Natural Sound

[microstrip]

The professor telling us that an interesting point was just added. Pay attention in class!

Yes, I think it is very relevant - we would have something more solid to anchor our comments than speakers that 99% of our readers never listened.

 

[ddk]

No, they just want to debate it freely, as they do in other WBF threads.

BTW, Peter just added an interesting point, the direct influence of Vadimir Lamm in "Natural Sound".

Which debate? About what? How many times do you to repeat the same thing, “there’s no natural sound”? Next?

david

 

[microstrip]

Which debate? About what? How many times do you to repeat the same thing, “there’s no natural sound”? Next?

david

As long as we have new opinions and comments from Peter and people who listen to his system there is always something new to comment.

IMHO slowly we are progressing in this thread. Sorry if you can't perceive it.

You already have my opinion - Natural Sound is also a preference and and as such an interesting subject.

 

[ddk]

As long as we have new opinions and comments from Peter and people who listen to his system there is always something new to comment.

IMHO slowly we are progressing in this thread. Sorry if you can't perceive it.

You already have my opinion - Natural Sound is also a preference and and as such an interesting subject.

Of course! I was talking about semantics that has absorbed a good portion of this thread and you know exactly what I'm going on about.

david

 

[tima]

This music is not unnatural I say… I was just practicing a little satyr… and yet still they completely pan us

That's not the goat-footed balloon man ... is it?

 

[rando]

I've been sitting on this for awhile unsure if it required being shared publicly or privately.


To be filed under: Collection of outside references to Natural Sound.

 

[morricab]

Yes, I think it is very relevant - we would have something more solid to anchor our comments than speakers that 99% of our readers never listened.

No one was ever focused just or even mainly on the speakers...well you were apparently. I think I understand that you are a speaker focused individual. You would be better off, IMO, if you keep the LAMM ML3s and dump the Wilsons for something that is more sympathetic to the LAMMs. That will yield a more natural sound than trying to get a good match with those speakers, IMO.

 

[morricab]

Yes, I think it is very relevant - we would have something more solid to anchor our comments than speakers that 99% of our readers never listened.

Please recall from Peter’s trip to Utah that he heard 4 different speakers there all giving various degrees of what he now calls natural sound. 4 very different speakers...common thread? The electronics, sources and cables I suppose.

 

[XV-1]

How would you contrast a natural sounding saxophone to a realistic sounding saxophone? To me the two SHOULD be one and the same.

I wouldn't. You can't have a natural sounding saxophone.
Using natural as a descriptor doesn't really exist. Try googling it.

Cheers

 

[bonzo75]

From the Collins thesaurus

 

[bonzo75]

Unnatural

 

[ddk]

Please recall from Peter’s trip to Utah that he heard 4 different speakers there all giving various degrees of what he now calls natural sound. 4 very different speakers...common thread? The electronics, sources and cables I suppose.

Since I came across Lamm twenty three years ago my systems start with a Lamm SET then add the speakers to match the amp and the room, that’s how my interest with vintage horns started. My default is always Lamm when I have to accommodate inefficient speakers too in this case the hybrids. So you’re right in your assumption.

david

 

[tima]

Any instrument that you hear "as is" or in other words, the real instrument, must by definition be natural sound. Just because it was not sound "made by nature" doesn't mean it is not "natural" sound.

I would say the real instrument simply sounds - it is the sound of a saxophone played in acoustic space. It doesn't sound like a saxophone, it is a saxophone. No modifier, natural of realistic, is needed and perhaps introduces uneeded adjectival explanation.

The reproduction of a saxophone - playing a record of someone playing a saxophone - can sound like a saxophone. If that sound resembles the sound of a saxophone played in acoustic space it can more or less natural or realistic depending on how a stereo system reproduces it.

Suppose we have saxophone A played at time T and the recording is of that and we heard it. With superior aural memory maybe, maybe we can gauge the reproduction of that instance. But that is rare. Normally (or in theory at least) our aural memory comprises memories of saxophones sounding, pehaps multiple saxophones heard over time. I believe we use that composition of saxophone experiences when gauging reproduction.

However I believewe can remember the sound of some particular saxophone - perhaps. I might recognize a reproduction of Gato Barbieri playing on the soundtrack of 'Last Tango in Paris' and not get him confused with Stanley Turrentine. Even when I only have reproductions of each. Yet gauging those reproduced saxophone sounds still relies on our composition memory/memories to assess their relative naturalistic or realistic character. Aural memory can be amazing. I imagine there are people whose memory let's them say where a recording was made - that's Bernstein at Carnegie, thats Szell at Severance Hall.

As David suggested, so much of the discussion is 'bound up' in semantics. Describing sound is difficult. The words and structure each of us chooses can turn a sentence into a confusion or a communication.

 

[morricab]

Since I came across Lamm twenty three years ago my systems start with a Lamm SET then add the speakers to match the amp and the room, that’s how my interest with vintage horns started. My default is always Lamm when I have to accommodate inefficient speakers too in this case the hybrids. So you’re right in your assumption.

david

My journey to horns is similar. First I got into SETs (KR Audio) and then towards horns and other high sensitivity designs.

 

[morricab]

I wouldn't. You can't have a natural sounding saxophone.
Using natural as a descriptor doesn't really exist. Try googling it.

Cheers

What you are saying doesn’t really make sense. See the definitions provided by Bozo, I think def 3 fits pretty well. A natural sounding saxophone is a saxophone...a reproduction has different levels of that reference.

 

[morricab]

I would say the real instrument simply sounds - it is the sound of a saxophone played in acoustic space. It doesn't sound like a saxophone, it is a saxophone. No modifier, natural of realistic, is needed and perhaps introduces uneeded adjectival explanation.

The reproduction of a saxophone - playing a record of someone playing a saxophone - can sound like a saxophone. If that sound resembles the sound of a saxophone played in acoustic space it can more or less natural or realistic depending on how a stereo system reproduces it.

Suppose we have saxophone A played at time T and the recording is of that and we heard it. With superior aural memory maybe, maybe we can gauge the reproduction of that instance. But that is rare. Normally (or in theory at least) our aural memory comprises memories of saxophones sounding, pehaps multiple saxophones heard over time. I believe we use that composition of saxophone experiences when gauging reproduction.

However I believewe can remember the sound of some particular saxophone - perhaps. I might recognize a reproduction of Gato Barbieri playing on the soundtrack of 'Last Tango in Paris' and not get him confused with Stanley Turrentine. Even when I only have reproductions of each. Yet gauging those reproduced saxophone sounds still relies on our composition memory/memories to assess their relative naturalistic or realistic character. Aural memory can be amazing. I imagine there are people whose memory let's them say where a recording was made - that's Bernstein at Carnegie, thats Szell at Severance Hall.

As David suggested, so much of the discussion is 'bound up' in semantics. Describing sound is difficult. The words and structure each of us chooses can turn a sentence into a confusion or a communication.

I am in basic agreement with what you are saying here. I would only add that for me the ability to suspend disbelief on a recorded saxophone (i.e when you close your eyes you could believe you are hearing the real thing) is the move towards natural/realistic sound. The best system I ever heard for this was the Living Voice/Kondo system in Munich (running off a full battery system for power). You could close your eyes and just about believe you were really at the Opera...and I don't really like most Opera. I was stunned and glued to my seat with music I don't usually like.

 

[Tango]

See the definitions provided by Bozo, I think def 3 fits pretty well.

Bonzo. Bozo. Bonzo is Bozo right?

 

[wil]

No doubt that speakers sare part of a system that imparts sound -- yet I find (empirically) that speakers, along with sources, affect the sound quite definitively. I think we can easily and dramatically change the sound of our systems simply by changing the type of speaker.

Take horns for example. Any horn sporting drivers with high magnetic flux -- Lowther, AER, top end Supravox or Fostex etc -- offer explosive dynamics and microdynamics and reveal details galore. Hardly "relaxing" but, nonetheless, close to what is on the source medium. These are so efficient that the slightest modulation is converted into audible sound.
Anyone used to that kind of reproduction might well find conventional box speakres a tad flat. Conversely, horns could sound edgy to people used to a regular dynamic pair of speakers -- it certainly did in my case -- albeit, the magic of details suddenly audible and dynamics was unparalleled (it was a diy based on Lowther DX-4s)

I've been sitting on this for awhile unsure if it required being shared publicly or privately.


To be filed under: Collection of outside references to Natural Sound.

I think what PM says is important. That is, our brains/ hearing/ perception adjust to our audio systems.

 

[wil]

Please recall from Peter’s trip to Utah that he heard 4 different speakers there all giving various degrees of what he now calls natural sound. 4 very different speakers...common thread? The electronics, sources and cables I suppose.

All the speakers are Vintage speakers, no? Even through the speakers are different, do they also impart a common sound character?

.

 

[morricab]

All the speakers are Vintage speakers, no? Even through the speakers are different, do they also impart a common sound character?

I think not. Vintage speakers sound as different from each other as any other speakers. David's Bionors probably sound radically different from his JBLs...I am not sure what the other two pairs were.