjoy my present system very much and I'm not looking to change it. Now if some Whispers or Khorns were to come my way...maybe (but then I have to look at room size).
