Ron Resnick said:
First, I believe there are three primary alternative objectives of high-end audio:
1) recreate the sound of an original musical event,
2) reproduce exactly what is on the master tape, and
3) create a sound subjectively pleasing to the audiophile.
I’ve thought a lot about this. I think it’s a really interesting question, and Ron, I’m glad you asked it.
My thoughts so far are:
#1 is impossible. To “recreate the sound” in the literal sense would mean exactly that - you drag the musicians and their instruments into your living room and play it again (though of course, it would diverge from the original event not only in sound, but in performance).
The sound of the original event only lasts as long as the event itself and only able to be perceived by those present. If someone was there and recorded the sound of the original event they did so selectively according to preference - not limited to selection of mic type, polar pattern, placement, spacing (A/B, X/Y, ORTF, Blumlein, M/S), mic pre, DAC, EQ, etc. Once it hits a mic diaphragm, it’s changed from sound into electricity, and only able to be turned back into sound after having been ‘manipulated’ via the choice of the above process relative to human preference.
The recording is not so much the original event, as it is the event according to the preferences of the recording mechanism. Therefore, it’s no longer the original event nor a recreation,
it’s a reinterpretation of an original event, with the producer/engineer/mastering engineer the re-interpreters. In this sense, they too become co-creators alongside the musicians. It is no longer “the” sound, it is “a” sound, judged relative to preference.
#2 is impossible. That would only be possible if one was to accept the process of playback introduced no electro-acoustical distortions of any kind. In theory, of course, we can argue that should the reproduction chain be sufficiently able to reduce its distortions down to below an audible threshold, “exact” reproduction is possible. However, in the real world, playing music (the “master tape/format”) -
not steady state signals -
the level of distortion is magnified in a non-linear and asymmetrical manner significantly (especially at real-world levels), as anyone who has compared the original musical waveform of the medium with the same musical waveform at the speaker/room interface (the listening position) can attest to.
#3 is therefore - given #1 and #2 are impossible - by default, the only option left.
Or is it?
It’s certainly possible to create a sound that’s subjectively pleasing. But is that what we’re trying to do? And is that enough?
For many of us, perhaps not.
cjfrbw said:
I have long just regarded my stereo system as a "player piano" interpreting varying scrolls created by a dizzying and variant array of mastering results. It is an interpreter of communication however imperfect.
bonzo75 said:
I think what makes a difference is how does someone's catalog come about
I think these are both helpful insights, and in regard to cjfrbw’s comment, one I’ve shared before, though I doubt I was the first. As I’ve argued before, any electro-mechanical device whose primary purpose is the playback of a time-based art form that cannot be stable in time and creates an asymmetrical and non-linear relationship between frequency and dynamics when playing back music (not steady state signals) at real-world levels is not and cannot be considered “accurate” to anything. It will always be reinterpreting the signal in its own way. In a similar way to how a conductor sets the overall tempo and content, the musicians modulate their instruments, and the instruments themselves produce sound, so too does the interdependent mechanism of source, amplifier and speaker (though as an analogy, it is flawed, and provided simply for illustrative purposes) - i.e., both the orchestra and the audio reproduction mechanism are constantly (re)interpreting the music.
Bonzo’s point is that despite the fact our audio mechanisms are not producing “reality” (primary objective # 1), our perception is still looking for cues that our brain can easily match to our pre-existing library of references of what music sounds like when not reproduced. This neurobiological process is hardwired not just toward recognition - but to determine meaning (it actively sorts sound from music)*.
Any musician who’s faced with a piece of music will try and not just play the notes correctly (at the right time, with the right amplitude, at the right pitch), they will attempt to impart meaning to those notes (hence the degree of variance a conductor or soloist will bring to the same piece of music). That meaning - the intention of the human being to create art anew - is, I believe, why the art form socio-culturally accepted as music has come to play such an enormous part in our history as a species, and why we - a tiny, tiny subset of the larger population - are willing to spend so much of our time, effort, energy (and money) on re-interpreting it in our homes. What’s more, it’s unfortunately that meaning that many systems suspend in order to sound one way or another.
For me, and possibly for many of us here, we accept that not only are #1 and #2 impossible, but that we are looking for reinterpreters that most closely match our collective and historical experience of music - our perception of what is music. “Subjectively pleasing” is, for me, not enough. “Pleasant” sound, “visceral” sound, ”beautiful” sound, “accurate” sound - none of those interest me. The research (nascent though it is) points to the brain’s need to separate sound and music into neurobiologically distinct categories. My perception of music has been and is continually being formed by my exposure to it in both prerecorded and live form. Without wanting to be a dick (too late!), a system for me - charged with the responsibility of reinterpreting music that continues to have incredible personal significance for me on a daily basis - must reinterpret the music in a way that is closest to my perception of what makes music meaningful based on my historical experience of listening to, creating/playing and experiencing music in all its forms, despite the fact that the sound of that music will never fully be able to come close to the real thing.
*See Daniel J. Levitin & Scott T. Grafton: “Measuring the representational space of music with fMRI: a case study with Sting”; Edward F. Chang, Nima Mesgarani, Keith Johnson, & Connie Cheung: “Phonetic Feature Encoding in Human Superior Temporal Gyrus”; Sam Norman-Haignere, Nancy G. Kanwisher, John H. McDermott: “Distinct Cortical Pathways for Music and Speech Revealed by Hypothesis-Free Voxel Decomposition”.
