High End Audio Sounds Crap!

[Unregistered]

Dogs have much better hearing than humans and are fooled so I reckon its probably fit for purpose.

My jaw hit the floor...even the dog noticed!

 

[john & Jake]

Volume isn't everything.
I do most of my listening after 8pm so the level is down a bit. But because my system is very revealing, detailed and dynamic at these lower levels, it is still a pleasure to listen to.

 

[gassor]

Good hi-fi is mostly far better than live music, which is highly-overrated IMO.

Spot on. At any sort of pop concert you are at the mercy of 'mixing desk man' and sometimes the sound is bloody awful. Often there is no separation at all and everything is a great big pile of mush. I'm not keen on the bass sound at open air festival either, it hits you in the gut, but offers no subtlety or finesse.

OK I know, some people just moan and moan.

 

[dave]

My gear seems to trick my dogs so that when I am watching a film and a door opens the dogs are off looking to see who is "breaking in". If there is a dog barking they are all over the house looking for the other dog and so on. When I was working on a recording of Bella (now departed) Jago (who grew up with her sat next to the speaker and lay down and looked so sad (yes, dogs grieve) I had to stop using that sound.

Dogs have much better hearing than humans and are fooled so I reckon its probably fit for purpose.

Our Sadie and Ruby do the same with the background pup on Chocolate Jesus despite my sad, old screechy ™ Olive rig. Maybe they've just got poor taste like their owner.

 

[TheDecameron]

And you assumed its the pup that makes them bare their teeth Dave?

 

[Errol]

I used to think that a system could never sound like a live performance, until I heard one that did.

Errol.

 

[hammeredklavier]

Spot on. At any sort of pop concert you are at the mercy of 'mixing desk man' and sometimes the sound is bloody awful. Often there is no separation at all and everything is a great big pile of mush. I'm not keen on the bass sound at open air festival either, it hits you in the gut, but offers no subtlety or finesse.

OK I know, some people just moan and moan.

Most live amplified music sounds seriously crap, as you say, nowhere near as good as well recorded stuff via HiFi. Acoustic music is a different matter. If you ever get the chance to hear one of the classical choral masterpieces live or a symphony orchestra then that'll certainly reveal some deficiencies in your system. But recordings have preserved some of the greatest performances of all time, and I'd rather listen to a great recorded performance than a shite live one.

 

[hockman]

While the blogger did not articulate it well, I thought he had a valid point, i.e.-

Reproduced music does not closely resemble the sound of live instruments being played.

Some of the comments on his blog got it right -- the dynamic compression inherent/necessary in recordings and gear is the main culprit.

On the other hand, some gear are better than others in reproducing the dynamics that are present in the recordings.

 

[innuendo]

I used to think that a system could never sound like a live performance, until I heard one that did.

Errol.

Would it be possible to remember the ingredients to this taste of audio nirvana

 

[darrenyeats]

I think there are two reasons why recorded music doesn't sound like live music, (amplified or not).

a) Dynamics

Most studio recordings are compressed, a lot are massively over compressed. Even at live events that are amplified the engineer will use some compression, but generally they use less as large pro PA rigs have much higher SPL capability before compressing.

<snip>

b) Equalisation

Used with abandon during mixing. Why? well predominantly to make things "easier to follow". Unfortunately most live events don't have such clarity and so buggering around with EQ only makes acoustic instruments sound unnatural and we pick up on that very easily.
<snip>
Predominantly though IMO it's the compressing to death of the individual instruments and the mix overall that really is the deal breaker.
<snip>

I couldn't agree more with this!

<snip>
But then when I go to hear a live piano I don't stick my head under the lid - which is where a lot of recording engineers want to stick their microphones.
<snip>
People need to think carefully about what they are trying to recreate.

And this!

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

A question:

say we took a good recording of something simple and acoustic - girl and guitar probably, and set up a good system in a room, along with that same girl and her guitar. Who thinks they could 'pass' a blind ABX test between them to the degree of consistency necessary to give a scientifically valid result?

 

[Errol]

Would it be possible to remember the ingredients to this taste of audio nirvana

No I can't, but I remember where it was. It was at a wedding reception held in a country hall in Southern Hawkes Bay in New Zealand, a DJ was playing a Disco system and he put on Cliff Richard singing "Living doll" -as you do at weddings - Cliff and the band were right there, up on the stage real and tangible it was uncanny, just about everyone in the hall commented on it.
I felt it was to do with the wooden halls acoustic being sympathetic to that particular system playing that track. I do remember that it was a CD based Disco system.
I have not heard anything since that approaches that for realism and I have heard some wonderfull systems over the years.

Errol.

 

[Barrymagrec]

A question:

say we took a good recording of something simple and acoustic - girl and guitar probably, and set up a good system in a room, along with that same girl and her guitar. Who thinks they could 'pass' a blind ABX test between them to the degree of consistency necessary to give a scientifically valid result?

Didn`t Gilbert Briggs do something along these lines back in the fifties? - someone must remember .

 

[smithy]

I wasnt there but Briggs did a comparison with live and a pair of SFB3s with Quad amplification and a Ferrograph tape unit.

 

[westsea]

Didn`t Gilbert Briggs do something along these lines back in the fifties? - someone must remember .

Wharfdale Speakers, refresh your memory on Wikipedia, an incredible man. The company was sold to Rank.
As all serious decisions are emotional, so a blind test would be not scientifically provable - but it is a lot of fun, a change from the music!

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Didn`t Gilbert Briggs do something along these lines back in the fifties? - someone must remember .

I've heard a couple of 'live -vs - hifi' dems and in both cases the 'live' won convincingly, but of course neither was conducted blind, so has no scientific validity. Does it?

Does this therefore mean that live cannot be shown to be better than hifi, so those of us who go to live gigs would be better off with a recording and saving the money?

 

[westsea]

I've heard a couple of 'live -vs - hifi' dems and in both cases the 'live' won convincingly, but of course neither was conducted blind, so has no scientific validity. Does it?

Does this therefore mean that live cannot be shown to be better than hifi, so those of us who go to live gigs would be better off with a recording and saving the money?

If we can afford it - do both, hifi allows us to hear Frank Sinatra at the Sands and Due Pre, but the joy of a good live concert is probably more memorable, I think.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

If we can afford it - do both, hifi allows us to hear Frank Sinatra at the Sands and Due Pre, but the joy of a good live concert is probably more memorable, I think.

Oh I completely agree, but the memorableness of a live concert is a very subjective thing, for which there is no objective measure or standard. I cannot therefore avoid or refute the suggestion that any memories or joy I take away from the live concert are anything more than delusion and a sufficiently transparent budget hifi system will do the job just as well.

 

[Mr Pig]

I sort of read that article from a different perspective. To me it seemed more a statement about the failure of Hi-End audio to justify itself by offering performance massively better than more modestly priced equipment. Despite the cost, it's still only a stereo.

I agree with it. In fact I go further and say that most H-End Hi-Fi is actually worse than a lot of more modest kit. The more exotic it gets the less it sounds like music.

 

[westsea]

Oh I completely agree, but the memorableness of a live concert is a very subjective thing, for which there is no objective measure or standard. I cannot therefore avoid or refute the suggestion that any memories or joy I take away from the live concert are anything more than delusion and a sufficiently transparent budget hifi system will do the job just as well.

In reality the objective measure is part of the delusion, one would first have to define the object, a difficult task in the current debate; but perhaps we shall just have to live with, and enjoy the simple delusion, which is possible more satisfying than delusions of grandeur!