Natural Sound

[Ron Resnick]

Imaging is a function of listening to a stereo and one of its effects on listeners is our minds supplying or translating what we hear into something visual or quasi-visual. I say 'something' as I don't know how that varies across people. Maybe it is a picture in our mind of performers on a stage. Maybe it is a sense of the location of sonic origins. Maybe it is a thought picture of instruments in our heads -- hear a timpani, imagine a timpani. Whatever you wish to call the experience.



A question that came to me as I wrote this: is directionality an image?

Very thoughtful and well-written! Big +1!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Why do people keep asking about imaging. It has nothing to do with imaging.

It definitely has something to do with imaging.

My use of the word "imaging" does not mean literally visual. We are not seeing musicians in front of us with our eyes.

The word "imaging" is a proxy for imagining that you can visualize the musician in front of you in a certain place because you hear him/her localized aurally in that place on the soundstage.

We say imaging, but maybe we should use the word "localized."

Hearing discrete flows of sound from the left hand and the right hand of a pianist -- being able to localize and to distinguish the left hand and the right hand -- is what imaging means in this hearing-based context.

 

[PeterA]

Hearing discrete flows of sound from the left hand and the right hand of a pianist -- being able to localize and to distinguish the left hand and the right hand -- is what imaging means in this hearing-based context.

I am talking about hearing the distinction and contrast between the way a pianist’s two hands (and ten fingers) are playing. It is about sound - what I hear form a piano recording - as presented by my new phonostage. I am not talking about imaging.

For some reason you keep trying to force me into saying something. I am talking about better understanding the intent of the musician as he plays the piano, not the images of two hands on a keyboard.

My comment that you quoted in my listening impressions has nothing to do with imaging.

I more clearly hear the drummer‘s two feet as distinct from his two hands when he is playing his drum kit. The LP1’s presentation makes this easier to hear. Four threads, each distinct, being woven into a whole.

 

[Ron Resnick]

For some reason you keep trying to force me into saying something.

I am disagreeing with your view that the two hands of the pianist have "nothing to do with imaging."

On the one hand you distain pinpoint imaging, but on the other hand the aural visualization of the two hands of the pianist is ineluctably pinpoint imaging.

 

[Al M.]

I am disagreeing with your view that the two hands of the pianist have "nothing to do with imaging."

On the one hand you distain pinpoint imaging, but on the other hand the aural visualization of the two hands of the pianist is ineluctably pinpoint imaging.

No, Ron, it's aural imaging and distinction of timbre, not spatial imaging.

 

[Folsom]

I am disagreeing with your view that the two hands of the pianist have "nothing to do with imaging."

On the one hand you distain pinpoint imaging, but on the other hand the aural visualization of the two hands of the pianist is ineluctably pinpoint imaging.

I don't see how he's saying there is an aural visualization. He is saying he hears the sound of what the hands are doing, not where they are doing it.

 

[PeterA]

Hearing discrete flows of sound from the left hand and the right hand of a pianist -- being able to localize and to distinguish the left hand and the right hand -- is what imaging means in this hearing-based context.

I wrote nothing about "localizing" the pianist's hands. For the tenth time, I am not talking about imaging. You keep conflating what I write with what you imagine. Utter nonsense.

 

[PeterA]

No, Ron, it's aural imaging and distinction of timbre, not spatial imaging.

Al, for me it has nothing to do with aural imaging or spatial imaging. It has everything to do with distinction of timbre, and the musician's intent. DDK says the "purpose of each finger". It is about resolution and what one hears, not imagines.

 

[PeterA]

I don't see how he's saying there is an aural visualization. He is saying he hears the sound of what the hands are doing, not where they are doing it.

Thank you Folsom. This is exactly right.

 

[Bobvin]

It does not take "a level of analytical processing in the brain" to hear two hands playing the piano. I'll speculate that many people can tell when only one hand is playing and they can tell when one hand lifts off the keyboard and when it rejoins playing. The change in sound is obvious.

Maybe for some it takes careful listening -- there is something of a trend away from careful listening on WBF with its primary focus on gear and not on music, or listening. That's okay -- people enjoy the hobby for different reasons. I enjoy having some rudimentary knowledge of the instruments I'm hearing. I don't consider knowing a little about instruments as analysis. But cheeky gotcha questions (where this started) belie genuine interest.

Perhaps more folks than imagined do not understand the graduated frequency keyboard of a piano where (for the most part) lower frequency notes are played with the left hand and higher frequency notes are played with the right hand and are thus unable to make a distinction between two hands. Free your mind from visual listening. Perhaps you don't recognize you hear two hands or grasp that one is playing bass notes and the other is playing treble. Can you distinquish bass from treble? And for the blissfully-clueless-style of listener maybe it doesn't matter and its all so laid back that knowing about instruments is unimportant for enjoyment. But you do hear it. Left hand and right hand. It is obvious and of course better recordings reveal more tonal and dynamic differentiation.

"From the Bach-Busoni, Horowitz proceeded to Schuman’s Fantasy in C Major, where his hand-over-hand technique ranged across the octaves with amazing dexterity, sounding at times as if he had three hands. " -- Horowitz at Carnegie Hall: An Historic Return

When I listen to this sample, sure I hear two hands distinctly playing — but what I visualize is the artist’s skill and ability, as if I were watching the performance up close and being amazed. So in that context sure two hands playing. Not having watched a lot of pianists up close, I don’t know how common it is for one hand to cross over another, but I have seen it. with my lack of knowledge I’d have guessed it was the particular chord (?) described in the score — and something that masterfully executed separates great players from simply good ones.

I don’t think it takes a Lamm phono stage to hear it, I can hear it on my ipad. I can appreciate a great phono stage resolves more detail and perhaps tonal “realism” that makes the playback more emotionally engaging. I sure don’t think Lamm is the only gear capable of making it sound “natural”.

Not sure about the snide comment “can you distinguish bass from treble”? Do you imagine someone on this forum who cannot?

 

[morricab]

"You have to think in context to how the recording was made." To do what? I don't need think in context of how a recording was made to gauge if my stereo sounds natural.

Sorry, I don't see how this is relevant to understanding natural sound or what I wrote. No one said localization was not possible or difficult. Where did you get that? Does anyone confuse live with reproduction? Who thinks a microphone records what our brain adds?

Imaging is visual, optical; a likeness or representation of a thing or a person. To picture or represent in the mind. Imaging is neither necessary nor sufficient to gauge a stereo as sounding natural. To avoid confusion in my second paragraph I need to retract my sentence "Maybe it is a sense of the location of sonic origins." Hopefully your comments don't turn on that. Localization or directionality may be part of the psycho-acoustic listening experience, but it is not a visual or an image.

When I listen to live music in a hall, I know what I hear. I don't need to think about how a recording is made. I don't think about imaging listening to live music, few do; maybe some audiophiles bring it to the experience from listening to their stereos. We intuitively (or apriori as a condition for the possibility of experience) have an understanding of up-down, left-right -- a blind person understands directionality. Images are not required to grasp direction -- you can do it with your eyes closed.

I was referring to your discussion on imaging and relating imaging live to what’s recorded. Others seem to get this but you knew jerked about “natural sound” which I was not commenting on per se.

 

[morricab]

No, Ron, it's aural imaging and distinction of timbre, not spatial imaging.

I am quite sure it’s both factors

 

[tima]

I was referring to your discussion on imaging and relating imaging live to what’s recorded. Others seem to get this but you knew jerked about “natural sound” which I was not commenting on per se.

I didn't find your comments relevant to what I said. I simply stayed on topic.

 

[tima]

When I listen to this sample, sure I hear two hands distinctly playing — but what I visualize is the artist’s skill and ability, as if I were watching the performance up close and being amazed. So in that context sure two hands playing. Not having watched a lot of pianists up close, I don’t know how common it is for one hand to cross over another, but I have seen it. with my lack of knowledge I’d have guessed it was the particular chord (?) described in the score — and something that masterfully executed separates great players from simply good ones.

I don’t think it takes a Lamm phono stage to hear it, I can hear it on my ipad. I can appreciate a great phono stage resolves more detail and perhaps tonal “realism” that makes the playback more emotionally engaging. I sure don’t think Lamm is the only gear capable of making it sound “natural”.

Not sure about the snide comment “can you distinguish bass from treble”? Do you imagine someone on this forum who cannot?

Perhaps you don't recognize you hear two hands or grasp that one is playing bass notes and the other is playing treble. Can you distinquish bass from treble?

It was a rhetorical question Bob. If you can tell bass from treble you can distinquish both hands of a pianist.

No one said a Lamm product was necessary for anything. I suspect Peter is saying 'I heard this with that equipment.' It is his system thread. But we know that negative Lamm comments do bring out the ankle-biters.

 

[Al M.]

It was a rhetorical question Bob. If you can tell bass from treble you can distinquish both hands of a pianist.

That's how I read it.

 

[PeterA]

I don’t think it takes a Lamm phono stage to hear it, I can hear it on my ipad. I can appreciate a great phono stage resolves more detail and perhaps tonal “realism” that makes the playback more emotionally engaging. I sure don’t think Lamm is the only gear capable of making it sound “natural”.

No one said a Lamm product was necessary for anything. I suspect Peter is saying 'I heard this with that equipment.' It is his system thread. But we know that negative Lamm comments do bring out the ankle-biters.

Bob, Tim is correct. I am only talking about my gear in my room in my system thread. Ron pulled out the quote from my post about my listening impressions of my new phonostage. This has nothing to do with other gear. I am not saying only Lamm gear allows one to hear this, nor am I saying only Lamm gear is capable of making it (a system) sound natural. I was only describing what I hear in my room on a particular set of recordings, thinking people might be interested.

 

[morricab]

I didn't find your comments relevant to what I said. I simply stayed on topic.

Sure, whatever Tim.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Natural piano sound/ system is ...... when you walk towards where the sound came from and you wanna close the fall board , but then realize you cant because the sound came from the speakers. .

 

[hopkins]

I find this thread interesting, and I would like to offer my own point of view on "natural sound".

I can't really subscribe to the idea that live music should be the ultimate benchmark for our systems. There is such a variety of contexts in which live music is performed, experienced. There are many varieties of a same instrument. And then there is the recording...

I rather think of "natural sound" as one which is simply totally engaging and relaxing. That is really the only criteria we need. Improvements that bring us closer to that state of nirvana are always obvious. It's intuitive.

I am not sure we need to ask ourselves whether what we hear from our system at home sounds like a live performance, because it simply is not and never will be.

Perhaps I am staring the obvious?

 

[PeterA]

I find this thread interesting, and I would like to offer my own point of view on "natural sound".

I can't really subscribe to the idea that live music should be the ultimate benchmark for our systems. There is such a variety of contexts in which live music is performed, experienced. There are many varieties of a same instrument. And then there is the recording...

I rather think of "natural sound" as one which is simply totally engaging and relaxing. That is really the only criteria we need. Improvements that bring us closer to that state of nirvana are always obvious. It's intuitive.

I am not sure we need to ask ourselves whether what we hear from our system at home sounds like a live performance, because it simply is not and never will be.

Perhaps I am staring the obvious?

You are stating your own values and goals. That is fine, but they are different from mine. I can relax to a lot of audio systems, especially when I have some wine, the music is good, and there is a convivial atmosphere conducive to relaxation. If the music is engaging, I can be engaged listening to my truck radio. These conditions do not mean the systems sound natural or realistic.

Al and I have discussed many times that there is a range of sounds from acoustic instruments in a variety of spaces when heard live. Instruments are different, the players are different, and the settings are different, so they sound different.

The obvious part of your comment is that we all follow our own path and have our own references and goals and values. Your comments reflect that.