Sound Reproduction or Production
I do not think that Walker should be lynched!! Or Grey!!
I find these threads extremely interesting and sometimes humorous. Especially when you get down to the debate of music reproduction vs. production.
I find the whole concept of Hi-Fi audio a major paradox and somehow a bit of a joke, as someone who was a singer for many years and played several instruments as well and having come from a very musical family. My brother is a trumpet and French horn player as well the pianist. My mother has played the organ, harpsichord, accordion and piano for years. There are guitar, violin, cello, harmonica, and banjo players in my family as well. Yes, I know that this sounds a bit like I giving you a family talent display, but I simply providing a background for my outlook on audio and music, yes they are very different. Since moving to Sydney, Australia, I have been taking in a live concert or music event at least once a week , sometimes twice a week. My music experience runs from the gamut from a Capella vocals to rock and R&B.
What amuses me is that in our attempt to reproduce music, we seem to forget that as Grey has mentioned that very few live concerts are really live, meaning unamplified or mixed. So even in a "live" concert setting many times what we are hearing is a female vocal already modified by mic pickups, mixing boards and more. So are we even sure what a true female vocal sounds like? I can attest to the spine-tingling experience of standing beside a soprano and hearing her floating from note to note at the top of the musical scale, pure and unadulterated from any amplification in a rehearsal session. After over 5 years of being a lead baritone singer in a large classical choir, I can tell you that there is no sound system made today that will give you the thrill of over 100 voices in controlled tension through a quiet passage suddenly exploding into a powerful crescendo. I have yet to find a speaker that is capable of reproducing the power and presence of a kettle drummer gone mad after hours of submissive playing and allowed to rock the whole hall with the force of a musical climax that shakes the entire building and makes your chest vibrate like a bowl of Jello. But the truest test of any sound system is a piano solo, which covers most of the audible sound spectrum. I am fortunate to have a 8 foot grand piano in my great room to allow direct comparison. The real thing will leave any sound system for dead, regardless of cost or style, every time.
So what is music to me? It is not the sterile dissection of frequencies and time phases, but rather an emotional experience that involves all the senses and carries you to another world far from the everyday hum-drum of life. It includes the thrill of symphonies engulfing you with their power and presence and leaving you breathless and awe-struck. The intimacy of a smoky corner café where a small jazz quartet talks to you about the many moods and experiences of life in their own unique way. There is the spirit-lifting piano solos in the Sydney Opera House where each note comes flittering up you and wraps itself around you like a long lost lover. The throbbing beat of local gigs playing at the clubs, that takes control of your body and makes you dance until you are exhausted. The startling presence of a stringed quartet busking on a busy street corner playing the Canon and as you listen you are suddenly unaware of the roaring buses and noisy pedestrians as you are lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life. So when I hear of people listening in total darkness to eliminate noise, I have to chuckle because I really wonder what it would be like to attend a Celine Dion concert with the lights out or to find myself engrossed by Handel’s Messiah at the Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore when suddenly there is total darkness. I have yet to have a live musical experience in the dark, yes, there are many times I have leaned back in the box, closed my eyes, letting the music rush over me like a soul refreshing waterfall, but there is still the closeness of my wife next me and the aura of a small portion of humanity being whisked away together into a space and time far from the life that we face each day.
So I agree with Grey, if you have a dirty window, you don’t want to smear more dirt on it, but you also need to understand that you will never be able clean the window well enough to able to experience the view as if you went out on the porch, because you will not be able feel the breeze on your skin, hear the sounds of a late summer's evening, or smell the freshness of a spring day, as long as you are the wrong side of the glass. So while I admire the theory and engineering that is invested in the “High-End” sound systems, I simply can not justify an investment into hardware that leaves me feeling empty and emotionally unattached. I can appreciate the "wire with gain" theory, but it all starts to fade into the distance when you come back from a evening at the Australian Chamber Orchestra. I am more than gracious enough to allow each person to define their own definition of music. My only challenge to everyone is, do you have enough experience in the original to be able to identify the reproduction and realize that the reproduction will never equal the orignal. And that applies to everything in life, antique furniture, fine artwork, classic cars, Swiss watches, and true love.
Given $10,000 to spend on music, I would surely make an upgrade on my existing speakers as they have seen their better days and I would make a major expansion to my collection of titles, but both would be tempered by my desire enjoy the original rather than the reproduction. How many audiophiles have a $10,000 system to play $2,000 worth of music!
So Walker, you can relax, I have just went to the top of the lynching list. So till the Klan gets here to take me away, I will pull out about five old vinyls of jazz and put them on my old Technics stack turntable, fire up my ancient Harmon Kardon amp and play some music from my equally aging Boston Acoustics. It may brutally twist and distort the signal, but when I hit my favourite listening chair and the music starts to flow, it will take me to place where I remember why I must make sure I get down to the nearest music hall as soon as possible to get my next high.
Remember above all, whatever music theology you ascribe to, and whatever your sound system, that music is like love, you can’t live with it, you can’t live without it, and only the real thing satisfies.
Don’t let the music stop,
Sun, Surf & Sound
