Live Sound Versus Hi-Fi Sound

[RGA]

I believe the goal is to be accurate to the recording. And the only way to really know if a system is being accurate to the recording is for a system to show as much contrast as possible between recordings, and in fact stereo system components. If system A plays ten recordings and all of them sound completely different from each other and you can tell the difference in tonality, imaging staging, bass dynamnics etc then system A has tremendous resolution and allowing those differences to come through. While many other systems that can only play classical strings and can't play other kinds of music are very low resolution speakers because they have a gross inability to give you what is on the source disc. One of the classic speakers is the Quad 57 and 63 but they are not good resolving loudspeakers - they can play one kind of music and they can please the ear doing it no question about it - but what is also true is that they can't tell the listener the differences between recordings because they lack the ability to produce MANY and indeed "MOST" of the music on the market (which isn't classical). Such a speaker is nice to listen to but hardly accurate.

A speaker or system is a series of electrical devices and its sole purpose is to take a signal and reproduce it as the musicians intended regardless of whether it is lousy amplified music. Tupac on a Quad is horrible and the reason it is horrible is because the speaker can't produce the notes on the CD or LP. If it can't reproduce the signals of that music it also can't do the canon in the 1812 or most bass instruments properly (although it may make it all sound "nice."

This doesn't necessarily mean a big boxed speaker is going to be better but I'll put my money on the speaker that can handle all music intended by the artist first and then worry about the ultimate frequency extremes and treble issues or slight box colourations or distortion.

Granted I am in the HE/SET camp so it's interesting that my view would be that a system has to be able to do AC/DC and Tupac at high levels. I believe SETs get short shrift because they are simply connected to poor efficiency speakers. A speaker may be a horn of 100db but it doesn't mean it's easy to drive. The sad thing IMO is that the two things that a great SET amp does better by far than ANY transister I have ever heard is Transient attack and Decay. The initial sound of a guitar pick or pressed key or thwack on a cymbal - no comparison. And the decay of the piano box the lingers whilst not muddying the sound of the next transient. Sadly it becomes mud with the wrong speaker, but with the right speaker there is no going back.

Anyway, I understand the appeal of something like the Quad 2905 but I like my cake and eat it as well. I would like a speaker that does everything the Quad is capable of doing and a LOT of what the Tannoy Westminster or Acapella High Violencello is capable of doing and preferably for less than half the price of either one.

I happen to buy into getting what's off the disc not stamping a panel sound or 40 foot stage (Bose 901) onto every recording homogonizing the results. My bias is to the article written by Leonard Norwitz a classical music lover and composer and Peter Q of audio note some years back and posted on the enjoythemusic.com website http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin.../audiohell.htm and it applies to any system not just that maker though that is how they design everything. Practically it's tough to do as they suggest but I think it works well if you can put the significant time in requitred for it.

[hermanv]

Define "Live".

Most "live" events I've attended were played through a mixing console and local speakers. Neither the console, the speakers nor the wages paid to the "sound engineer" were up to a real "live" quality HiFi event. In many cases the speakers in particular were quite poor with a 12" woofer and a horn mid/tweet, all in all not HiFi.

Trumpets are loud and brash , but not overly bright or harsh (HiFi definition) they sound great un-amplified.

Another problem of recreating a live event is that most people's listening room is far smaller than the room in which the live music was heard.

IMHO adjusting for these issues is perfectly acceptable. As is using equipment that doesn't subtract from a rare quality recording.

[poppachubby]

Define "Live".

Most "live" events I've attended were played through a mixing console and local speakers.

As a musician that has gigged many times, I agree with your sentiment Herman. I don't know what "live" is supposed to be in hi-fi terms, mostly, because I know what it is in the real world. There is nothing that can replicate a live musical experience IMO. Perhaps a $500,000 system can, but I'll never hear one anyhow, so what use is that to me?

One quality I do look for and enjoy with my own system, is realism. Realism in terms of sound but also in proportion of the instruments to one another. Funny, just the other day I was listening to Metallica's ...And Justice for All, my favorite album of theirs musically. But good grief, could they have made the drums any more present? Ridiculous really.

[poppachubby]

I believe the goal is to be accurate to the recording.

Yes, I agree and furthermore, I want to hear everything that I was intended to. Sorry, what's that Rich?

As for soundstage - I have never understood what the driving appeal of it is and why so many glob onto soundstage and imaging. Personally if I notice it it is probably doing a whole bunch of things wrong someplace else.

Hmmm. I can appreciate that you don't dig soundstage but in staying true to a recording, you MUST consider it. Some recordings have been made to replicate the studio "environment", so that you at home may feel like you're sitting in front of the band. Where my understanding ends, is when people try to listen to a soundstage on a recording which clearly LACKS any. Some people need to realise that quite a few recordings have been panned to stimulate the senses, and NOT replicate any sense of real imaging.

As I said before, I enjoy my music in hi-fi. Imaging is a miracle of the studio, and with hi-fi we are privileged to experience it. We shouldn't ignore it but at the same time, shouldn't be overly concerned. It is what it is...

[Ajani]

I believe the goal is to be accurate to the recording. And the only way to really know if a system is being accurate to the recording is for a system to show as much contrast as possible between recordings, and in fact stereo system components. If system A plays ten recordings and all of them sound completely different from each other and you can tell the difference in tonality, imaging staging, bass dynamnics etc then system A has tremendous resolution and allowing those differences to come through. While many other systems that can only play classical strings and can't play other kinds of music are very low resolution speakers because they have a gross inability to give you what is on the source disc. One of the classic speakers is the Quad 57 and 63 but they are not good resolving loudspeakers - they can play one kind of music and they can please the ear doing it no question about it - but what is also true is that they can't tell the listener the differences between recordings because they lack the ability to produce MANY and indeed "MOST" of the music on the market (which isn't classical). Such a speaker is nice to listen to but hardly accurate.

A speaker or system is a series of electrical devices and its sole purpose is to take a signal and reproduce it as the musicians intended regardless of whether it is lousy amplified music. Tupac on a Quad is horrible and the reason it is horrible is because the speaker can't produce the notes on the CD or LP. If it can't reproduce the signals of that music it also can't do the canon in the 1812 or most bass instruments properly (although it may make it all sound "nice."

This doesn't necessarily mean a big boxed speaker is going to be better but I'll put my money on the speaker that can handle all music intended by the artist first and then worry about the ultimate frequency extremes and treble issues or slight box colourations or distortion.

Granted I am in the HE/SET camp so it's interesting that my view would be that a system has to be able to do AC/DC and Tupac at high levels. I believe SETs get short shrift because they are simply connected to poor efficiency speakers. A speaker may be a horn of 100db but it doesn't mean it's easy to drive. The sad thing IMO is that the two things that a great SET amp does better by far than ANY transister I have ever heard is Transient attack and Decay. The initial sound of a guitar pick or pressed key or thwack on a cymbal - no comparison. And the decay of the piano box the lingers whilst not muddying the sound of the next transient. Sadly it becomes mud with the wrong speaker, but with the right speaker there is no going back.

Anyway, I understand the appeal of something like the Quad 2905 but I like my cake and eat it as well. I would like a speaker that does everything the Quad is capable of doing and a LOT of what the Tannoy Westminster or Acapella High Violencello is capable of doing and preferably for less than half the price of either one.

I happen to buy into getting what's off the disc not stamping a panel sound or 40 foot stage (Bose 901) onto every recording homogonizing the results. My bias is to the article written by Leonard Norwitz a classical music lover and composer and Peter Q of audio note some years back and posted on the enjoythemusic.com website http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin.../audiohell.htm and it applies to any system not just that maker though that is how they design everything. Practically it's tough to do as they suggest but I think it works well if you can put the significant time in requitred for it.

All good points and I agree... though I would ask the question of "how do you know when to stop?"...

When is a component too detailed? When has it moved beyond allowing you to hear all the details as the recording engineer intended and moved to magnifying details excessively? When has it overshot the mark on soundstage?

At least (in theory anyway) with an unamplified live recording, you could compare the playback from your HiFi with the live sound and determine if you've met the goal...

Using Peter Q's approach: the system that shows the most contrast could theoretically be "painting a picture" that is magnified to well beyond its actual size...

So for example, it might be a case that say a Magnepan MG1.6/1.7 is more accurate than a MG20.1, because the 20.1 has moved beyond retrieving all information on the recording and is now magnifying/exagerating that information.... But how would we know that we should have stopped at the 1.6/1.7 if we really want accuracy?

[poppachubby]

But how would we know that we should have stopped at the 1.6/1.7 if we really want accuracy?

Through careful auditioning, this is where personal taste would come in.

[Ajani]

Through careful auditioning, this is where personal taste would come in.

Careful auditioning of what? What's the target?

Personal taste I get and I think is really what audiophiles are after, but since we often claim some kind of objective goal to HiFi (whether recreating the live sound or accuracy to the recording), then how do we meet that objective goal?

[RGA]

Personal taste is fine Ajani if that is the choice one makes. People buy the Quad 57 and a huge segment of audiophiles hold it up as one of the finest speakers going. But most of those buyers also realize whther they want to say it or not - that they are woefully inaccurate loudspeakers. Most of us know that if one wants to listen to "Thunderstruck" on a set of loudspeakers that Quad and speakers like it are completely hopeless and that in no way shape or form do they meet even remotely the intent of the band or the recording engineers.

My issue is certainly not people's choices - I very much like the 2905 myself for what it can handle - but unfortunately a lot of people start trying to claim it as some sort of superior form of speaker or that is "accurate" because it is "lighter" and creates less distortion. My contention is that Dynamics and bass and drive (depending how you know it as) are the main sources of creating distortion (bass dynamics especially) and so it's easy to get rid of distortion by simply avoiding presenting the sound as it was intended in the first place.

Lesser boxed speakers with a lot of resonances and boxy presentations - virtually every $3,000 and under(and sometimes very expensive speakers) floorstander with several drivers stacked on each other with a metal tweeter and poly/Kevlar woofers make their boxes present on everything unfortunately.

Classical music recordings that typically focus on violin, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, French Horn typically get butchered by a lot of gear - doesn't get buthered at all on a Quad 2905 which lives for this stuff. It has a gentle downward slope in the treble so rarely gets harsh and bass isn't really needed for it, and typical listeners don't listen very loud. Meanwhile many boxes will imprint some sort of boom or ping in there or the drivers don't integrates and you get this weird isolated sound. Even the top Wilson Maxx3 despite the huge price and being run by top tube amps sounded all over the place - something that a speaker like the KingSound and Martin Logan or Quad had virtually no issues with.

It's a fascinating industry because many makers have a variety of approaches and beliefs as to what is the superior presentation.

[Ajani]

Personal taste is fine Ajani if that is the choice one makes. People buy the Quad 57 and a huge segment of audiophiles hold it up as one of the finest speakers going. But most of those buyers also realize whther they want to say it or not - that they are woefully inaccurate loudspeakers. Most of us know that if one wants to listen to "Thunderstruck" on a set of loudspeakers that Quad and speakers like it are completely hopeless and that in no way shape or form do they meet even remotely the intent of the band or the recording engineers.

My issue is certainly not people's choices - I very much like the 2905 myself for what it can handle - but unfortunately a lot of people start trying to claim it as some sort of superior form of speaker or that is "accurate" because it is "lighter" and creates less distortion. My contention is that Dynamics and bass and drive (depending how you know it as) are the main sources of creating distortion (bass dynamics especially) and so it's easy to get rid of distortion by simply avoiding presenting the sound as it was intended in the first place.

Lesser boxed speakers with a lot of resonances and boxy presentations - virtually every $3,000 and under(and sometimes very expensive speakers) floorstander with several drivers stacked on each other with a metal tweeter and poly/Kevlar woofers make their boxes present on everything unfortunately.

Classical music recordings that typically focus on violin, cello, flute, clarinet, oboe, French Horn typically get butchered by a lot of gear - doesn't get buthered at all on a Quad 2905 which lives for this stuff. It has a gentle downward slope in the treble so rarely gets harsh and bass isn't really needed for it, and typical listeners don't listen very loud. Meanwhile many boxes will imprint some sort of boom or ping in there or the drivers don't integrates and you get this weird isolated sound. Even the top Wilson Maxx3 despite the huge price and being run by top tube amps sounded all over the place - something that a speaker like the KingSound and Martin Logan or Quad had virtually no issues with.

It's a fascinating industry because many makers have a variety of approaches and beliefs as to what is the superior presentation.

Sadly, most audiophiles would never admit that they just prefer the sound of something, it has to be justified as being the more correct approach or truer to the live performance or some such...

I am partial to designs that are all-rounders, as I have a very wide taste in music... sadly I won't be likely to hear Peter Q's designs anytime soon... I'm fascinated to discover how a SET/HE system would sound with my music... However, I've found that (for me) the best compromise in the price levels I shop at are full range (multi-driver) box speakers... However, the ones I really like use the same material from tweeter to woofer. Revel - uses OCC (some kind of ceramic composite) & Monitor Audio uses C-CAM (aluminum)... so rather than trying to blend the soumd of a metal tweeter with some other materials, Monitor Audio uses metal for all drivers, and Revel uses ceramic throughout... I find that allows the music to sound coherent as there is no change in tone, etc as you move from bass to mids to highs...

I am especially intrigued to know what AN will sound like, as I know that Peter Q and Kevin Voecks (speaker killer, I believe you call him... so though I've never heard you speak about Revel speakers, I assume you're not fond of them ) have very diferent approaches to speaker design... So I'd love to compare my high powered 'Revel' setup to a low powered AN setup to see whether I love both, hate the AN or change my mind on the Revels....

[Hyfi]

I have been to very few live events that I would want my system to reproduce. I do expect my system to sound true, not live. I expect a wood instrument to sound as such, tell the difference between round and flat wound bass strings, hear a symbol crash to the end and so on.

I think the term Live is not used properly here or in most cases where this topic comes up.

As said earlier, your system should reproduce the CD as it was intended, even though in most cases it sounds like crap from over compression and some engineer who puts it all together for Radio play and not High End system playback.