best speakers ever heard
- Thread starter sergiox
- Start date
You can say the same thing about rock music. In fact I suspect that more people know what a drum kit or electric guitar sounds like in real life than a cello or violin. Even if you don't own them, most people have heard these things up close in some context or another. I would say I have a pretty good idea of what a Stratocaster or a Precision Bass sounds like. And of course a voice is a voice.
On the question of how it is recorded, I think you have it the wrong way round. The fact that rock music is not as well recorded makes it harder to get right, not easier. If you want to show off your system, what do you play? Something sell recorded, clean sounding, sparse, good dynamic range, right? I have tracks that sound good on anything. It's why they love acoustic guitar and a singer in Hi-Fi shops.
The macro dynamics of say orchestral might be quite wide but micro? Not even close. Percussion for instance. You're listening at a distance of what, maybe forty or fifty feet? It's a defuse sound and nothing like as immediate as a rock drum kit up close.
Which leads on to timing. Classical ebbs and flows rather than sharp stops and starts of rock timing because an orchestra cannot time that precisely. It's impossible. So many musicians cannot be that tight and with the sounds coming from so far apart and so far away with so much reverberation you are never going to get music with timing which is as tight and fast. It's a different animal altogether.
So to make a good stab at rock music a system has to dig fast dynamics and scale out of a probably poor recording and still get tonal and ambient information right. Harder to do. That's what I've heard anyway.
I think the most dramatic example I heard was a pair of Impulse horn speakers I had in the house to try. They sounded fine on classical but fell apart on anything else. They just collapsed into a tiny mess on rock music, totally lost it. Give then an acoustic guitar and they were happy as Larry.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
I don't know for sure, but I did collaborate for a while with Mike Harvey of Octave Audio.. (Not the German amp maker) who was engaged in making reproductions of Tannoy cabinets such as the big corner horns and, I think others.. to which purchasers could fit their own drive units.
I think Lockwood had a similar operation?
Tony L
Administrator
Ok, lets take a Stratocaster as I have one sitting across the room from me as I type (1982, USA, hard-tail). What sound exactly? It sounds very different played clean through my £2k 6 Watt Rift valve amp than cranked through a row of Marshalls and then mic’d through a PA at a gig, or a 50 Watt Peavey transistor amp in a pub. That’s before we even start to contemplate the raft of FX pedals, mic positions etc. Basically unless it was *your* Strat, amp and pedal board on the record you haven’t the slightest clue as to what is on the record. You just weren’t there. This is also before we get to the whole array of studio FX etc.
Far easier to use a concert grand piano as a reference as everyone knows what one of those sounds like.
Again, do a little research on studio techniques. Chances are that voice is multi-tracked, limited, compressed, de-essed and has all manner of digital FX present. It is a manufactured commodity. An unreality. It always makes me giggle when folk set systems up with Norah Jones or whatever, I’ve nothing against her at all, but her voice is hugely processed and if you know what you are listening for a good system will highlight this. If it sounds like she’s singing in the room in front of you your system is masking a lot of information. Chances are there are at least three of her at any given time and you should easily hear that layering along with the limiting, spacial FX etc.
If your system makes a studio recording sound like a band in a venue, pub or whatever it really is hopelessly bad IMHO. That simply isn’t what is on the record or CD.
Hoopsontoast
pfm Member
At Home - KEF 201/2s, least compromise of all the speakers I have had in various systems at home
At Show - I would say between two:
Real World Room - ATC SCM50 (possibly SL) at one of the Scalford shows, just did everything right in a pretty normal sized room.
If you had the space - Numerous massive Tannoys, again from various Scalford shows, some of the DIY horn setups sounded great but for the simiplicity and overall sound, it was a pair of 15" Golds IIRC. Never really heard any real esoteric kit, there was a pair of big Wilsons one year that did amazing bass but not much else...
At Show - I would say between two:
Real World Room - ATC SCM50 (possibly SL) at one of the Scalford shows, just did everything right in a pretty normal sized room.
If you had the space - Numerous massive Tannoys, again from various Scalford shows, some of the DIY horn setups sounded great but for the simiplicity and overall sound, it was a pair of 15" Golds IIRC. Never really heard any real esoteric kit, there was a pair of big Wilsons one year that did amazing bass but not much else...
Alex S
carbon based lifeform
Not so sure about that.
They do? Which brand? And how big a room is it in? Makes A big difference. I've heard them many times in different locations but it's really no different from any other type of instrument. None of us know exactly what it sounded like live. We're just looking for a facsimile that makes us feel that we do.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
Well, I have a a few musical instruments at home, including a nice German piano, a drum set, and I know I will never ever get their real sound via my hi-fi.
Just a poor copy of them, but in high-fidelity!
I crave more 3D sound and realistic voices, plus natural sounds on acoustic music.
Just a poor copy of them, but in high-fidelity!
I crave more 3D sound and realistic voices, plus natural sounds on acoustic music.
iansr
pfm Member
Exactly right! And the reason I gave the Vox Olympians the title is because they make you think “this sounds just as though the musicians are in the room” . . . .
That's all any of us can do. This idea that we know what the original sounded like is garbage. Heck, people sitting in different places in a concert hall don't even hear the same thing!
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
I'll just throw this in...
Maybe 30 years ago I was in a large pub/restaurant in the early stages of a typical ' Office Christmas Do'.. As I recall we'd just been seated before being thrown our mass produced meals. Few of us ( and certainly not me..) were yet pissed to the state of insensibility... that came later...
Suddenly I heard music.. Real music...
I sought out the source thereof and discovered that it was a Salvation Army Brass Band playing two rooms away.
The speaker which can reproduce that...
Maybe 30 years ago I was in a large pub/restaurant in the early stages of a typical ' Office Christmas Do'.. As I recall we'd just been seated before being thrown our mass produced meals. Few of us ( and certainly not me..) were yet pissed to the state of insensibility... that came later...
Suddenly I heard music.. Real music...
I sought out the source thereof and discovered that it was a Salvation Army Brass Band playing two rooms away.
The speaker which can reproduce that...
Yank
Bulbous Also Tapered
That shock of recognition when you hear real instruments and know it instantly shows just how far sound reproduction has to go.
I wonder how much of the damage can be blamed on the recording process, and how much on playback?
westsounds
pfm Member
For midrange still the LS3/5A. Nearly a 50-year-old design but still the best. Beats me why they have to cost so much though in 2020. We now have better resources, ways of making things and easier yet the price these things sell for boggles the mind, and there's nothing to them.
fegs
pfm Member
I personally think it's more about creating a "sound" you're happy listening to rather than trying to replicate something you've never even heard.
I'd liken it to taking a photo then editing it slightly with filters, saturation etc, it's possibly not quite the scene you were viewing but the end product is something you'd rather look at.
Just my humble opinion of course
Cereal Killer
432
They are effectively a kit speaker.
westsounds
pfm Member
dave charlton
pfm member
The Living Voice Auditorium OBX's with external cross overs sounded impressive at the Bristol Show 2020 (powered by SJS electronics (I think) with a Kuzma front end). At the other end of the scale so did Rega's forthcoming Kytes as part of their System One (with Io and Planar 1).
S-Man
StrivingON
And yet, I get huge pleasure from these "shocking" recordings.
e.g. however it's pieced together, Radar Love is a great recording. The way the bass and drums interact and drive the song along is captivating. I'm not sure how they got that so right on a low bandwidth monitor - luck according to you. I don't think so.
Tony L
Administrator
To my ears a good system can get close with well recorded jazz and classical. As I suggest upthread rock and pop is a manufactured commodity. Most of the audiophile favourites, DSOTM, Aja, Joni Mitchell etc etc never existed in a live context, the albums were painstakingly assembled part by part over a period of months and have absolutely nothing to do with live music at all. This is by design. They are meant to sound as they do, which as far as the creators are concerned is way, way better than any gig.