Although quoting a text or opinion is a dangerous game in WBF, unless you renege your faith on subjective heresy, I hope that the strawman guardians are sleeping during the weekend and I dare to reproduce a very interesting and surely polemic text about the "the subtle expressive nuances" of music, something that I have several times reported to be an indicator of an exceptional system in my preference system, and of particular importance in chamber and classical music.
The quoted piece is taken from a full essay about stereo reproduction and can be read at http://www.anstendig.org/Stereo.html
"IV. THE POINT OF ALL MUSIC IS TO EXPRESS SOMETHING
The expressive content of sounds is contained in the dynamic variations of the sounds. In fact, it is the dynamic content of the sound. The presentation of the dynamic subtleties is, therefore, the most important problem of sound reproduction.3 Problems of instability in the sound, which can plague the stereo spatial effect relative to the listener's position in the room, do not occur in the dynamic content of the sounds, which remains the same throughout the room. No matter how the balance of frequencies or stereo imaging may be changed, the sounds retain their dynamic-expressive character relative to each other as they flow in time.
Until the advent of stereo, spatial relationships were unimportant, even undesirable in the bulk of the world's music. In most classical music, the introduction of directional effects in the sound-reproduction distracts the listener from the important factors that actually contain the musical experience. The most important aspects of sound, especially those of classical music, have nothing to do with spatial effects and can be reproduced satisfactorily in mono.
A stereo signal introduces extraneous "effects” that distract from the more important dynamic aspects of music. Except for the pickup cartridge, stereo effects have nothing to do with the quality of the system components. The reason is that, in the sonic arts, spatial relationships are a very insignificant component of sound and are particularly insignificant in music. In most classical music, they can be eliminated without at all degrading the quality of the artistic experience.
The reason spatial effects distract from the expressive qualities of music lies in the limitations of human consciousness. Most people can only concentrate on one thing at a time, which, in music, is usually the melodic line. Few can concentrate on two things at a time. Since our consciousnesses are too limited to be simultaneously aware of all the components of music, concentrating on spatial effects distracts from the important aspects of music.
To understand why the stereo-spatial aspects of music-reproduction have been accorded such predominance, to the point of obscuring the truly important aspects of music, one must know that the easiest-to-hear aspects of sound are the directions the sounds are coming from. The most difficult-to-hear aspects are the subtle expressive nuances.4 Many people cannot hear subtle expressive nuances. Few are oriented towards listening for those nuances and practically no one takes pains to be sure they are hearing them correctly. Furthermore, long-playing record-playing equipment has, without exception, not as yet been able to reproduce the finest nuances of records. The record-listening public has not, therefore, experienced nuances as fine as they can be. It is taken for granted that they are hearing the exactly the same nuances as in the original.
In controlled situations, our institute has found that, although they do experience something, many people are incapable of accurately hearing expressive nuances either live or reproduced. They experience either a coarser form of the actual emotion of the performances or a completely different emotion.5 Even those capable of hearing fine nuances cannot hear them the moment they sit down to listen, especially with recordings. It takes quite a while for most people to settle down enough physically to begin to register the subtleties of the music and to experience the emotional content. To understand why, one must realize that what is heard is not the sound vibrations coming from the sound source; what is heard is the vibrations of the hearer's own body when it is caused to vibrate by the sound-waves striking it. Therefore, any nuances finer than the vibrational state of the body itself are not heard. Essentially, unless the body is in a physical state that is as fine as the music being listened to, the music is filtered through, and degraded by, the coarseness in the way the body is vibrating. This point is crucial to understanding why spatial effects figure prominently in most people's considerations of sound reproduction. Besides being easy to hear, spatial effects do not demand a particularly great refinement of body. Being able to notice and make-out spatial dimensions and directional effects impresses listeners who are not hearing the full content of the music, and gives them the impression that they are getting something out of the recording, when they are actually missing the point of the music.
If, from the beginning of a listening session, one would carefully observe what aspects of the music one becomes progressively aware of, one will notice that, besides notes and words, the first things one is able to hear are the simple spatial relationships (right, left, center, etc.). The last thing one is able to hear is the expressive, i.e., the emotional, content. The notes and spatial relationships can be called the “informational" aspects of sound, while the expressive content can be called the “experiential” aspect.6 The point to be made is that, without the experiential aspects, there really is no music, and that a distortion or change in the expressive content of a recorded performance is tantamount to changing the words in a sentence so that they mean something totally different from what the writer expressed. In other words, a complete falsification. On the other hand, it makes no difference to the quality or intensity of the way one experiences the expressive content of the music if the so-called "sound stage" is changed to give one or another impression of height, depth, and width, nor does it matter if the orchestra seems to be spread out in front of the listener (unless the music was specifically written for stereo, or has some of the expressive content contained in the directions of the sounds. The Beatle's album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has excellent examples of both).
The spreading out of the sound in space is totally unimportant to and contrary to the aims of most music written before stereo became popular. In their orchestration, composers took great pains to create particular sound colorings by blending together the sounds of different instruments. Halls were designed so the sounds would thoroughly blend together before reaching the listener. When a conductor has balanced his orchestra, there is no need for separation of the instruments by spreading them out in differing directions in order to hear the different voices; whatever is supposed to be heard can be differentiated even from so far away that all the sounds of the orchestra essentially come from the same direction. Similarly, if a recording of such a well-balanced performance is correctly equalized to match the original, the balance that the conductor has achieved can be heard in mono, without the supposed help of stereo “separation”. This is an important point for the music-loving public because it means that older recordings of such excellent performances can, to a great degree, be restored since it is mainly their imbalances in the frequencies that obscure their detail and not a lack of stereo effects.
One must assume that composers know what their music should sound like, but, originally, composers were singularly unimpressed by stereo. Virgil Thomson went so far as to call it a “technological pretext” giving the recording companies “another excuse for recording the standard works all over again" (A Virgil Thomson Reader, p. 144). Another composer has mentioned that stereo is an excuse to sell new, more expensive equipment. No composer whom I asked or with whom I listened to music was the slightest bit interested in the depiction of spatial effects."
The quoted piece is taken from a full essay about stereo reproduction and can be read at http://www.anstendig.org/Stereo.html
"IV. THE POINT OF ALL MUSIC IS TO EXPRESS SOMETHING
The expressive content of sounds is contained in the dynamic variations of the sounds. In fact, it is the dynamic content of the sound. The presentation of the dynamic subtleties is, therefore, the most important problem of sound reproduction.3 Problems of instability in the sound, which can plague the stereo spatial effect relative to the listener's position in the room, do not occur in the dynamic content of the sounds, which remains the same throughout the room. No matter how the balance of frequencies or stereo imaging may be changed, the sounds retain their dynamic-expressive character relative to each other as they flow in time.
Until the advent of stereo, spatial relationships were unimportant, even undesirable in the bulk of the world's music. In most classical music, the introduction of directional effects in the sound-reproduction distracts the listener from the important factors that actually contain the musical experience. The most important aspects of sound, especially those of classical music, have nothing to do with spatial effects and can be reproduced satisfactorily in mono.
A stereo signal introduces extraneous "effects” that distract from the more important dynamic aspects of music. Except for the pickup cartridge, stereo effects have nothing to do with the quality of the system components. The reason is that, in the sonic arts, spatial relationships are a very insignificant component of sound and are particularly insignificant in music. In most classical music, they can be eliminated without at all degrading the quality of the artistic experience.
The reason spatial effects distract from the expressive qualities of music lies in the limitations of human consciousness. Most people can only concentrate on one thing at a time, which, in music, is usually the melodic line. Few can concentrate on two things at a time. Since our consciousnesses are too limited to be simultaneously aware of all the components of music, concentrating on spatial effects distracts from the important aspects of music.
To understand why the stereo-spatial aspects of music-reproduction have been accorded such predominance, to the point of obscuring the truly important aspects of music, one must know that the easiest-to-hear aspects of sound are the directions the sounds are coming from. The most difficult-to-hear aspects are the subtle expressive nuances.4 Many people cannot hear subtle expressive nuances. Few are oriented towards listening for those nuances and practically no one takes pains to be sure they are hearing them correctly. Furthermore, long-playing record-playing equipment has, without exception, not as yet been able to reproduce the finest nuances of records. The record-listening public has not, therefore, experienced nuances as fine as they can be. It is taken for granted that they are hearing the exactly the same nuances as in the original.
In controlled situations, our institute has found that, although they do experience something, many people are incapable of accurately hearing expressive nuances either live or reproduced. They experience either a coarser form of the actual emotion of the performances or a completely different emotion.5 Even those capable of hearing fine nuances cannot hear them the moment they sit down to listen, especially with recordings. It takes quite a while for most people to settle down enough physically to begin to register the subtleties of the music and to experience the emotional content. To understand why, one must realize that what is heard is not the sound vibrations coming from the sound source; what is heard is the vibrations of the hearer's own body when it is caused to vibrate by the sound-waves striking it. Therefore, any nuances finer than the vibrational state of the body itself are not heard. Essentially, unless the body is in a physical state that is as fine as the music being listened to, the music is filtered through, and degraded by, the coarseness in the way the body is vibrating. This point is crucial to understanding why spatial effects figure prominently in most people's considerations of sound reproduction. Besides being easy to hear, spatial effects do not demand a particularly great refinement of body. Being able to notice and make-out spatial dimensions and directional effects impresses listeners who are not hearing the full content of the music, and gives them the impression that they are getting something out of the recording, when they are actually missing the point of the music.
If, from the beginning of a listening session, one would carefully observe what aspects of the music one becomes progressively aware of, one will notice that, besides notes and words, the first things one is able to hear are the simple spatial relationships (right, left, center, etc.). The last thing one is able to hear is the expressive, i.e., the emotional, content. The notes and spatial relationships can be called the “informational" aspects of sound, while the expressive content can be called the “experiential” aspect.6 The point to be made is that, without the experiential aspects, there really is no music, and that a distortion or change in the expressive content of a recorded performance is tantamount to changing the words in a sentence so that they mean something totally different from what the writer expressed. In other words, a complete falsification. On the other hand, it makes no difference to the quality or intensity of the way one experiences the expressive content of the music if the so-called "sound stage" is changed to give one or another impression of height, depth, and width, nor does it matter if the orchestra seems to be spread out in front of the listener (unless the music was specifically written for stereo, or has some of the expressive content contained in the directions of the sounds. The Beatle's album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has excellent examples of both).
The spreading out of the sound in space is totally unimportant to and contrary to the aims of most music written before stereo became popular. In their orchestration, composers took great pains to create particular sound colorings by blending together the sounds of different instruments. Halls were designed so the sounds would thoroughly blend together before reaching the listener. When a conductor has balanced his orchestra, there is no need for separation of the instruments by spreading them out in differing directions in order to hear the different voices; whatever is supposed to be heard can be differentiated even from so far away that all the sounds of the orchestra essentially come from the same direction. Similarly, if a recording of such a well-balanced performance is correctly equalized to match the original, the balance that the conductor has achieved can be heard in mono, without the supposed help of stereo “separation”. This is an important point for the music-loving public because it means that older recordings of such excellent performances can, to a great degree, be restored since it is mainly their imbalances in the frequencies that obscure their detail and not a lack of stereo effects.
One must assume that composers know what their music should sound like, but, originally, composers were singularly unimpressed by stereo. Virgil Thomson went so far as to call it a “technological pretext” giving the recording companies “another excuse for recording the standard works all over again" (A Virgil Thomson Reader, p. 144). Another composer has mentioned that stereo is an excuse to sell new, more expensive equipment. No composer whom I asked or with whom I listened to music was the slightest bit interested in the depiction of spatial effects."
