[Beerme]

OK, I have been a follower of many hi-fi forums for many years..I have read, and written, MANY reviews of various gear....and something occurs to me...


To what are we, (as in ALL of us), comparing to, when we form/make an opinion about how this or that sounds??

Pursuit of 'Audio Nirvana', this is the goal, yes? I understand this to be:

accurate reproduction of sound....

That's it, nothing more, nothing less!

....and this is what fudges my brain...small though it is...

There are many.....MANY, as we all know, comparisons between this headphone, that headphone, this amp and that amp, this OFC cable and that gold plated furutech one, etc etc...and so it goes on......and on....

....and, to an extent it is enjoyable; lets face it, we would not be here if we didn't love it and feel passionate about it!

But when it comes down to it, REALLY comes down to it, how many of us are comparing 'this' headphone to 'THAT' headphone and formulating an opinion based on how they sound compared to EACH OTHER......

Surley, if you REALLY want to rate a headphone or speaker or amplifier or cable or whatever, you need to have been there and listening at the time of the recording????

How can ANYONE 'rate' the sound of any piece of equipment on its sound reproduction qualities unless that person was actually there to hear the actual recorded sound???

I have seen MANY live acts, if it was not for work I would still be down there in front of the band in the pub every weekend!

And dont forget, between you, your listening pleasure, and the ACTUAL sound from the 'origional', there are many layers....reecording equipment, ambient sounds, conversions to different formats....the list is endless..


I hope you know where i'm coming from...I find this hard to explain!!

 

[Beerme]

EDIT: In a 'nutshell'; how can anyone rate ANY equipment unless they are privy to the 'live origional', for which you need an awsome memory...!


didnt mean to double post....edit did nit work??

 

[BIG POPPA]

OP, you have several questions. What is the most important one and go from there? Answer one and maybe get to the next one, so things are a little less confusing. I will try to help?

 

[Arjisme]

I think when people compare one piece of equipment to another (say this headphone to that one), they are saying which one they prefer. Why they prefer one over another is a different question and I don't think everyone will answer that the same.

 

[Chef]

Ideally I think, since most of the music we listen to are studio albums, we want similar reproduction to that the producer/masterer heard. That's pretty much impossible, so I just look for phones that don't distort and that are supremely comfortable.

I'm one of the people who will argue for fidelity a lot, because I desperately want to hear exactly what the artist intended... I think that should be the goal as much as possible. When it comes down to listening to music though, I forget about that and just relax. Really, I only care when it comes to spending money on something new.

I really don't think it makes sense to compare one headphone to another... I don't know why people do that, I've always found it frustrating.

 

[zotjen]

Quote:

Surley, if you REALLY want to rate a headphone or speaker or amplifier or cable or whatever, you need to have been there and listening at the time of the recording????

To me, this is unrealistic. IMHO, even the best recorded live performance will never sound exactly as it did when it was first played. Studio recordings are always tweaked so the final product will never sound as it actually did when recorded.

Quote:

I really don't think it makes sense to compare one headphone to another... I don't know why people do that, I've always found it frustrating.

Based on what I said above, I have no expectations of ever hearing an accurate reproduction as it was played live. My goal is to hear music sound as good as possible, based on my tastes, preferences, and judgements. To that end, I can compare one headphone to another.

 

[SP Wild]

That is why audio is subjective - there is no reliable way of knowing what the recorded source actually sounded like nor what speaker/phone was used for monitoring. I just reference it to my experience to please myself.

 

[jcx]

modern production definitely is not about "capturing the sound of the vocalists/instruments at a spot in the audience"

bar/club “sound” is over amped, compressed for even more “impact” and usually execrable in actual “sound quality” - just try to pry the cheap mic and cardboard box speaker from the hands of most local bar band “vocalists”

close micing rules in pro touring group "live events" which are electronically amplified - there is a "sound engineer" at the mixing board continuously playing with levels, eq and compression

a "live" album release will be remastered in a studio over monitors from the individual live show mic feeds


since commercial release mixing is done on monitor speakers in a treated sound room – mostly for reproduction over speakers in a room – the “in your head” sound staging of headphones is the biggest detractor from “realism” in the context of mainstream commercial recording practice

the Smyth SVS Realizer starts with the assumption that the “reference” for most commercial recording reproduction is a good set of loudspeakers in a good room – the SVS is calibrated to your head and headphones in a real room, and you can really hear the “sound” of the measured system over the headphones

with the multi-angle hrtf calibration and head tracker the Realizer output really sounds "outside of your head" - like these speakers in this room

people do have calibrations done at pro mastering studios – duplicating the “sound” that the mastering engineer was listening to

 

[SP Wild]

To hear what engineers hear in their calibrated studios we would then need to build an exact replica of that calibrated studio and uitilise their playback chain components. Not very practical.

 

[jcx]

with the SVS Realizer you can "collect" room calibrations: an audiophile friend's setup, high end store demo room (buy something from brick and mortar stores if you don't want them to disappear), a cooperative pro studio (they rent by the hr)

if you have the proper connections, a real theater calibration: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/lon...ml#post6107196

and you can create a calibration for a much better room at home than you could practically tolerate for daily use, for instance by bringing in heroic sound absorption for early reflections - just for one speaker at a time - so that the room overall can be much more "live" than if you had used such extreme treatment at all speaker locations simultaneously – and you only need one really good speaker that you move from place to place to do an incremental multichannel calibration - the "center channel" speaker can really be located at the center of the screen for the cal

you do need your head and the SVS and headphones in the room for ~30 min to get a personalized hrtf and eq the headphones to the room/loudspeaker's frequency response

 

[Beerme]

Wow, forgot about this thread.....and people...take it easy will ya. 
 
  I was not looking for answers, this was just a snippett of my pointless musings I decided, (being bored at the time), to put 'out there'!!
 
  ....and, I think that you are all 'not wrong' with the 'answers' you have given.......

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Live music, unless orchestral or simple acoustic suffers at the hands of the dreadful speakers used and the often dodgy venues. I do not count it as a comparison.
 
Live in the studio is a different matter. With a detailed and accurate system you can start to tell things about the original recording. You can here if the recording venue was a small room or a church. You can hear how much processing (for want of a better word) took place. You can tell if the band played the track as a take and all together in the studio. You can tell if the producer and the engineer know their stuff or if they are rubbish.
 
So, for example, Neil Young and Crazy Horse compared to Pink Floyd is one take in a shed compared to highly processed and each part of the track recorded and re-recorded separately. 

 

[maverickronin]

I was planning to start a similar topic but then I this thread.  It comes down to the fact that given the current state of recording and mastering that reviews of audio gear is mostly subjective.  I was just coming at it from a different angle.  And now what I spent 30 minutes working on before I saw this thread...
 
Goals and Philosophy of Sound Reproduction: A Dissertation

Average Joe:  Why do you spend so much money on your stereo?

Audiophile:  Because I can still tell the difference between my stereo and live music.

I something like this somewhere.  I can't remember where, I think at the Audiophiliac. The first thing that struck me about this statement is the reason that it may be possible in theory, but not in practice.  It's not impossible by fault of output transducers and amplifiers that many spend incredible sums of money on.  Even if you had an absolutely perfect chain of components, reproducing the source with zero distortion and complete linearity, it would would still be distinguishable from live music.  Why?  Because of the source.

From CDs to SACDs, DVD audio, and quadraphonic vinyl, no music is recorded in the manner necessary to achieve perfect transparency.  Music is recorded and mixed into stereo (or occasionally 5.1) to be played back over stereo speakers and headphones.  Today's sound engineers are capable of remarkable feats of pschyoacoustic manipulation, but cannot overcome the limits of the configuration of the output transducers.  No matter the capabilities of a given transducer, no matter how much one spends on such a system, the limitations of the source cannot be overcome.

The closest any current system can come to perfect transparency AFAIK is a binaural recording played over top of the line headphones, but almost nothing is recorded in that manner.  This approach works well for live recordings of acoustic instruments, but quickly breaks down once you add an electric guitar to the mix.  Electronica?  Who's to say what it even sounds like 'live'?  That could be fixed by recording each instrument individually, and feeding all the separate recordings through a 3D positional algorithm.  I'd  imagine that most audiophiles would hate it on principle, no matter how it sounded though.  That would only work for headphones, of course.  As for loudspeakers, I'm imagining a very large wall, completely covered with 6" square electrostatics, each on its own channel.  It boils down to the fact that unless the entire paradigm of recorded music is turned on it's head, perfect transparency cannot happen.

With the introduction out of the way, what are your goals for your headphone and/or speaker rigs?  Are you after the last word in transparency and detail or are you looking for something 'pleasant'?  Something in between?

I'm mostly after 'pleasant' sound, but I also like detail, almost for detail's sake.  Often I enjoy 'tuning' my hearing from one instrument to another, and listening to minor instruments in the background.  Other times I just want to relax and let the music wash over me.  The one thing I don't care to much about is transparency, because I, oddly enough for people in this hobby, do not enjoy live music.  Mostly I just find it too loud, but I also find it too colored by the acoustics of the venue.  (Though I'd probably enjoy a proper symphony orchestra if I did go to one.)  As such I don't know really know what much live music sounds like, since I haven't heard enough to know.  Even though I'm not actually after perfect transparency, the thought experiments involved still intrigue me, which is why I'm writing this.

So what kind of sound are you after?  Did I make any blatant errors above?  What theoretical setup might achieve perfect transparency?  Discuss.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

If you want to hear 'live' music then with rock, punk, metal etc you want a huge all in one cheapo system that is all about power. Orchestral and opera you want a a huge but very good hifi to reproduce a detailed life like sound across the whole frequency range, with volume. For acoustic and simple vocals you want something with a strong midrange and in a smaller room than other genres. So you need different hifis for different 'live' experiences.as there is no such thing one live experience. So IMHO getting a sound that is 'live' is nonsense.
 
I agree with maverickronin that I want a pleasant sound (well a damn great sound) that has the detail I can follow different instruments and hear little nuances and even mistakes. That way I can imagine that I am there with the musicians, or even in the band.