How to achieve the LIVE sound? Like you ARE THERE?

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From what I have read and to a lesser extent, what I have built and experienced, I think these are some of the most important things for a sound that is LIVE like there is a concert in your living room. Please add comments about scientific facts if possible, or your opinions from actual experience. See if we can add to the following list and rank the items in relevance.

I am talking about the whole experience, not just the volume. The perfect speakers would still sound real at low levels as well as high levels. They also would sound real at many different listening positions.

THANK YOU for your comments!

SPL: it must be loud enough

TONAL BALANCE: it all must be loud enough, not just mid-bass and treble.

EFFICIENCY: I think high end pro drivers and/or horn drivers tend to help achieve the effect we are talking about here. Focal, PHL, Klipsch, etc....

POWER RESPONSE more important than FREQUENCY response, I guess?

TRANSIENT RESPONSE

"fast" light weight cones?

LOW DISTORTION

PHASE COHERENCY

DRIVER TIME ALIGNMENT

FULL-RANGE driver? or hybrid full-range with more bass added like the Nomad Audio "Ronin"?

ADDITIONAL amplification for each driver like the Orions?

ACTIVE crossovers?
 
TONAL BALANCE = SPL +-3dB = POWER RESPONSE
PHASE COHERENCY : good phase tracking is needed
LOW Intermodulation distortion
GOOD dispersion
LOW DISTORTION
POWER HANDLING

Additional things to the Loudspeaker :
- Amplification : must supply a lot of current !
- A room with space and good damping.
- Records and the technology LP/CD/HDCD/SACD/DVD-A etc.?
- The Player

It's my vision, Hope this helps.
 
This argument of mine might stretch things a little... but live sound is usually achieved by cost-effective speakers in large venues, or with other words, bad speakers in big places. How do you achieve this sound? Well, use lots of cost effective speakers in a big place.

Ok, apart from these obviously useless musings, to achieve a "they are here" sound, you have to place the performance in YOUR room. The only way to do this is to use a speakers design, that looks at the room as part of the reproduction chain. You have to excite your own rooms reverb in a controlled manner. Look at Earl Geddes Summa paper on www.gedlee.com.
 
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Please remember that no recordings exists that represent an actual acoustic event like a live non-amplified concert. Recorded music is designed (mixed) to sound nice on a pair of speakers, and not like the the real event. Often a recording sounds "better" than the real event.

I gladly accept that listening to music over a 2-channel stereo system is NOT like "being there".

Ok - it can be justified to do a live event comparison with classical music, but not when its recorded with just 2 channels. 5.1 surround sounds a lot more like the real event, but even 6 channels is far from enough for you to "be there".

By the way.... what was the real event when Michael Jackson recorded Thriller? :rolleyes:
 
cbdb said:
And unless you listen alone the sweet spot is wider with no phantom centre, (or do you like the vocal moving out of centre when you move around)
I agree with this. Even with two-channel recordings, the addition of a centre channel gives a huge increase in the size of the sweet spot. Extracting ambience information and sending that to the two rear channels increases it further, and reduces the impact of the room's acoustics.

But if you want absolute realism, you need binaural recordings and headphones.
 
To streamline your thoughts...

TO keep everyone on the same page if possible:
I am not talking about a crappy bar band in your living room with a crappy albeit LOUD sound system.

Think about a "medium plus a little more" SPL level rendering of a solo guitar or vocals, OR a violin or whatever moves you. We all have had an experience where you are around the corner, or in the next room and you thought, "that really sounds good like there is a musician in the next room!"

And those that say that it is impossible or undesirable to reproduce accurate sound as if it were LIVE, maybe I am using the wrong words but the paragraph above should add some illumination.

Thank you again :^)
 
I've heard recorded sound live in modest sized rooms, one thing has been predominate in all those events, aside from well controlled acoustics.... the speaker have usually been very efficient and larger than live, so to speak.

I'm remembering Augsberger monitors, twin 15" Tad Midrange drivers, compression tweeters and even larger woofers.


Cyclotronguy
 
Hi,
SPL: it must be loud enough
TONAL BALANCE: it all must be loud enough, not just mid-bass and treble.
EFFICIENCY: I think high end pro drivers and/or horn drivers tend to help achieve the effect we are talking about here.
POWER RESPONSE more important than FREQUENCY response, I guess?
TRANSIENT RESPONSE "fast" light weight cones?
LOW DISTORTION
PHASE COHERENCY
DRIVER TIME ALIGNMENT FULL-RANGE driver? or hybrid full-range with more bass added like the Nomad Audio "Ronin"?
ADDITIONAL amplification for each driver like the Orions?
ACTIVE crossovers?

It sounds like you are describing my Tannoy Autograph Speakers... :cool: They have life-like dynamics and spatial scale...

Cheers,
M
 
The secret is in the midrange. I've been putting together a system from the first of the year and it's narrowed down to this.
Preamp - Behringer tube hybrid.
Amp - Peavey Windsor 100 watt tube amp. Replaced the tubes with 6CA7's and Mullard 12AX7.
Speakers - 2 Crate 4x12's with Compression horn tweeters. B&C DE10 with Pyle PH12 horn.
McIntosh CD player.

Metallica's Enter Sandman cranked up will blow you away. Like being front row and the best part of it was as clear & clean as can be.

I'm not done yet. To fill the vertical hole I'm adding two more Crate 4x12's, sorta MTM style but huge...

Also plays pop, jazz & classical very well. The big surprise was listening to Trance. The swirling dervish of instruments in a deep & wide soundstage was simply great..
 
Physics do not allow wavefront particle reproduction of live concert with two speakers in a livingroom. It is simply impossible, even if you draw dots on the cone, ports, or corner of the room :rolleyes:

The best we can hope for is creating illusion of the actual event, and the design topology of the loudspeakers is the main contributor.

http://linkwitzlab.com/index.html

"It is possible to reproduce a stereo recording in an ordinary living room such that listeners have the illusion that the two loudspeakers have disappeared and when they close their eyes, they can easily imagine to be present at the recording site.

The vast majority of loudspeakers that have been sold - the typical box speakers - can only produce this effect to a limited degree because of a fundamental limitation: they radiate sound into the room with different intensity at different frequencies and angles, though flat on axis. Thus the many reflections from room boundaries and surfaces become sonically colored in a way that is characteristic for this type of loudspeaker and we always recognize the sound as coming from a box rather than being live. It is the generic loudspeaker sound.

Loudspeakers with frequency independent, constant directionality such as omni, dipole or cardioid loudspeakers, create delayed replicas of the direct sound in a room and fewer colored reflections. Our ear/brain perceptual apparatus does not get confused by replicas. Instead it relegates them to the earlier learned acoustic behavior of the room and readily blankets that information and thereby the room. This automatic response is part of the Precedence Effect in psychoacoustics and it is essential for creating the illusion of "being there" and not just in your living room."


A nice read on some of the extremes people go through for this "live" sound. Not your everyday "tweak" :D

http://www.mfk-projects.com/theatre_woofer.htm


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