Although I do agree with you live and recorded are too completely different animals, I think having a basis for live instruments will potentially give me a better comparison for how the timber and resonance of real instruments are reflected in my system. I've gone to a few live classical performances in my days but not enough to have any real auditory comparisons. Especially since auditory memory last for what maybe 15 seconds. Obviously the emotional experience is an easier thing for me to remember.
Natural Sound
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Yes, I was specifically referring to imaging. Live music is indeed interesting to learn how various instruments (and musicians) sound. If you have the opportunity to do so, you can also go to a music school, or even a music store, to get exposure "close up" to a variety of sounds. You may realize, after a while, that all these different experiences boil down to specific sonic attributes - and realize how difficult they are to reproduce on a home stereo system. Recordings are "lossy", and so are our systems... It can be depressing to acknowledge
Very true on all fronts.Yes, I was specifically referring to imaging. Live music is indeed interesting to learn how various instruments (and musicians) sound. If you have the opportunity to do so, you can also go to a music school, or even a music store, to get exposure "close up" to a variety of sounds. You may realize, after a while, that all these different experiences boil down to specific sonic attributes - and realize how difficult they are to reproduce on a home stereo system. Recordings are "lossy", and so are our systems... It can be depressing to acknowledge
Live acoustic music is the solid base on which a system reference is built -- regardless of what type of music you play on it.
You don't even need to go to "some random jazz concerts" to know that reproduction is not reality. But you may learn how live acoustic instruments sound and how they are played. Which you will not learn from listening to test tracks. Having a reference is not a search for identity.
You only quoted part of my answer. The first sentence, which you omitted, gave the context.
FYI When i talked to Ken stevens /CAT at the Marriot Show munchen 2024 he told me Keith Jarret owns CAT gear
Set doesnt have the natural drive real music has imo.
I d like to hear you re Lamm system , may be you and peter can prove me otherwise
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He talks about his system here:
Sounds of Jarrett - JazzTimes
I got a call today from a musician friend who recently purchased a new stereo amplifier upon my recommendation. Previously he had been incredulous when … Read More "Sounds of Jarrett"
jazztimes.com
Quote from the interview below , its hard to argue keith Jarret has nt been exposed to live unamplified music , lol
“One of the problems with being a musician is you don’t have time to be a proper audiophile,” he says. “To be proper, you have to be insane all the time and obsessed all the time. You need a psychotherapist after a while. And I would also say this about improvising alone on stage: It is a kind of craziness, a certain insanity. You need a certain type of craziness to be a musician, and also to get into this audio thing appropriately. So I’ve learned that if I’m only an audiophile part time, it works really well.
“Luckily, it’s not a process that is continuing for me anymore-what I’ve been using for quite a while is a high-end tube preamp from Convergent Audio Technology with very good transistor monoblocks [BEL 1001 Mk III], which are way underrated at this point.”
Recently, Jarrett put a couple finishing touches on his dream system, which he uses for work as well as for his rare moments of leisure: “I was completely blown away by one of the most revelatory things I’ve ever heard: the ELP turntable, the laser turntable. The presentation is not like anything I’ve ever heard before from an LP. As soon as it arrived, instantly, my entire record collection was brand new. I’ve never had that experience. I’m listening to real people and real bass-you even get depth and layers out of mono recordings.
“Almost equally revealing are the new speakers I recently purchased, the Eidolon Diamonds from Avalon Acoustics,”
“One of the problems with being a musician is you don’t have time to be a proper audiophile,” he says. “To be proper, you have to be insane all the time and obsessed all the time. You need a psychotherapist after a while. And I would also say this about improvising alone on stage: It is a kind of craziness, a certain insanity. You need a certain type of craziness to be a musician, and also to get into this audio thing appropriately. So I’ve learned that if I’m only an audiophile part time, it works really well.
“Luckily, it’s not a process that is continuing for me anymore-what I’ve been using for quite a while is a high-end tube preamp from Convergent Audio Technology with very good transistor monoblocks [BEL 1001 Mk III], which are way underrated at this point.”
Recently, Jarrett put a couple finishing touches on his dream system, which he uses for work as well as for his rare moments of leisure: “I was completely blown away by one of the most revelatory things I’ve ever heard: the ELP turntable, the laser turntable. The presentation is not like anything I’ve ever heard before from an LP. As soon as it arrived, instantly, my entire record collection was brand new. I’ve never had that experience. I’m listening to real people and real bass-you even get depth and layers out of mono recordings.
“Almost equally revealing are the new speakers I recently purchased, the Eidolon Diamonds from Avalon Acoustics,”
Thanks for the link to the Keith Jarrett comments. I hadn’t read that before and he makes some very interesting observations including his problems with early digital vs analog.He talks about his system here:
Sounds of Jarrett - JazzTimes
I got a call today from a musician friend who recently purchased a new stereo amplifier upon my recommendation. Previously he had been incredulous when … Read More "Sounds of Jarrett"
At the bottom you can read this (it seems like a republished old interview )
Originally Published October 1, 2005
Originally Published October 1, 2005
For those who have never head of this ELP turntable there is a good in-depth review here:
Quote from the interview below , its hard to argue keith Jarret has nt been exposed to live unamplified music , lol
“One of the problems with being a musician is you don’t have time to be a proper audiophile,” he says. “To be proper, you have to be insane all the time and obsessed all the time. You need a psychotherapist after a while. And I would also say this about improvising alone on stage: It is a kind of craziness, a certain insanity. You need a certain type of craziness to be a musician, and also to get into this audio thing appropriately. So I’ve learned that if I’m only an audiophile part time, it works really well.
“Luckily, it’s not a process that is continuing for me anymore-what I’ve been using for quite a while is a high-end tube preamp from Convergent Audio Technology with very good transistor monoblocks [BEL 1001 Mk III], which are way underrated at this point.”
Recently, Jarrett put a couple finishing touches on his dream system, which he uses for work as well as for his rare moments of leisure: “I was completely blown away by one of the most revelatory things I’ve ever heard: the ELP turntable, the laser turntable. The presentation is not like anything I’ve ever heard before from an LP. As soon as it arrived, instantly, my entire record collection was brand new. I’ve never had that experience. I’m listening to real people and real bass-you even get depth and layers out of mono recordings.
“Almost equally revealing are the new speakers I recently purchased, the Eidolon Diamonds from Avalon Acoustics,”
This passage is also a good reminder of the limits of systems:
"But as much as he strives for the best sound, Jarrett admits the recording process can only go so far. And what it still comes down to is the message of the music. Gary Peacock, longtime bassist with the Standards Trio, told Jarrett, “Keith, no one’s heard you the way I hear you. I’ve not heard a recording of you playing where you’re doing what I know you’re doing.”
Jarrett agrees: “Yeah, that’s the whole quest. He’s standing right at the piano and he hears everything I’m doing at the keyboard, as far as nuance is concerned. But every sound-reproducing system is going to be missing something of the dynamics, so I just write that into the constitution. It’s never going to be as good as it actually was, and if it’s good on record, then live, it was better. When you think of all these wires and connections and physical materials, it’s a wonder the sound ever gets there at all."
I believe this is why many people don't really find high-end audio worthwhile - it's better than a bluetooth speaker, but it is still so far away from a live performance - why bother? You can get "the message of the music" (as he states) with basic equipment...
Yes, I was specifically referring to imaging. Live music is indeed interesting to learn how various instruments (and musicians) sound. If you have the opportunity to do so, you can also go to a music school, or even a music store, to get exposure "close up" to a variety of sounds. You may realize, after a while, that all these different experiences boil down to specific sonic attributes - and realize how difficult they are to reproduce on a home stereo system. Recordings are "lossy", and so are our systems... It can be depressing to acknowledge
I have never thought of it like that. I tend to be optimistic in general, and when I listen to my own system and do experiments and try to improve it, frankly, I am amazed at how close the experience of listening to reproduced music actually gets to the sound and experience of live instruments, performing in a space.
We can easily identify specific instruments out of the mix and know what they are and follow the music. We get a sense of the space, the scale, the gestalt. We can even get insights about what the musicians are intending to convey. It is about sound, but more so about emotion and response to what we are hearing in the comfort of our listening rooms. Increasingly, I am trying to assemble and set up my system to present a similar experience to what I have when listening to live music. It is a challenge, but that’s part of the fun of the hobby: striving to achieve a goal.
Rather than starting off reflecting on how different reproduced music is from live music, my approach is to understand the experience of listening to live music and then getting my system to present something similar. It’s about trying to achieve something rather than acknowledging defeat.
Live music is the guide and trying to get to that listening experience in the listening room is the target. There are many approaches. Experiment and figure out which approach is best for you.
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One should judge the quality of Lamm SETs, or any SETs, with appropriate speakers. To simply claim that SETs do not have the "natural drive (that) real music has", suggests to me that you have not experienced a successful SET/speaker pairing. In my experience, achieving (or at least approaching) the natural drive of real music is possible with SETs, as it is with other amp types.
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So now its the speakers fault .
I think i have heard enough Sets to be honest , its not an absolute truth its just my opinion like the one you have
How "close" you are to a live experience is all very subjective. I can appreciate a system sounding more "live" than another, but still don't equate it to anything close to live music - but this does not prevent me from enjoying listening. To each their own.
The thing that bothers me about setting these types of expectations is that the recording quality becomes a critical factor. For me, it's more about getting the best out of the recordings, knowing that a recording is something completely different than a live experience. With this in mind, I feel I can appreciate more recordings as the recording quality itself is (practically) never an obstacle. I received a CD yesterday that I listened to today - here is a track of a 1940 broadcast (Stuff Smith):
Does it sound closer to a "live performance" on my living room speakers as opposed to my small desktop speakers, and would it sound even closer using your system than mine? I don't see things that way. All I want is to have a well balanced, easy to listen to sound, with good resolution/clarity and dynamics. It's more about improvements and scale than reaching an ultimate target.
Of course it is not the speaker's fault. True, it is only your opinion, and I have mine. But yes, it is about the speakers and the amp. I heard my SETs with my Magico Q3s. Nice sound, but not the best pairing. The combination lacked the natural drive of live music. The amps were simply underpowered for the speaker load. That was not the amp's fault, nor was it the speaker's fault. More accurately, it was my fault for making the wrong pairing. Success comes from knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the gear.
With the right pairing, both the amp and the speaker are able to operate within their intended parameters, and perhaps achieve a kind of magic. I found that magic when I found the right speakers for those amps.
This thread is not about the limitations of SET amps or inefficient speakers, Andro. The thread is about my system and the choices I have made to achieve my goals. You are certainly entitled to your own opinions and your own approach, but do not come here to tell me that my approach is somehow flawed. If you start a thread about your system, I will not join the discussion to denigrate your choices. I have heard the big CAT monos, and they may well be the right choice for your speakers. Congratulations and good luck with your speaker designs.
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