[Majixin]

  The ability to accurately reproduce live music was achieved a long time ago.      

 
Hi,
 
 
I know this thread has been dead for years, but I came here via Google search and read it all for comments on the SNR discussion and up until this point, everything said can be borne out by scientific evidence if you read enough research on the topic. But the statement quoted above cannot be backed up for several reasons and I don't think anybody should believe that quote.
 
Reasons:
 
1) While contemporary recording means can appropriately capture sound to levels that (given a perfect replay system) would affirm the statement in terms of human perception, no such replay system exists. It's not to do with encoding format, DACs, pre-amp or power amplifier capabilities, but that speaker designs represent physical compromises and the interplay with room acoustics, plus the room acoustic of the recorded venue versus another environment. While some systems will have stellar specifications, the likely speakers in use cannot maintain a perfectly flat response across the audio band. This is why speaker companies quote +/-3dB accuracy. This difference is audible even if the result is perceptually close to the original sound. Reproducing the sound of one venue faithfully in another, means that if we physically could emanate sound from the speaker 100% accurately, it will undergo distortion based on room characteristics and arrive at the listener different. So the listener will not hear the original performance. Headphones remove the room, so what is played in to the eat hasn't suffered much of the associated problems.
 
2) Nearly all speakers have over the 0.5% of audible distortion in many parts of the audio band, especially at the extreme ends of a drivers capability. I cite the 0.5% distortion as audible based on Ben Duncan's cited research in his book "High Power Audio Amplifier Construction Manual". 0.5% is the point at which we can stop caring about distortion audibility. IIRC he also states something analogous to the replay concerns should be with the speakers because the electronic side is not the problem in regards to distortion and phase aberrations.
 
3) Speakers are a lot more accurate in terms of 20Hz-20kHz accuracy compared to headphones if measuring frequency response. A view of any of the headphone response and distortions graphs at http://www.headphone.com/pages/build-a-graph will show you how much headphones suffer frequency response inaccuracy especially in high frequencies (also bass distortion) and how generally they are far from maintaining a +/-3dB accuracy like speakers do. You can see how an Audeze LCD-X is way more flat and accurate than most, but still appears short of typical speaker accuracy. I think I read something about how headphones coupling over/in the ears changes our perception of the sound and that a perfect flat response isn't necessarily desired, but I haven't seen any science to support that - doesn't mean there isn't any. Irrespective, the measurements anybody can view of headphones on that site would seem to indicate bass distortions and high frequency reproduction is problematic for headphones generally. I believe this would be a manufacturing / material science problem to get something so small performing as well as larger speaker drivers.
 
4) Speakers don't sound better than headphones due to room interraction in most cases - something headphones benefit from the absence of - to some extent they diminish background noise and the sound they produce goes directly into the ear instead of reflecting off furniture and walls. It is also impossible to reproduce (with headphones or speakers) any given recorded room acoustic in another replay room, unless the recording was specifically mastered in an environment to target the characteristics of the speakers and room it was going to be replayed in (and nobody does this for commercial recordings!). If you read Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" you will understand why perfect reproduction is actually impossible with current science and speaker/headphone manufacturing techniques. He also cites evidence why multi-speaker (as in home cinema systems with 5+ speakers) with room equalisation do a far better job of recreating the original 'live' sound than two speakers can, but he also qualifies it with the science as to why it is actually physically impossible to recreate live sound perfectly. In short, you get a perceptually 'close' but measurably and audibly different sound.
 
As such, the accurate reproduction of live music is true only insofar as the output terminals of your speakers or headphone jack, assuming an absolute phase correct amplifier. Beyond this, room acoustics and a myriad of other factors best gleaned from Floyd Toole's book prevent it. I believe people should put something like a Dirac system in the audio-chain to adjust for room aberrations. Arcam's latest AV amp with Dirac in it seems interesting. Note: room EQ adjustment is normally done in bands, there is no way to adjust all frequencies for all possible volumes for all the differing absorbtion/dispersion/distortion characteristics of a room. Room characteristics change whenever somebody walks in/out, or opens a window and temperature and pressure come in to play also. Are we going to reproduce the temperature, humidity and air pressure of a venue with our playback systems to ensure sound waves behave like in the recording venue? I guess no.
 
Hopefully my post is well-received as it is not my intention to offend Strangelove424  with all the other good information posted, but nobody should read what was otherwise accurate postings and yet also believe that we have the ability to perfectly reproduce an orchestral performance from the likes of the Vienna Opera House in your own home - you simply cannot - it's physically impossible! If anybody really wants to understand why, I recommend Floyd Toole's book - it really demonstrates why we get perceptually close to reproducing a 'live' performance, but also why it will never audibly be as per the original performance. 
 
I'm no expert (just well read), but I have read the above two books among others because I had and interest in building amplifiers which gave way to an interest in building speakers, because according to what I have read, speakers are the problem to getting realistic reproduction. Headphones are simply tiny speakers and come with their own set of issues still to be solved.
 
My take on the rest of the discussion regarding SNR is concordant with Strangelove424 - at a point it makes no difference. Generally in hifi, equipment is beyond that point as to make no difference. However, I'm a firm believer in if it sounds good to you, then buy it, don't be swayed by other peoples opinions, reviews, specs, tech forum talk you don't understand or may be irrelevant etc. Music is about emotion and whatever system instills emotion best to your ears and musical tastes is the best for for you.

 

[spruce music]

I think I agree with nearly everything you have written.  I think in context Strangelove24 would as well.  I believe he was referring to everything that precedes speakers in his posting.
 
Beyond any of that, and the problems with limits in stereo reproduction over speakers or headphones there is another issue. Recordings that are multi-tracked or multi-miked actually have no chance to be reproduced live as they never existed that way or were processed completely away from it before you get to hear it. Few, few, few recordings are pure two mic recordings.  Basic stereo can do better than many people know though still have large deficiencies vs live.  But you have great difficulty finding two mic purist recordings to listen with.

 

[Majixin]

Hi Spruce,
 
I completely agree. Stereo recording is practically a lost art form. I think what you may be referring to is the type of recording methods espoused by Alan Blumlein.
 
There are limits to those techniques still, but done right they do go an incredibly long way to mimicking the original. One example where they fail would be if recording (in stereo) in an opera hall and some ambient sound seems to be heard from behind due to the acoustic qualities of the hall. In this scenario replaying it in a home environment will most likely seem to make the same sound come from in front of you because in the hall it was reverb/echo and picked up from behind, but in the home it had to be produced in a fashion that would travel from front speaker to ear. I believe it is this effect that Floyd Toole refers to when implying the superiority of multi-channel to more faithfully recreate ambient cues. But I think his angle only stacks up if space for equivalently capable surround speakers, appropriate processing, and thus money, are no object.  
 
I've been to concerts in fields with a stage in front of me, with high positioned line-array speakers and nothing around the crowd to reflect sound and produce surround/ambient cues - hence two channel reproduction will be enough as sound is only coming towards the audience.
 
This statement of yours is especially true and relevant to what is common in the recording industry today:

  Recordings that are multi-tracked or multi-miked actually have no chance to be reproduced live as they never existed that way or were processed completely away from it before you get to hear it. 

 
I think we've gone full circle. To realistically record a live environment requires recording the directionality of sound, giving a need for surround speakers in some, but not all cases. However, in many cases, stereo goes incredibly far or is all that is necessary when recording live venues. But, the current recording industry trends are not to record a live venue and often mix individual musicians or singers in semi/full anechoic booths on different tracks and mix it all at the desk, with sound engineers creating artificial cues themselves. Hence, there isn't really much of a need for multi-channel based on how the recording industry operates. 
 
I hope this is what you were alluding to anyway.

 

[watchnerd]

  Can't you devise a little test to test this idea? Play a normal CD track and add noise to it?

 
My DAW has DSP plugins that emulate tube gear and are specifically modeled off vintage pieces.  But tubes are easier to model than vinyl where every record is different.

 

[watchnerd]

 
 I bought an assortment of Louis Armstrong records. My CDs of him are often fatiguing, and I think the higher noise levels and limited dynamics of vinyl might actually help. And, after all, those albums and songs were originally distributed on vinyl anyway. I'm curious to see how the experience goes.     

 
The only vinyl I buy is material that was originally issued on vinyl, specifically post-WWII jazz, 1950s-1970s, for reasons of mastering for the medium.