"Natural" Sound

[Bobvin]

Hell, I often can't remember what I had for dinner the night before, yet alone presume to remember the exact tonality of a cello played the same night while attending a concert. I have continued to move my system to a place where upon coming home from a concert I can put on a record and be satisfied with the sound in terms of tonality, dynamics, "presence". (Forgive the hyperbole.) I know it is not the same as what I just heard, it just needs to be satisfying. My budget only allows for so much movement toward my goal.

Now my cousin, who is a conductor and professor of music, I would assume have somewhat different criteria for what would be 'satisfying' to him. Standing in front of the orchestra, and having done so day in and day out throughout his life, I would respect his opinion over a hundred reviewers how accurate a system reproduces the sound of a violin, cello, trumpet or piano. (Sadly, he lives on the other side of the continent, so I've not had him over to listen.) Still, I can imagine him sitting and listening to a record and being emotionally connected and satisfied, because knows it is a recording, and does not expect it to sound quite the same as when he is in front of the orchestra.

Or my brother, who makes acoustic archetop guitars. He knows how different wood is likely to sound as he chooses for the top or back. He knows a sitka spruce top will sound different than one of curly maple. IMHO, a musician's opinion would be the authority on tonality and accuracy of reproduction. Interestingly, I don't hear the voice of musicians frequently in these threads.

 

[Gregadd]

My mothers common sense told her that if two people were exposed to the germ causing the commomn cold, one could catch and the other would not. She never used the term auto-immunw system . She beleived that cold weather lowered your resisitance. Thus she beleived you were less liely to catc a cold if you kept warm. :Get in here and put your jackett on before you catch your death of cold. It worked then and still does. Nothing wrong washing you hands either.

 

[ddk]

No. As I said, I used to believe as you do. After all, as Steve said, it is common sense. You turn on your stereo, turn the volume up and average person says, "oh wow, that sounds like a real orchestra." So we believe.

It is only when you study the science and the process of recording which most audiophiles don't get to do that the house of card collapses. You learn that when you are sitting in a live concert, you have two ears. The two ears pick up different signals above a few hundred hertz. Sound from right for example get their high frequencies filtered before they arrive at the left ear. And of course there is longer delay. Likewise sound reflects from your torso and arrives at each ear differently. The brain is constantly analyzing the two varying signals in order to assess what is being heard.

Replace the above with a single microphone and all bets are off. You are only recording one sound, not two. And of course you eliminated the role of the brain. No way on earth that single microphone is capturing what you would have heard. No amount of "experiencing" the live music gets you there. Nor any amount of hearing recorded music does that either. It is a physical impossibility.

It also flatly denies the important role the recording, mixing and mastering engineers play in creating art. It assumes they are just robots spinning knobs. When in reality what we hear is through their art.

Look at painting on the left and the photograph on the right (assume the painting comes from that):

Each can and are attractive. But if I just give you the picture on the left, no way would you be able to guess how correct the blue color is on the head scarf she is wearing. Heck in your system it may be showing up as green. No amount of seeing thousands of head scarfs gives you the knowledge in this instance of what the original color was on the right.

As I said, you are clinging to a dream that makes us feel good but as a matter of process, engineering, and how our hearing works, it is heresy.

We need to accept that a recording is art in itself, and that it can bring us immense joy with no need whatsoever to be "real." One day we will have technology to virtually place us in a concert but it is not here today in any form or fashion.

Amir, I don't see how any of this negates a "Natural" sound. Of course there are compromises and flaws in the recordings and you lose things in the production process, no ones disputing that but there's still quite a lot left for us to listen to and you'll be surprised how much information exists in those old grooves listening to high end source such as Steve's AF-1. "Natural" doesn't mean 100% reproduction of the original event with multiple perspectives that only portions exist, but a true connection or window to the original event based on the recording. Using your own example here; let's take the photo shoot of the model in the studio as the original event, the digital image as the high quality recoding of that event and the painting for the in home reproduction. Different as the painting is from even the photo its still a "Natural" representation of that young woman at the moment of capture. The slightly rotund face and the difference in the clothing, artistic liberty in this case don't change the essence of who she is or the actual event. While not "Real" what you see in the painting is a "Realistic" reproduction of that young lady, that's what we mean by "Natural" and not an exact copy that you're thinking of and arguing about, which can actually can be quite unnatural!

david

PS. To clarify we're discussing "Natural" sound in the context of classical music some jazz and live recordings, definitely not a multi tracked overly dubbed studio pop recording using computerized instruments and highly eq'd voices, there's nothing natural there to discuss.

 

[caesar]

When and where have they said so?

Check out the posts on their website. Or better yet, hop on their forum and pose a question about Wilson tweeter and Wilson bass.

Just don't take those answers personally, as their subjectivity and imagination are at play.

 

[caesar]

My view? It is not my view. It is the view of the entire audio engineering and science. Here is Dr. Toole from his book which you have a copy of:

"The point here is that “reproduction does not really separate copies from
originals but instead results in the creation of a distinctive form of originality:
the possibility of reproduction transforms the practice of production” (Sterne,
2003, p. 220). Knowing that the production process will lead to a reproduction
liberates a new level of artistic creativity. Capturing the total essence of a “live”
event is no longer the only, or even the best, objective."

He quotes Glenn Gould saying:

"Pianist and famous Bach interpreter Glenn Gould much
preferred the control he could exercise in a recording studio to the pressures of
performing live. He would rather be remembered for “perfect” massively edited
recordings than, in his mind at least, imperfect, evanescent performances before
audiences. He went so far as to predict that “the public concert as we know it
A Philosophical Perspective today [will] no longer exist in a century hence, that its functions [will] have been
entirely taken over by electronic media” (Gould, 1966).

He goes on to nail the point thusly:

"During a recording, microphones can sample only a tiny portion of the
complex three-dimensional sound field surrounding musical instruments in a
performance space. What is captured is an incomplete characterization of the
source. During playback, a multichannel reproduction system can reproduce
only a portion of the complex three-dimensional sound fi eld that surrounds a
listener at a live performance. What is reproduced will be different from what
is heard at a live event.

Audiophile fans of “high culture” music have repeatedly expressed disappointment
that what they hear in their living rooms is not like a live concert,
implying that there is a crucial aspect of amplifi er or loudspeaker performance
that prevents it from happening. The truth is that no amount of refinement in
audio devices can solve the problem; there is no missing ingredient or tweak
that can, outside of the imagination, make these experiences seem real. The
process is itself fundamentally flawed in its extreme simplicity. The miracle is
that it works as well as it does. The “copy” is suffi ciently similar to the “original”
that our perceptual processes are gratified, up to a point, but the “copy” is not
the same as the “original.” Sterne (2003) explains that “at a very basic, functional
level, sound-reproduction technologies need a great deal of human assistance
if they are to work, that is, to ‘reproduce’ sound” (p. 246)."

Guys, this is really a simple concept and the logic if it super strong. We need to get past lay feelings about this and get on board. No amount of believing otherwise makes these notions we have true. Tell me that you have been to a dozen live concerts and then heard them in your home and they sounded the same and we can talk. Until then, no amount of insisting otherwise amounts to anything.

Of all the things we argue about, this one should be something we become unified on. I went there. I completely changed my mind and so have many others. Allow the message to sink in for just a moment.

Amir,

Great quotes, but I am not sure I'm there with you on the conclusion. Of course, it is the imagination that makes it real!!!

The human brain is very good at imagination. Our brains effortlessly use what they know from our previous experiences to “accurately represent” the objects we are imagining. The product of imagination contains some details that our brains invented to make things “real” and likewise, lacks some details that our brains ignored, again to make things “more real”.

The areas of the human brain that respond emotionally to real events respond emotionally to imaginary events as well. Invite a geeky college freshman to a cheerleader party, and mention that the ladies will be bikini clad and will be getting massages from the invitees like him, and if he is a heterosexual, he will get that silly, wide-eyed grin on his face and start to blush. His pupils will dilate and blood will flow to certain parts of the body just in anticipation – thanks only to imagination. Yet this young man’s imagination will ignore any negatives – AIDS, STDs, pregnancy, hurt feelings, etc...

Likewise, the subjective audiophile mind fills in the missing sound details but ignores other sound elements – a tube amp that can do female voice "so natural" but sucks at dynamics (so they are ignored), or SS that resolves great "natural" detail but lacks texture (so it is ignored), that "natural" vinyl vs. "sterile" digital, etc. … Of course, another audiophile whose mind subjectively interprets "natural" digital, "natural" dynamics, or "natural" texture will hear the system and draw a completely different conclusion....


Audio clicks will form based on these shared subjective interpretations - vinyl guys vs. digital guys, tube guys vs. SS state guys, etc. And, of course, it's all "Natural" / "real" to each group, but the dumf*cks will keep fighting about it...

So imagination and subjective interpretation makes it real in our heads. And it makes us feel good.

What’s wrong with that? This is a hobby, after all.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Keith , here is a pic of my system measurement at listening position
the light blue is uncorrected , the orange is my target curve and the green is the corrected response
Please tell me how my system sounds uncorrected and how it sounds with my target curve...
will it sound "natural"?

 

[Duke LeJeune]

Floyd Toole observed something very interesting which I think is relevant to this discussion.

He found that listeners - trained or not - could listen to a totally unknown recording on unknown speakers and judge whether or not that speaker was accurate, without possibly being able to know what the recording was "supposed" to sound like! Trained and untrained listeners would rank a group of four speakers identically in blind listening tests using unknown recordings (the trained listeners could do it much more quickly, and could correctly identify the distortions, but the rankings would end up being the same). So apparently we humans are equipped by nature with whatever apparatus it is that can indeed reliably identify natural sound reproduction, even if we've never heard the original!

 

[Al M.]

Hell, I often can't remember what I had for dinner the night before, yet alone presume to remember the exact tonality of a cello played the same night while attending a concert. I have continued to move my system to a place where upon coming home from a concert I can put on a record and be satisfied with the sound in terms of tonality, dynamics, "presence". (Forgive the hyperbole.) I know it is not the same as what I just heard, it just needs to be satisfying. My budget only allows for so much movement toward my goal.

Now my cousin, who is a conductor and professor of music, I would assume have somewhat different criteria for what would be 'satisfying' to him. Standing in front of the orchestra, and having done so day in and day out throughout his life, I would respect his opinion over a hundred reviewers how accurate a system reproduces the sound of a violin, cello, trumpet or piano. (Sadly, he lives on the other side of the continent, so I've not had him over to listen.) Still, I can imagine him sitting and listening to a record and being emotionally connected and satisfied, because knows it is a recording, and does not expect it to sound quite the same as when he is in front of the orchestra.

Or my brother, who makes acoustic archetop guitars. He knows how different wood is likely to sound as he chooses for the top or back. He knows a sitka spruce top will sound different than one of curly maple. IMHO, a musician's opinion would be the authority on tonality and accuracy of reproduction. Interestingly, I don't hear the voice of musicians frequently in these threads.

(Emphasis added.)

Several musicians have listened to my system over the years. While none of them claimed that it was like the real thing, all of them were impressed and delighted with what they heard.

Your cousin might have the same reaction to your system.

 

[Al M.]

Floyd Toole observed something very interesting which I think is relevant to this discussion.

He found that listeners - trained or not - could listen to a totally unknown recording on unknown speakers and judge whether or not that speaker was accurate, without possibly being able to know what the recording was "supposed" to sound like! Trained and untrained listeners would rank a group of four speakers identically in blind listening tests using unknown recordings (the trained listeners could do it much more quickly, and could correctly identify the distortions, but the rankings would end up being the same). So apparently we humans are equipped by nature with whatever apparatus it is that can indeed reliably identify natural sound reproduction, even if we've never heard the original!

Excellent. Thank you.

 

[Diapason]

Interestingly, I don't hear the voice of musicians frequently in these threads.

How do you know?

I'm a musician of a pretty high standard. I don't do it exclusively for a living, but I regularly play recitals where people pay in to hear me. Does this make my opinion more valid? I don't think it does.

In any case, I think this thread has derailed because the two "sides" are talking about different things and trying to argue against positions that the other side doesn't even hold.

 

[bonzo75]

. Interestingly, I don't hear the voice of musicians frequently in these threads.

Audiophile Bill used to be a first trombonist. His dad a pianist.
You can read his review of distorted unnatural sounds here http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...te-DAC-arrives&p=344506&viewfull=1#post344506

 

[bonzo75]

I'm a musician of a pretty high standard. I don't do it exclusively for a living, but I regularly play recitals where people pay in to hear me. Does this make my opinion more valid? I don't think it does.

Actually, yes, it does. I have been paying attention to your posts and I did not at that time you were a musician. Now I know why.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I think it would be fantastic to take a random sample of classical musicians who are entirely gear agnostic and play them multiple systems with the same source material and ask them to rate each system on how natural they thought it sounded to their ears. I think there will be a fair amount of statistical noise (pun intended) but I think the direction of results could be very interesting indeed.

In fact I might be able to conduct a mini test of this ilk albeit with a small and non random sample.

I think the adjective "natural" is inherently understood by musicians.

On my n=1 analysis with my dad (ex sub prof @ Royal Academy) - I have always asked him (over many years) what does he think my system sounds like and he tends to automatically revert to a rating on whether it sounded realistic or natural (his chosen words). He does not use any other audiofool adjectives - they aren't in his regular vocabulary. Anyway - in my n=1 analyses, he has invariably felt that my turntable reproduction of strings / violin has always sounded more natural and realistic. I have virtually never managed to get him to concede that my system (over 15 years) reproduces a piano with lifelike fidelity - he is a pianist and plays every day so very aware of what pianos sound like. I played him a 256 dsd track the other day on GG and he said that was as close as I have come - lol.

 

[bonzo75]

I think it would be fantastic to take a random sample of classical musicians who are entirely gear agnostic and play them multiple systems with the same source material and ask them to rate each system on how natural they thought it sounded to their ears. I think there will be a fair amount of statistical noise (pun intended) but I think the direction of results could be very interesting indeed.

In fact I might be able to conduct a mini test of this ilk albeit with a small and non random sample.

I think the adjective "natural" is inherently understood by musicians.

On my n=1 analysis with my dad (ex sub prof @ Royal Academy) - I have always asked him (over many years) what does he think my system sounds like and he tends to automatically revert to a rating on whether it sounded realistic or natural (his chosen words). He does not use any other audiofool adjectives - they aren't in his regular vocabulary. Anyway - in my n=1 analyses, he has invariably felt that my turntable reproduction of strings / violin has always sounded more natural and realistic. I have virtually never managed to get him to concede that my system (over 15 years) reproduces a piano with lifelike fidelity - he is a pianist and plays every day so very aware of what pianos sound like. I played him a 256 dsd track the other day on GG and he said that was as close as I have come - lol.

I have told you the same thing about the Lampi and the piano and your speakers - box speakers will NEVER reproduce piano properly. You need the NAT type powerful valve amp with Analysis Audio to get him to concede, or a SOTA horn. So who's your daddy?

 

[PeterA]

In any case, I think this thread has derailed because the two "sides" are talking about different things and trying to argue against positions that the other side doesn't even hold.

Yes, I think you are right about this. No one said that when he uses the word "natural" to describe a system that he means it sounds identical to the real instrument or original musical performance, so I don't understand why that is being argued. Perhaps I started this mess when I wrote that "natural" means it sounds similar to a real instrument and that we know what a guitar or piano or voice sounds like. That statement must have been quite controversial because the poster demanded that I prove how I know that people know what instruments sound like. There was some mention of memory types and how nothing ever sounds the same and how mics can't capture the original sound, etc. etc.

I do not understand the strong reaction. At least there are no posts on Steve's or David's system threads asking for clarification of their use of the term "natural". I wonder if Ron thought his OP would be so lively. He may be chuckling about all of this.

 

[PeterA]

I've been waiting for a thread like this... FWIW, I think audiophiles use the term "natural" a bit too liberally. At the core of it, if it sounds "real" then it's natural - and it all ties to live unamplified music serving as reference.

However, what is "real"? Are there gradations of "real"? Think about this: Is a clear blue sky real? It is. Is a cloudy sky real? It is. Is darkness real? It is. Do I care for one over the other? I do. Does a live orchestra sound the same from row A to row Z to row ZZ to Balcony 1 and Balcony 2? No. Are they all variations of real? They are. Do I prefer one over all others? I do.

I have heard systems that fit the blue-sky analogy; I have heard systems that fit the cloudy-day. All of them sounded natural, within their limits. I tend to associate such blue-sky systems as more transparent to what a typical recording [with on-stage mics] captures, over cloudy-sky systems, which I associate with darker, closed-in sound. I consider them both natural, but obviously different in character. However, if a system were to give me the cloudy-sky perspective - typically darker and less lively - I'd say that system is actually flawed, because recordings rarely capture the event that way, and I _prefer_ Balcony 1&2 over anything else, because that's the type of "natural" I prefer.

So whoever considers his/her own system natural, while others' don't fit your description, great. We just don't have to agree.

Nice post, Ack. I have sat in many different locations in different halls when hearing live performances. Yes, they all sound different, but they also share certain attributes which make them real or natural sounding. I spent five days sitting on the edge of the orchestra pit in the empty Wiener Staatsoper listening to rehearsals of Ariande auf Naxos. Later each night, I heard performances of four different operas from the director's box. The sound was very different, as you say. The perspective from the different locations, the empty or full hall, the different musicians and actors, the different instruments. However, even though there was no absolute sound, everything still sounded real, live and natural.

When I describe a system as sounding natural, I mean that it falls within this range of the way that I have heard instruments sound live. Of course the sound is not identical to the real thing, but it is a reasonable approximation of my memory of the real thing. And these systems share some important traits with the real thing. Namely, they do not cause fatigue. They do not sound etched or harsh or soft. They posses a high degree of dynamics, clarity and believable timbre. They have good presence allowing me to suspend my disbelief that I am experiencing an actual performance. Of course this is more likely with some recordings and types of music than with others. These systems are certainly man made devices, but they do not sound artificial. They reproduce enough of what is on the recording, with low enough levels of distortion, that they do come close to reminding me of the sound I think I hear when listening to live music. Not many systems can do this in my experience, but when they can, ie. remind me of what I think live music sounds like, I describe them as sounding "natural".

I can't prove it, and it is my perception only, but it is a term which I have found most people, as well as most audiophiles, understand the meaning of.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I have told you the same thing about the Lampi and the piano and your speakers - box speakers will NEVER reproduce piano properly. You need the NAT type powerful valve amp with Analysis Audio to get him to concede, or a SOTA horn. So who's your daddy?

Hell no my friend. He finds the horns that he heard really coloured - although admittedly that is only avantgarde duo and the ones with the plasma tweeter? I never heard a horn sound anything like a piano, Ked. Voices - great, strings - great, brass and woodwind - great. Piano - nope.

Panels - well I would agree with that!

 

[bonzo75]

Hell no my friend. He finds the horns that he heard really coloured - although admittedly that is only avantgarde duo and the ones with the plasma tweeter? I never heard a horn sound anything like a piano, Ked. Voices - great, strings - great, brass and woodwind - great. Piano - nope.

Panels - well I would agree with that!

Well I don't like Duos either problem recreating piano with them or any compromised 2-way horn is that the crossover is usually badly compromised and the bass cabinet is not a horn. It is a digital active box. so it is actually a box you are listening to, not a horn.

the ones with the plasma tweeter, Acapella, have the same problem with their bass. It's a box

That said, horns won't sound as good Analysis on piano

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Well I don't like Duos either problem recreating piano with them or any compromised 2-way horn is that the crossover is usually badly compromised and the bass cabinet is not a horn. It is a digital active box. so it is actually a box you are listening to, not a horn.

the ones with the plasma tweeter, Acapella, have the same problem with their bass. It's a box

That said, horns won't sound as good Analysis on piano

Trouble is Ked, almost all horns need a box to fill in the lower bass. The lowest note on a piano is around 27.5hz, which *very* rarely is reproduced by horns. Even the beloved WE monsters at Munich have no extension anywhere near that. Full range panels but not hybrids like Martin Logan (other than cls) would work.

 

[ack]

When I describe a system as sounding natural, I mean that it falls within this range of the way that I have heard instruments sound live. Of course the sound is not identical to the real thing, but it is a reasonable approximation of my memory of the real thing. And these systems share some important traits with the real thing. Namely, they do not cause fatigue. They do not sound etched or harsh or soft. They posses a high degree of dynamics, clarity and believable timbre. They have good presence allowing me to suspend my disbelief that I am experiencing an actual performance. Of course this is more likely with some recordings and types of music than with others. These systems are certainly man made devices, but they do not sound artificial. They reproduce enough of what is on the recording, with low enough levels of distortion, that they do come close to reminding me of the sound I think I hear when listening to live music. Not many systems can do this in my experience, but when they can, ie. remind me of what I think live music sounds like, I describe them as sounding "natural".

I can't prove it, and it is my perception only, but it is a term which I have found most people, as well as most audiophiles, understand the meaning of.

That's the essence of "natural", to be fooled into believing you are hearing a live performance from the vantage point that you like - be it lively, dark, bright or otherwise. However, as I said in my post, sounding natural doesn't necessarily make a system transparent-to-the-recording, as the mics may have captured the event in a different way that what you (or anyone) call 'natural'. In particular, as I said, if one likes a darker character (as if one were sitting in row Z), chances are the mics captured a more lively version of the event, they being on-stage at the time and usually over the musicians. As such, you can have a system sound natural but dark in character and not necessarily accurately conveying the recording, plus another system sound natural in a different way _and_ also more transparent to the recording - that's the essence of my dark-sky vs blue-sky analogy.