If I may,
The way I think of your point is;
A painting, like music, is art. You have witnessed art in it's finest context. Now you realize that, (to your ears), recorded music in it's finest context is somewhat like a mere photograph of the painting. No matter the quality of the photograph, the medium it was recorded on, or the equipment used, it will always be simply a photograph of great art.
Further, some people enjoy snapshots (mp3
), some people enjoy the art of photography, you find that once you witnessed the full glory of the masterpiece, anything less is, to you, a "snapshot".It isn't right or wrong, it just is.
By the way, to all who contribute to this thread, specially Lynn.
THANK YOU!!
Though I have nothing to contribute (lurker
), this thread is always educational and interesting. I built a pair of ME2's, 20 years ago???......yeah, around '95/'96.Tried a Dynaco, (eye opener!!), re-evaluated my thought process and moved on. Still enjoying the ME2's to this day, (bi-amped, crossed at 125hz), and vacuum tubes.
Thanks to all for sharing and keeping this thread alive!
I understand what Joshua is talking about (I think).
I gave up all recorded music for years. Almost 15 years. Didn't own a CD player, turntable, amplifier. Just a radio for listening to the news. Why? Because I worked in live music and any playback I could manage was just a pale comparison to the real thing. The pale version simply held no appeal for me, or was annoying. Listening to the real thing all day - then coming home to listen to music n a tin can? No thanks. And it all sounded like a tin can to me.
The strange flip side was that I had heard and worked on playback systems that gave a wonderful life-like and very satisfying imitation of real music, even real convert halls. But there was no way I could afford the cost, the time and the space those systems needed. And like-like systems do need all three.
The live experience is so much richer than almost all playback, that some of us just find the pale facsimile not worthwhile.
I gave up all recorded music for years. Almost 15 years. Didn't own a CD player, turntable, amplifier. Just a radio for listening to the news. Why? Because I worked in live music and any playback I could manage was just a pale comparison to the real thing. The pale version simply held no appeal for me, or was annoying. Listening to the real thing all day - then coming home to listen to music n a tin can? No thanks. And it all sounded like a tin can to me.
The strange flip side was that I had heard and worked on playback systems that gave a wonderful life-like and very satisfying imitation of real music, even real convert halls. But there was no way I could afford the cost, the time and the space those systems needed. And like-like systems do need all three.
The live experience is so much richer than almost all playback, that some of us just find the pale facsimile not worthwhile.
Indeed.
My living room is acoustically treated.
If I may,
The way I think of your point is;
A painting, like music, is art. You have witnessed art in it's finest context. Now you realize that, (to your ears), recorded music in it's finest context is somewhat like a mere photograph of the painting. No matter the quality of the photograph, the medium it was recorded on, or the equipment used, it will always be simply a photograph of great art.
Further, some people enjoy snapshots (mp3
It isn't right or wrong, it just is.
…
Indeed, it is so.
Indeed, it is so.
What changed is that at a certain point the reality became so much better (that is the audible experience of the reality, for the reality is always what it is) – that the facsimile became so pale, compared, that I couldn't stand it anymore.
I'm lucky to be able to enjoy the reality…
Ha ha ha. I wish! Now working harder than ever just to keep up.
.
I was down at the helicopter school yesterday. Not flying rotor aircraft, just an old Cessna. Let me know when he's here, I'm just up the hill. Might be able to stop by and say hello.
Attachments
Pano wrote:
> I understand what Joshua is talking about (I think).
I feel the same way, and can most definitely relate to what Joshua is talking about. I have never heard an audio system that can compete with the experience attending live performances by professional orchestras in fine acoustical settings, or the experience of playing or singing in (or conducting) a skilled community orchestra or choir. When spending lots of time with live music, either as a listener or as a participant, I don't feel much compulsion to listen to reproduced audio.
During the academic year (and symphony season), I don't use my main audio system very much at all, and sometimes go for months at a time without even switching it on. For one thing, there are simply not enough hours of the day...usually a full day of teaching followed by grading and prep work, home for dinner, then off to rehearsal. By the time I get home in the late evening, there's that neglected housework before me, and of course, the ever-present parental duty. Weekends without performance responsibilities end up being the only chance to catch up around the house (as if that ever really happens).
Most of my listening to audio recordings during the performance season is for study purposes, especially when preparing to play unfamiliar pieces. I have my timpani part, but still need to know what the rest of the orchestra will be doing. And as assistant conductor, I need to be ready to step on the podium at a moment's notice -- listening is a helpful supplement when studying scores, and it is interesting to explore various interpretations. But such listening is often done with headphones, and rarely with audiophile concerns being present at all. At these times, I'm focusing only on everything else, such as the structure of the music, technical issues of performance (balance, ensemble, phrasing, style choices, intonation, articulation, etc.). I can hear these things in the music easily regardless of the audio quality (within reason), so iTunes on my computer works just fine.
Summertime offers the luxury of spending time listening to the audio system, when there is little live music going on in my everyday life. This is also the only real opportunity to spend time on DIY audio projects.
Gary Dahl
> I understand what Joshua is talking about (I think).
I feel the same way, and can most definitely relate to what Joshua is talking about. I have never heard an audio system that can compete with the experience attending live performances by professional orchestras in fine acoustical settings, or the experience of playing or singing in (or conducting) a skilled community orchestra or choir. When spending lots of time with live music, either as a listener or as a participant, I don't feel much compulsion to listen to reproduced audio.
During the academic year (and symphony season), I don't use my main audio system very much at all, and sometimes go for months at a time without even switching it on. For one thing, there are simply not enough hours of the day...usually a full day of teaching followed by grading and prep work, home for dinner, then off to rehearsal. By the time I get home in the late evening, there's that neglected housework before me, and of course, the ever-present parental duty. Weekends without performance responsibilities end up being the only chance to catch up around the house (as if that ever really happens).
Most of my listening to audio recordings during the performance season is for study purposes, especially when preparing to play unfamiliar pieces. I have my timpani part, but still need to know what the rest of the orchestra will be doing. And as assistant conductor, I need to be ready to step on the podium at a moment's notice -- listening is a helpful supplement when studying scores, and it is interesting to explore various interpretations. But such listening is often done with headphones, and rarely with audiophile concerns being present at all. At these times, I'm focusing only on everything else, such as the structure of the music, technical issues of performance (balance, ensemble, phrasing, style choices, intonation, articulation, etc.). I can hear these things in the music easily regardless of the audio quality (within reason), so iTunes on my computer works just fine.
Summertime offers the luxury of spending time listening to the audio system, when there is little live music going on in my everyday life. This is also the only real opportunity to spend time on DIY audio projects.
Gary Dahl
I want to thank everyone for their heartfelt contributions. Your posts are touching on the most important thing of all: why we're doing this, and how we feel about it.
Classical-music fans have the problem of disenchantment after hearing truly inspiring live, acoustic music in a great hall. I'm using the word "disenchantment" in the most literal sense; the loss of magic, the breaking and shattering of the illusion. I find the disenchantment lasts a few days, sometimes weeks. It might even last for the entire performing season.
My escape is listening to a completely different kind of music, like German techno or Ibiza chillout music, where there's no concert hall at all ... it's all synthetic, and only really comes into being when current flows into the voice-coil. There's no odious contrast with the magical and ineffable original, since the original never existed in the first place ... it's all just pixels on the screen at the point of creation.
I kind of lost faith in the whole hifi audiophile thing in the early Nineties, and have partly (not completely) bought into Joe Robert's (Sound Practices editor) philosophy of making an audio system "the best jukebox you ever heard". I don't go all the way; I'm not going to start collecting Western Electric originals. But I enjoy the audio-archeology part of it, bringing forgotten concepts to light, building them in a modern context, and hearing a sound that hasn't been heard for sixty years. That's a lot of fun.
There were several periods in the history of audio where a single concept wiped out everything that preceded it, the good with the bad. Audio has a weird/funny aspect where it's two steps forward, and 1.5 to 2.5 steps backwards at the same time. It has not been a straight-line progression, as the marketers and magazines would have you believe.
Right now, with portable audio, and audio-played-on-laptops, replacing sitting-down-listening at home, there's a step backward, with audio nothing more than portable wallpaper for random activities. On the other hand, the phenomenal year-by-year growth of LP's (vinyl) means that some people are indeed buying music and sitting down to listen to it, as a foreground activity. In parallel with the growth of LP's, the vacuum-tube revival keeps on, and the Asian market is in love with tubes of all kinds.
The sonics are beside the point; it's what people are doing, and are they buying in enough quantity to sustain a manufacturing base? If they're buying enough records and vacuum-tubes to keep manufacturing plants growing and profitable, that means we'll be seeing more of it into the future. The LP/tube revival has been going on for two decades, so there's every reason it will continue to grow. Odd as it sounds, it's possible that LP's might outlive CD's, and become the last physical media for music.
Classical-music fans have the problem of disenchantment after hearing truly inspiring live, acoustic music in a great hall. I'm using the word "disenchantment" in the most literal sense; the loss of magic, the breaking and shattering of the illusion. I find the disenchantment lasts a few days, sometimes weeks. It might even last for the entire performing season.
My escape is listening to a completely different kind of music, like German techno or Ibiza chillout music, where there's no concert hall at all ... it's all synthetic, and only really comes into being when current flows into the voice-coil. There's no odious contrast with the magical and ineffable original, since the original never existed in the first place ... it's all just pixels on the screen at the point of creation.
I kind of lost faith in the whole hifi audiophile thing in the early Nineties, and have partly (not completely) bought into Joe Robert's (Sound Practices editor) philosophy of making an audio system "the best jukebox you ever heard". I don't go all the way; I'm not going to start collecting Western Electric originals. But I enjoy the audio-archeology part of it, bringing forgotten concepts to light, building them in a modern context, and hearing a sound that hasn't been heard for sixty years. That's a lot of fun.
There were several periods in the history of audio where a single concept wiped out everything that preceded it, the good with the bad. Audio has a weird/funny aspect where it's two steps forward, and 1.5 to 2.5 steps backwards at the same time. It has not been a straight-line progression, as the marketers and magazines would have you believe.
Right now, with portable audio, and audio-played-on-laptops, replacing sitting-down-listening at home, there's a step backward, with audio nothing more than portable wallpaper for random activities. On the other hand, the phenomenal year-by-year growth of LP's (vinyl) means that some people are indeed buying music and sitting down to listen to it, as a foreground activity. In parallel with the growth of LP's, the vacuum-tube revival keeps on, and the Asian market is in love with tubes of all kinds.
The sonics are beside the point; it's what people are doing, and are they buying in enough quantity to sustain a manufacturing base? If they're buying enough records and vacuum-tubes to keep manufacturing plants growing and profitable, that means we'll be seeing more of it into the future. The LP/tube revival has been going on for two decades, so there's every reason it will continue to grow. Odd as it sounds, it's possible that LP's might outlive CD's, and become the last physical media for music.
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Lynn.
That pretty much describes almost all rock and pop music, unless it uses acoustic guitar and piano and much jazz music, again unless it is acoustic jazz with horns and upright bass and piano. I imagine the illusion of orchestral music is just not very satisfying as it really is not a synthetic sound, it is just impossible to recreate those acoustic moments in any type of playback system. I never could listen and enjoy classic music from a recording, the visceral feeling of hearing and watching the performance is just gone, I just can't relate to that listening from a speaker.
That pretty much describes almost all rock and pop music, unless it uses acoustic guitar and piano and much jazz music, again unless it is acoustic jazz with horns and upright bass and piano. I imagine the illusion of orchestral music is just not very satisfying as it really is not a synthetic sound, it is just impossible to recreate those acoustic moments in any type of playback system. I never could listen and enjoy classic music from a recording, the visceral feeling of hearing and watching the performance is just gone, I just can't relate to that listening from a speaker.
Vuki,
I have had some recording that while I was in another room I thought were a live sound. I have actually walked towards a door thinking someone was literally knocking on the door or talking to me. So in some rare occasions the sound can actually have that type of sound fidelity. I know it doesn't happen often but it tells me it is indeed possible. When you are in another room and you think you are hearing a real piano that is one of those moments.
I have had some recording that while I was in another room I thought were a live sound. I have actually walked towards a door thinking someone was literally knocking on the door or talking to me. So in some rare occasions the sound can actually have that type of sound fidelity. I know it doesn't happen often but it tells me it is indeed possible. When you are in another room and you think you are hearing a real piano that is one of those moments.
You're bringing up important points again, Kindhornman.
Part of what I went through in the vacuum-tube/triode revival days of the early Nineties, when I jumped into the deep end of the pool with Glass Audio, Sound Practices, and Vacuum Tube Valley, was a re-setting of expectations. That made it possible to enjoy audio again. I set aside the obsession with chasing out coloration (which dogged me for more than twenty years) and started looking for emotional depth, music I could feel.
I'm still using the same tools ... FFT's, 3D waterfall CSD's, spectral analysis of amplifier distortion harmonics, minimizing circuit loop area and analyzing audio-current return paths ... but the ends are different. It's a more openly subjective goal, and not one I can put into words easily.
Even though the hifi system is still a funhouse mirror of distortions, it's at least entertaining, instead of a depressing catalog of what's missing. After all, most recordings are weirdly balanced; almost none are "accurate" in the technical sense. So the trick is to make them work, to extract as much pleasure out of them as possible.
I now see two kinds of coloration, not just one. The usual coloration we think of is unpleasant added coloration, that unwanted layer of electromechanical guck that makes hifi so annoying and obviously fake. But ... there's a more subtle and insidious negative coloration, where the system robs the original of musical color and drama. In the extreme case, it's what low-bitrate MP3 and cassette tapes do; only the general contours of the music survive the process. All of the "live", human-made quality is stripped away.
I've been paying a lot more attention to the "negative" colorations in the last ten years. What technical aspects are stealing realism and drama from the playback? I've come to a tentative conclusion that power-supply regulation, and global feedback, are really hard to do without extracting a price in realism. Beyond my abilities, at any rate. A few people can do it well, but I haven't heard many examples.
Speaking only for myself, I found that direct-heated triodes, and higher-efficiency drivers, have more drama, vividness, and emotional power. What usually obscures these qualities in most commercial high-end systems are gross levels of (added) coloration, so you get the added drama combined with a lot of junky retro jukebox sound. But the jukebox sound isn't adding drama; it's distracting and taking away from it. The Ariel, Amity, Karna, and the new speaker are an exploration into low-distortion, low-coloration, medium-to-high efficiency systems.
Part of what I went through in the vacuum-tube/triode revival days of the early Nineties, when I jumped into the deep end of the pool with Glass Audio, Sound Practices, and Vacuum Tube Valley, was a re-setting of expectations. That made it possible to enjoy audio again. I set aside the obsession with chasing out coloration (which dogged me for more than twenty years) and started looking for emotional depth, music I could feel.
I'm still using the same tools ... FFT's, 3D waterfall CSD's, spectral analysis of amplifier distortion harmonics, minimizing circuit loop area and analyzing audio-current return paths ... but the ends are different. It's a more openly subjective goal, and not one I can put into words easily.
Even though the hifi system is still a funhouse mirror of distortions, it's at least entertaining, instead of a depressing catalog of what's missing. After all, most recordings are weirdly balanced; almost none are "accurate" in the technical sense. So the trick is to make them work, to extract as much pleasure out of them as possible.
I now see two kinds of coloration, not just one. The usual coloration we think of is unpleasant added coloration, that unwanted layer of electromechanical guck that makes hifi so annoying and obviously fake. But ... there's a more subtle and insidious negative coloration, where the system robs the original of musical color and drama. In the extreme case, it's what low-bitrate MP3 and cassette tapes do; only the general contours of the music survive the process. All of the "live", human-made quality is stripped away.
I've been paying a lot more attention to the "negative" colorations in the last ten years. What technical aspects are stealing realism and drama from the playback? I've come to a tentative conclusion that power-supply regulation, and global feedback, are really hard to do without extracting a price in realism. Beyond my abilities, at any rate. A few people can do it well, but I haven't heard many examples.
Speaking only for myself, I found that direct-heated triodes, and higher-efficiency drivers, have more drama, vividness, and emotional power. What usually obscures these qualities in most commercial high-end systems are gross levels of (added) coloration, so you get the added drama combined with a lot of junky retro jukebox sound. But the jukebox sound isn't adding drama; it's distracting and taking away from it. The Ariel, Amity, Karna, and the new speaker are an exploration into low-distortion, low-coloration, medium-to-high efficiency systems.
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Lynn,
I think we agree on much in what we want to hear. I just have to do it with modern low efficiency speakers and electronics as I just can't have the size or vacuum tubes in a current consumer product.
I am talking about an efficiency of only 86db@8 ohms but the output limit is much greater than a typical speaker the same size. I can get my 6" driver up to about 104db of clean output before I run out of suspension. The motor design is what I will call ultra-linear. A 1.25" gap length with about a 0.25" coil height. The voicecoil sees the exact same magnetic field anywhere in its travel, never in a fringe area or seeing a change in flux density. There is a copper sleeve taking care of the eddy currents. I can't undo the back emf but nobody can do that. With my cone development I have reached close to the end of what can be done with a dynamic driver, the only area I have left to explore is the suspension, that is another area I am working on, a better spider design with new material developments and some surround ideas that I have.
We are coming at the end result from opposite directions but I feel with the same attempt at the end results.
I think we agree on much in what we want to hear. I just have to do it with modern low efficiency speakers and electronics as I just can't have the size or vacuum tubes in a current consumer product.
I am talking about an efficiency of only 86db@8 ohms but the output limit is much greater than a typical speaker the same size. I can get my 6" driver up to about 104db of clean output before I run out of suspension. The motor design is what I will call ultra-linear. A 1.25" gap length with about a 0.25" coil height. The voicecoil sees the exact same magnetic field anywhere in its travel, never in a fringe area or seeing a change in flux density. There is a copper sleeve taking care of the eddy currents. I can't undo the back emf but nobody can do that. With my cone development I have reached close to the end of what can be done with a dynamic driver, the only area I have left to explore is the suspension, that is another area I am working on, a better spider design with new material developments and some surround ideas that I have.
We are coming at the end result from opposite directions but I feel with the same attempt at the end results.
By now you probably know that I always jump into these discussion and shout YES! It can be done! I've heard it!
I have heard at least three systems that were as good as the symphony hall or night club, and in some ways better. Yes, better. And I heard one typical HiFi looking system that was very satisfactory.
All four systems were rather different, 2 or 3 of them had enough room to not feel cramped, the other two had decently large spaces.
The systems were:
I have heard at least three systems that were as good as the symphony hall or night club, and in some ways better. Yes, better. And I heard one typical HiFi looking system that was very satisfactory.
All four systems were rather different, 2 or 3 of them had enough room to not feel cramped, the other two had decently large spaces.
The systems were:
- 3-way horn with direct radiator bass
- ESL panels with ESL tweeter and horn loaded 12" sub
- Narrow tower speakers with unknown electronics and strain gauge phono pickup
- Open baffle speakers in a cave.
I agree, to a point: At its best, it can be very satisfying. The pursuit is most certainly worthwhile. But to my ears, the vast majority of classical recordings lack sufficient recording quality, placing serious limitations on the potential results. As many have observed over the years, the best performances are rarely captured with the greatest fidelity. Sigh.
But sometimes there are those transcendent experiences at live performances that simply set the bar beyond what can be accomplished in the realm of audio reproduction. I am so grateful that such a great pleasure in life exists; it doesn't bother me at all that it's not really quite the same when heard through speakers.
I am reminded of an experience I shared with Lynn before his move to Colorado. We attended a performance by the Seattle Symphony in Benaroya Hall. The program featured Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), which I knew well and had heard on many wonderful recordings (and some not-so-wonderful, of course). Stravinsky is one of my very favorite composers. As in many other musical works, in Le Sacre there are passages that I have always enjoyed, and others I have always been (cough) less fond of.
During the performance, one of those previously under-appreciated moments arrived. It was a bi-tonal section, with great harmonic density. The total effect from the combined sonorities created a musical sensation in the actual hall that I will never forget, which had never even been hinted at in my many journeys through recordings of the piece. Ever since then, my mind reconstructs the effect when I listen to recordings. Lynn also had a strong response to the experience, even with his vastly different background as a listener.
Don't even get me started on opera. I suspect that it isn't even possible to record and reproduce it in a way that more than resembles the live experience.
Gary Dahl
But sometimes there are those transcendent experiences at live performances that simply set the bar beyond what can be accomplished in the realm of audio reproduction. I am so grateful that such a great pleasure in life exists; it doesn't bother me at all that it's not really quite the same when heard through speakers.
I am reminded of an experience I shared with Lynn before his move to Colorado. We attended a performance by the Seattle Symphony in Benaroya Hall. The program featured Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), which I knew well and had heard on many wonderful recordings (and some not-so-wonderful, of course). Stravinsky is one of my very favorite composers. As in many other musical works, in Le Sacre there are passages that I have always enjoyed, and others I have always been (cough) less fond of.
During the performance, one of those previously under-appreciated moments arrived. It was a bi-tonal section, with great harmonic density. The total effect from the combined sonorities created a musical sensation in the actual hall that I will never forget, which had never even been hinted at in my many journeys through recordings of the piece. Ever since then, my mind reconstructs the effect when I listen to recordings. Lynn also had a strong response to the experience, even with his vastly different background as a listener.
Don't even get me started on opera. I suspect that it isn't even possible to record and reproduce it in a way that more than resembles the live experience.
Gary Dahl
Gary. Agree, but tonality is a separate issue for me. I don't hear much playback that has the sweet, subtle, rich tonality of live acoustic. Or even some guitar amps, oddly enough. Playback has a harsh edge to it that I just don't hear in live music.
By coincidence, le Sacre was one of my comparison pieces between recorded and live. We listened to it recorded, then when to hear Bernstein conduct. I was not unhappy with the recorded version at all.
By coincidence, le Sacre was one of my comparison pieces between recorded and live. We listened to it recorded, then when to hear Bernstein conduct. I was not unhappy with the recorded version at all.
Please do!
Same thing I did on the mainland, and on Oahu. Big screen video projection. I travel a lot. Will be in Vancouver all next week.