How do we know if the reproduced sound is close to real?

[magiccarpetride]

I listen to a lot of ethnic music, from all over the world. I'm not much of a globe trotter myself (being more of a home body), so I cannot claim that I've witnessed many of the live performances of the ethnic music I enjoy listening to in my home.

And yet, even though I am listening to many exotic instruments I've never seen or heard in real life, I can still discern whether the tonal qualities of those instruments have been rendered close to how they should sound in real life. How's that possible?

It is one thing to claim that a person who is familiar with how a piano or an acoustic guitar should sound can therefore assess whether the music reproduction through a stereo system is faithful or not. But to claim the same for a person who's never seen or heard an instrument such as Tibetan lute, is altogether a different kettle of fish.

So my question is: based on what criteria are we able to assess the fidelity of the reproduced sound when it comes to listening to an unfamiliar instrument?

[Mr. C]

Alex,

All these questions, why not visit a high quality dealer an find out for your self.
Then I would suggest ask going to listen to a few of the AOS members systems, this will give you a real insight as to how close or way off you feel the sound is.

[DrMartin]

And yet, even though I am listening to many exotic instruments I've never seen or heard in real life, I can still discern whether the tonal qualities of those instruments have been rendered close to how they should sound in real life.

... No you can't.

How's that possible?

... It isn't.




Next question?

:popcorn:

[magiccarpetride]

Alex,

All these questions, why not visit a high quality dealer an find out for your self.
Then I would suggest ask going to listen to a few of the AOS members systems, this will give you a real insight as to how close or way off you feel the sound is.

Not sure how would that help answer my question. I already have a home system that can, in terms of the quality and fidelity of the reproduced sound, quite easily rival many of the high end systems on display at the high quality dealerships in my city.

[DSJR]

In my current state, I like my stereo to have a good stab at voice. The BC2's aren't the best by any means, but they do a fair job and deal with electronically produced instruments better than the BC1's ever could. Current Spendors, Harbeths and yes, even the smaller Tannoy Prestige models I've heard (don't know the bigger ones apart from the radiogram "nice tone but coloured" Westminetr Royals) do very well.

I find some of the "audiophool" speakers out there sound either larger than life, smaller than life or just plain wrong. In fact, so many hifi speakers fail in their crossovers, it seems that so much mixing and matching of gear is to disguise the faults in the passive speakers they're trying to work with..

[Mr. C]

Not sure how would that help answer my question. I already have a home system that can, in terms of the quality and fidelity of the reproduced sound, quite easily rival many of the high end systems on display at the high quality dealerships in my city.

Ok MCR,
Would you be kind enough to list your system, room dimensions any treatments, listen preferences, volume level musical genre's perferred and what YOU feel is important in musical reproduction.

many thanks Mr.C

[Butuz]

And yet, even though I am listening to many exotic instruments I've never seen or heard in real life, I can still discern whether the tonal qualities of those instruments have been rendered close to how they should sound in real life. How's that possible?

Simple answer is - it's not possible! You're just making a semi educated guess as to how you think the instruments should sound! You actually have no idea whether the instruments do actually sound like that in real life and thefore you have no idea how good your system actually is.

This is the conclusion I have come to. If it sounds good to you and you enjoy it then that's all that matters!!!

Unless you were in the actual studio when the band were recording - how can you possibly know what it shoudl sound like? There are far far too many variables that could affect the sound, were the instruments mic'd up perfectly? Did the engineer have the levels right? When it was mastered, was it mastered how the band wanted it? Was the mastering equipment perfect or coloured? After all this, does it transfer to your hi-fi as it should???? Toooo many variables not worth thinking about and no way for you to know either way.

Just enjoy! :cool:

Butuz

[magiccarpetride]

Simple answer is - it's not possible! You're just making a semi educated guess as to how you think the instruments should sound! You actually have no idea whether the instruments do actually sound like that in real life and thefore you have no idea how good your system actually is.

This is the conclusion I have come to. If it sounds good to you and you enjoy it then that's all that matters!!!

Unless you were in the actual studio when the band were recording - how can you possibly know what it shoudl sound like? There are far far too many variables that could affect the sound, were the instruments mic'd up perfectly? Did the engineer have the levels right? When it was mastered, was it mastered how the band wanted it? Was the mastering equipment perfect or coloured? After all this, does it transfer to your hi-fi as it should???? Toooo many variables not worth thinking about and no way for you to know either way.

Just enjoy! :cool:

Butuz

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't argue with this. You are, of course, absolutely right.

However, my question was not whether it is possible to know if the reproduction is matching the original performance (which, as you've said, is a fool's errand), but rather how is it possible to discern between two different reproductions of the same mysterious instrument?

Give you an example: if someone blindfolded me and played the recording of that Tibetan lute through a cheapo $25.00 boombox, and then played it again through my high end gear (without notifying me which system is playing), I'd have no problem identifying that the reproduced sound from the high end system is way closer to how the actual mysterious instrument should really sound. So even though I've never heard that instrument in my life, I'm still kind of capable of making some deductive inference and conclude that out of two audio systems, one comes closer than the other in faithfully reproducing the actual life-like sound of that unknown instrument.

And guess what -- 99 times out of 100 I'd be right. So my question (to reiterate) is: what factors of the sound reproduction govern that ability to discern between a bogus and a 'pretty darn close to the life-like sound' reproduction?

[magiccarpetride]

Ok MCR,
Would you be kind enough to list your system, room dimensions any treatments, listen preferences, volume level musical genre's perferred and what YOU feel is important in musical reproduction.

many thanks Mr.C

I am of the opinion that only sound matters. In other words, I don't believe in listening with my eyes or with my intellect.

Same is true for anything else where we find paid expertise wedged in between the product and the consumer. I don't trust so-called wine experts who taste wine with their eyes, having them firmly planted on the wine bottle label/price tag. More often than not, if you were to forcefully blindfold those 'experts' and ask them to identify which of the two wines they're tasting is actually fifty times more expensive, they'd be clueless.

Oh, but show them the label, and they'll know right away! To me, that's bogus.

Same applies to so-called audio experts (the 'golden ears' boys). Blindfold them, and then ask them to assess which system is the most expensive one, and of course, they're clueless. Let them read the labels, and voila! -- suddenly they know it all!

What I'm trying to say is: if you find yourself blown away by the quality of sound you're just hearing, what difference does it make knowing or not knowing the brands of the components used to build the chain, knowing or not knowing the dimensions of the listening room and the kinds of treatments applied to that room?

I'm not interested in a pissing contest, or in the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" teasing. Let's talk SOUND for a change!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Give you an example: if someone blindfolded me and played the recording of that Tibetan lute through a cheapo $25.00 boombox, and then played it again through my high end gear (without notifying me which system is playing), I'd have no problem identifying that the reproduced sound from the high end system is way closer to how the actual mysterious instrument should really sound. So even though I've never heard that instrument in my life, I'm still kind of capable of making some deductive inference and conclude that out of two audio systems, one comes closer than the other in faithfully reproducing the actual life-like sound of that unknown instrument.



What this proves is that you can discern generic differences between two differently performing systems. It has nothing to do with whether you actually know what a Tibetan lute really sounds like. You can extrapolate your knowledge of how your system performs with instruments that you do know & have the expectation that it would reach a similar standard of fidelity. This is not the same thing as your original preposition.

[The Grand Wazoo]

In other words, I don't believe in listening with my eyes or with my intellect.

But that is precisely what you are doing in the Tibetan lute example if you assert that you know what a real one sounds like.



I'm not interested in a pissing contest, or in the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" teasing.

That doesn't really happen here & if it does it's not tolerated for long.

[magiccarpetride]

But that is precisely what you are doing in the Tibetan lute example if you assert that you know what a real one sounds like.

No, I'm asserting that I don't know what the real one sounds like.

[The Grand Wazoo]

No, I'm asserting that I don't know what the real one sounds like.

Sorry, that's what I thought you meant by this statement


I'd have no problem identifying that the reproduced sound from the high end system is way closer to how the actual mysterious instrument should really sound.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I know what alex is getting at, the fact is though better hifi sounds more like real life even if you had never heard any hifi and someone played an instrument on a crap system and then on a good one you could tell the good one... It's the subtle things good hifi reproduces - subtle in take of air of the flute palyer for eg and even simpler than that the dynamic range of the sound and the balance of tones etc. You might not know the instrument, but it'd be obvious which was closer to real!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, I know what he's getting at, but what he's getting at isn't what he said!
I'm just being a bit........well, never mind, I'll shut the fup

[goraman]

You simply buy a Bose system and take Dr. Amar Bose word for it.He is a Doctor right?

[Alex_UK]

The logician in me (is that a word?) says that if your system accurately reproduces instruments you have first-hand live experience of (piano, drums, guitar etc.) then there is no reason at all why it wouldn't accurately reproduce an instrument you have no knowledge of - I would suggest the system isn't able to do anything other than follow the instructions in the "software" - it has no clue what it is reproducing it just does it. The reason you "discern" it to be more accurate is because you trust the system based on the experiences you can directly relate to. Or, I shouldn't have opened the second bottle! ;)

[Barry]

The logician in me (is that a word?) says that if your system accurately reproduces instruments you have first-hand live experience of (piano, drums, guitar etc.) then there is no reason at all why it wouldn't accurately reproduce an instrument you have no knowledge of - I would suggest the system isn't able to do anything other than follow the instructions in the "software" - it has no clue what it is reproducing it just does it. The reason you "discern" it to be more accurate is because you trust the system based on the experiences you can directly relate to. Or, I shouldn't have opened the second bottle! ;)

Good post Alex. I would have written much the same myself.

Regards

[The Grand Wazoo]

you trust the system based on the experiences you can directly relate to.

This is what I was alluding to in my somewhat abstruse earlier post. We can have an expectation of what is correct, guided by what we know of how the equipment deals with our real references, but we cannot know (and that was the word used in the original post) if the sound we hear is close to real

[Macca]

This is what I was alluding to in my somewhat abstruse earlier post. We can have an expectation of what is correct, guided by what we know of how the equipment deals with our real references, but we cannot know (and that was the word used in the original post) if the sound we hear is close to real

But we learn in life to distinguish between real and fake (is that our phone ringing or is it on the telly?) so even if you have never heard a real gunshot you know that what you heard was someone slamming a car door really hard and not gang war kicking off right outside your house.

I'm suggesting that although it may not be an intellectual process we are still easily able to distinguish beteen 'real' and 'not real' and we are also able to asses the gradations in between those two absolutes also - as in 'that sounds almost real'

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, I've said it before & so have others here, real is just not possible with a hi-fi. If you think it is, then you're fooling yourself.
I was at a gig on Thursday night & although the sound was a little ropey, I couldn't hope to approach anything like it at home.

..............and nor would I want to!

[Rare Bird]

If you record your voice on a bloody good tape machine & play it back through your stereo totally convinced on playback this recording sounds exactly the same as you, then your system is good enough. no way can you make a record or CD sound the same as the original being recorded on it so then why try improving the system..It's kinda like trying to get blood from a stone... If you think this that is bollox then just say so & i'll go away.

[Macca]

Well, I've said it before & so have others here, real is just not possible with a hi-fi. If you think it is, then you're fooling yourself.
I was at a gig on Thursday night & although the sound was a little ropey, I couldn't hope to approach anything like it at home.

..............and nor would I want to!

So you don't want to reproduce the sound of a dodgy PA. Neither do I. I hate PA's with a passion so many are useless especially at small gigs (which are the best kind otherwise). I'd rather have listened to the recording at home on some occasions.
I was more talking about the reproduction of natural instruments, the human voice, as Andre says, being one of them.