[bigshot]

I'd agree with you in principle, but here in LA, the traffic, parking and expense of attending live concerts have made live performances the exception, not the rule for me. Rock concerts are even worse... Being frisked at the door, excessively loud sound systems and standing room, no thanks. I usually enjoy musicians playing on the street more than most professional venues nowadays.

I feel the same about movies. Why do I want to go to all that trouble and expense to be herded like a sheep in pens and be squashed in with a bunch of idiots who talk through the movie? i'd rather just stay home and get just as good picture and sound without all the hassle.

Technology has gotten to the point where I can pop in a bluray, fire up my Epson HD projector, lower my 10 foot screen and perfectly adjust my 5:1 sound system and be transported to the Royal Opera or the Musikverein with the best seat in the house. Naturally, live performance has the potential to be better than that, but in practice, it's becoming less and less the case.

 

[Rdr. Seraphim]

The only way I know there's something better is to participate in it. Sorry you have to put up with LA traffic. That sucks, no doubt about it.
 
My buddy and I agree, that even listening with some of the the finest gear available--maybe similar to what you described--we still find the concert hall much more magical. There are times when I am emotionally moved, listening in the privacy of a dedicated Rives Audio designed media room, that I think it can't get much better. It's all in the moment. Then, there's the concert hall. Nuf said!  
 
Quote:

I'd agree with you in principle, but here in LA, the traffic, parking and expense of attending live concerts have made live performances the exception, not the rule for me. Rock concerts are even worse... Being frisked at the door, excessively loud sound systems and standing room, no thanks. I usually enjoy musicians playing on the street more than most professional venues nowadays.

I feel the same about movies. Why do I want to go to all that trouble and expense to be herded like a sheep in pens and be squashed in with a bunch of idiots who talk through the movie? i'd rather just stay home and get just as good picture and sound without all the hassle.

Technology has gotten to the point where I can pop in a bluray, fire up my Epson HD projector, lower my 10 foot screen and perfectly adjust my 5:1 sound system and be transported to the Royal Opera or the Musikverein with the best seat in the house. Naturally, live performance has the potential to be better than that, but in practice, it's becoming less and less the case.

 

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Caruso didn't need digital sound to bring tears to listener's eyes. He was able to do it without computers, without microphones, and without electricity.

Yes, it's much easier to do that live.
Quote:

Distortion doesn't preclude musical enjoyment.

Never said it did.
 
Quote:

Technology is just the conduit between performer and listener- nothing more.

Why do you write "just" the conduit? What more is it supposed to be?
 
Quote:

Thankfully, it's all moot anyway, because since 1952, recording technology has been able to fully reproduce the full range of human hearing with a high degree of accuracy.

Huh? You really think so? For me, recordings don't even remotely approach the quality of live sound. It's no contest.
 

 

[rroseperry]

I'd agree with you in principle, but here in LA, the traffic, parking and expense of attending live concerts have made live performances the exception, not the rule for me. Rock concerts are even worse... Being frisked at the door, excessively loud sound systems and standing room, no thanks. I usually enjoy musicians playing on the street more than most professional venues nowadays.

I feel the same about movies. Why do I want to go to all that trouble and expense to be herded like a sheep in pens and be squashed in with a bunch of idiots who talk through the movie? i'd rather just stay home and get just as good picture and sound without all the hassle.

Technology has gotten to the point where I can pop in a bluray, fire up my Epson HD projector, lower my 10 foot screen and perfectly adjust my 5:1 sound system and be transported to the Royal Opera or the Musikverein with the best seat in the house. Naturally, live performance has the potential to be better than that, but in practice, it's becoming less and less the case.

Though live concerts have the hassles of traffic, expense, and listeners who've apparently chosen to die of consumption the night of the performance, they also have a spontaneity and suspense that's impossible even with wonderful live recordings. The music being played has never been played quite this way every before this night (or afternoon or whatever). Also I've heard a couple of live performances for which there is no recorded equivalent. I'm thinking of a SF Symphony performance of Strauss' Metamorphosen, study for 23 solo strings. I have never, never found a good recording of it. And even if I found one, I doubt it would be as amazing an experience of watching the music move through the strings like a wind in a grass field.

 

[mike1127]

The most obvious thing about live music, to me, is the sheer sensual beauty of sound. Listening to a sonata for cello and piano live, I know immediately why the players have worked so hard for their craft. I know why the instrument builder who made the cello devoted his life to fine-tuning his ear and his craftsmanship. I know why the piano has a market value of $100,000. I know why I am doing the somewhat irrational thing of pursuing a career in music composition in middle-age, and I know why I won't mind being poor the rest of my life.
 
It's the gratification of pure beauty. It's the ability of music to reach me on every plane of existence, including the spiritual plane.
 
I like goofing around with my audio equipment and the occasional recording offers a glimpse of this heaven, but it's always a pale shadow.
 
 
 
 

 

[bigshot]

My point about Caruso was that he recorded by singing into a horn connected to the cutting head of a spring driven turntable. He was better known for his records, which sold millions at a cost of half a week's wages for one four minute song, than he was for his live performances. We might call that sort of recording technology "primitive" by modern standards, but it was more than adequate for getting across Caruso's performance. Recorded music has been able to convey the essence of a musical performance since it began. Sure, there was surface noise and distortion, but it was still music. It still spoke to people.
 
Today, every aspect of sound reproduction has been completely conquered. There isn't really anywhere for technology to go when it comes to improving sound quality. Even hundred dollar iPods can produce excellent sound. I guess this doesn't satisfy folks who desperately want their DAC to sound better than someone else's DAC. They start measuring the thickness of gnat wings or make up magical phrases to describe the superiority of their particular bundle of wires, chips and transistors. But recording quality was perfected in 1952, and digital audio has solved the problem of generation loss. Digital files are extremely convenient and easy to store and retrieve. We're done. Video will be at the same point soon.
 
Sure a live performance is great. But the reasons it's great are irrelevant to the reasons we play CDs. Live performances are live. That adds a special magic to the music. It's self evident that live music is live and recorded music isn't. But I can listen to the greatest performers in the world every single day whenever I want by simply turning on my stereo. I can even listen to Caruso almost a century after his death. Live performance can't match that. Apples and oranges.

 

[rroseperry]

^No argument from me on that.

 

[mike1127]

bigshot- you write disparagingly of audiophiles who need to attribute magic to their gear (was it you who said something about politeness a few posts back?) but you seem to be imbuing magical power of unspecified type into the "live experience." I have a much simpler, more concrete answer-- it sounds better!
 
People like you have an extremely condescending view toward certain aspects of audiophila, and you are comfortable insulting those people in public. So it's fair to point out that there's another way to look at it-- that your perception isn't good enough to make these distinctions. I mean, really? No essential differences between live and recorded? The only explanation that makes sense to me is that you aren't a sensitive listener. You don't take in that much information through your ears compared to me.
 
Is that an insult? Is what you wrote about folks "desperately wanting their DAC to sound better" an insult?

 

[SP Wild]

I agree, live performance is awesome and reproduction comes close but it isn't quite there yet.  I think music is an art and cannot be separated from emotion.  So this becomes a grey area.
 
I wonder though, with the Mcgurks effect - if the visual stimuli is an additional data point that is processed along with the audio and we all heard "far" instead of "bar", I argue that despite what any science tells me...that man did indeed say "far" and that's all there is to it and no amount of audio measurements can prove me wrong.  It seems that the visual made my brain process the output the same as if he said "far" - so in reality he said "far" to me...it was indistinguishable, the computational end result of my brain activity that is.
 
So what is real then?
 
*cue x-files theme song* 
 

 

[gregorio]

Technology has gotten to the point where I can pop in a bluray, fire up my Epson HD projector, lower my 10 foot screen and perfectly adjust my 5:1 sound system and be transported to the Royal Opera or the Musikverein with the best seat in the house. Naturally, live performance has the potential to be better than that, but in practice, it's becoming less and less the case.

Only up to a point. What we hear is a construct of the brain encompassing all the senses, the McGurk Effect proves that what we hear can be influenced and even over-ridden by our sight. Our perception of a live concert is influenced by expectation, the audience and all the other sights, smells and sensory input around us. Nearly 60 years ago, John Cage understood this phenomenon well and even composed a piece based on it. My experience of the Royal Opera for example, would likely be quite different to yours because for a while, when I was a musician, the Royal Opera was my place of work. A recording contains just sound waves and cannot contain the other sensory information we experience in a live concert, so while a recording can be hugely enjoyable it can never replace the experience of a live concert.

To me (and probably not to you or Gregorio or else you would care), playback distortion can be perceived as an alteration in a performance. It can happen that a recorded performance sounds like a bad performance, but--if all we have is the end recorded product--there is no fundamentally reliable way to tell if that's because the musicians screwed it up or the audio chain screwed it up. It can go the other way, too.
 
Therefore, evaluating an audio chain is not a separate issue from evaluating a musical performance.

Utter BS. There is of course a "fundamentally reliable" and relatively simple method; to measure the transparency of all the components of the system and isolate where the distortion is occurring. But you can't do that, because you don't believe that measurements are valid. So all you can do is continue to experience your systems's flawed performances or go and buy a new system based on how it performs music or find a different piece of music which your system likes more.

Why do you write "just" the conduit? What more is it [the sound system] supposed to be?

According to you, the sound system is an active participant in a musical performance and not just a "conduit". So now you are contradicting yourself, just for an argument, proving my statement correct that you are a troll.

Enjoy your work. May you keep your eyes on measurements and your ears closed.

You sure you enrolled on the right course? They seem to be teaching you how to use big words at the expense of even the most basic understanding of how sound works. And lastly, if you want to flame or insult someone take my advice, find some weapon other than ignorance, otherwise you run the risk of being confused with a complete moron!

G

 

[SP Wild]

Quote:

Only up to a point. What we hear is a construct of the brain encompassing all the senses, the McGurk Effect proves that what we hear can be influenced and even over-ridden by our sight. Our perception of a live concert is influenced by expectation, the audience and all the other sights, smells and sensory input around us. Nearly 60 years ago, John Cage understood this phenomenon well and even composed a piece based on it. My experience of the Royal Opera for example, would likely be quite different to yours because for a while, when I was a musician, the Royal Opera was my place of work. A recording contains just sound waves and cannot contain the other sensory information we experience in a live concert, so while a recording can be hugely enjoyable it can never replace the experience of a live concert.
 

I agree, attending a live concert is an extension of the McGurk effect to a certain degree.  But I disagree that the McGurk Effect proves what we hear is over-ridden by sight.  You cannot disprove that in that example, the availability of the visual "f" was adequate for us to "hear" exactly the same as an audio "f". 
 
I clearly heard the "f".  Yes I know its an illusion and there never was an "f".  But the end result, not just to me, but to most - is a clearly audible "f" - the same as if he used the "f".  Thats the problem - science cannot prove me wrong.
 
 

 

[gregorio]

I agree, attending a live concert is an extension of the McGurk effect to a certain degree.  But I disagree that the McGurk Effect proves what we hear is over-ridden by sight.  You cannot disprove that in that example, the availability of the visual "f" was adequate for us to "hear" exactly the same as an audio "f". 
 
I clearly heard the "f".  Yes I know its an illusion and there never was an "f".  But the end result, not just to me, but to most - is a clearly audible "f" - the same as if he used the "f".  Thats the problem - science cannot prove me wrong.

I didn't say that the McGurk Effect proves our hearing is over-ridden by sight, I said that what we hear CAN be influenced and even over-ridden by sight.

Because of the way the letter "b" is produced it causes a particular effect when recording, the letter "b" is one of a small group of letters described in pro-audio as Plosives. The frequency and amplitude characteristics of plosives are quite different from other letters. That's what makes this example of the McGurk Effect so impressive, the ear should very easily be able to differentiate between them, so the influence of the brain must be particularly strong to override this significant difference. A fundamental requisite of voice recognition software is to differentiate between plosives and non-plosives, so science can easily prove an "f" did not enter your ears and that you are wrong. What science cannot measure or prove is what you perceive as hearing, so science cannot predict that you will hear an "f" (or any other letter or sound) when in fact a "b" is being reproduced. As I've said, a sound system is just a collection of boxes which produce noise (sound waves). It's not until human beings manipulate (using perception) the amplitude and frequencies contained in the noise that our brains are able to generate some meaning and perceive language, music, art or emotion.

G

 

[SP Wild]

So the argument then is that on one side audio output can be measured and is accurate to real life.  The other camp is arguing that the input side from the ears and the interpretation of that is all that matters and this cannot be measured and hence measurements cannot be universal truth.  Which is stupid really when neither can be proven wrong.

 

[gregorio]

So the argument then is that on one side audio output can be measured and is accurate to real life.  The other camp is arguing that the input side from the ears and the interpretation of that is all that matters and this cannot be measured and hence measurements cannot be universal truth.  Which is stupid really when neither can be proven wrong.

That's not quite the argument. The argument on my side is that measurements are a far more accurate tool than the ears to judge whether what enters a sound system is accurate compared to what comes out but that measurements are only good tools to measure sonic accuracy. In other words, when it comes to the perception of sound, measurements are useless (and listening is the only sensible tool), when it comes to the electrical performance of electronic devices, human hearing (being affected by perception) is unreliable and inaccurate compared to measurements. The argument on this side is certainly not that measurements provide a universal truth, only that they provide an extremely accurate method of quantifying amplitude and frequency (the only components of sound waves) compared to human hearing. All of this is easily provable. On the other side of the argument is that human perception of sound is always a more accurate and valid tool than measurements and that this is a universal truth. Which is neither provable nor rational (because it can be and has been disproved)!

G

 

[bigshot]

My point is that testing with scientific tools that can provide accurate measurements is great. But once those measurements start measuring things beyond the range of human hearing, the measurements become nothing more than numbers on a paper. They won't make your stereo sound any better.