continued...
I am trying to understand what people mean when they talk about "separation of instruments". I first heard this phrase a few years ago when a friend introduced me to, coincidentally enough, Stravinsky's Chamber Music, played by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players (Deutsche Grammaphon 2530 551). It is a wonderful recording which I play regularly at home. In my friend's system, I was astonished at how the various wind instruments, in particular, but also some of the strings and brass, stood out starkly in contrast to both each other and to the rest of the assembled musicians on stage. This was both in timbre and volume, but quite impressively, also in virtual space.
This was a strange experience. Different system presentations are so interesting. My friend, another guest, and I all sat there discussing the effect. Everyone seemed quite impressed. The soundstage was large and black, and the imagery was very clear and precise. These bursts of sounds emerged from dark space and dazzled me. Their isolation was what impressed, but it also distracted me. It reminded me of the fireworks I remember watching in the midwestern dark sky as a child. My friends described what I heard as a good example of "separation of instruments". I ordered the LP, cleaned it, and played it on my system. That was in December of 2021.
I had my new system by then with the Micro Seiki. When I played the record, I was disappointed not to hear that same spotlit effect of the individual instruments playing very cleanly, separate and isolated from each other. I did not "see" the same separate virtual images. As my mind wandered a bit during parts of the live performance the other night away from the music listening experience to trying to analyze the actual sound I was hearing, I began to notice that indeed, there were no black backgrounds, no pinpoint images, no stark outlines, and surprisingly, no separation of instruments, at least as I had experienced them earlier for the first time on that system. This live experience was very different.
What I heard instead was a massive amount of energy in waves being projected outward from the stage to fill the hall. The massed strings and chorus provided the foundation, the wave on which the accents played and were carried. A drum strike, bell hit, oboe burst or any such sound could be heard piercing through the rest, but its location was only localized in a particular section of the orchestra on stage. And only briefly. The origin of the sound, that initial burst of energy was clear, and then it immediately expanded to fill the space and intermix with the rest of the energy being produced and moving around the space. There was no separation. Instead, there was a blending, a mixing, a gestalt. The only thing that was separate was the initial burst of sound distinct from the rest. It quickly faded and got swept up in the rest of the energy circulating around. Even during the quietest moments, the bow on a string, the stick hitting skin, the air blowing through the pipes, these were all clear and existed in a space on stage, but it was only for an instant. There was no lasting image of it. I did not notice it as a spatial characteristic the way I did when those same instruments were reproduced in that system.
Beside the quick initial transient, what I did notice as being separate and distinct was the instruments' various timbres and loudness levels - their levels of energy. These are sounds, not images. The oboe was distinct from the clarinet, the violin from the viola, the cello from the bass, and the trumpet from the trombone. The sounds of all of these are familiar and their timbre and how they produce and project energy is what separates them and makes them unique. This is what rises above the wave of energy filling the space when everyone is playing until it mixes and joins the rest.
I have read and talked to some people about this notion of separation of instruments. Someone described it as a great thing, like blinking ornaments on a christmas tree. Another described it as instruments playing and existing in their own bubbles, an artifact. He told me that some gear and audiophile wires are designed to create this effect. I have heard it with some footers in systems.
I think we have a tendency to describe audio in visual terms: black backgrounds, pinpoint imaging, outlines, separation of instruments. I am increasingly thinking about audio only in sonic terms based on what I actually hear when experiencing live music and when describing the sound of a component or whole system.
Perhaps my host who introduced me to that record and demonstrated the separation of instruments was describing it in terms of timbre and energy terms, but what I heard was separation of the instruments in space behind his speakers, in distinct bubbles. It was cool and unusual so I bought the record. I still listen to it regularly because the music is great, but that effect is not on the recording, at least when played on my system. I did not hear this effect the other night at the BSO listening to Burton conducting Stravinsky, and I do not hear it in my new system presenting Stravinsky played by the Boston Chamber Players .