Comparison of Painting and Music

[Pharos]

Yes Martin, two distinctly separate processes.

The sound engineers and producers are trying to get and effect, and with live events probably to replicate what they hear as best they can, but our side, the replay should get as close as possible to what is on the recording.

Dave, I have been involved professionally in sound recording, and as an amateur since 1970.

[Lawrence001]

But they do! How many enthusiasts say that their reference is live music and 'the sound of real instruments'? Lots. But hi-fidelity replay is about fidelity to the recording, not to the events that were recorded. An important distinction that is missed by many.

I see a lot of people including so called 'professional reviewers' banging on about how many live events they attend and how that gives them an insight into how playback should sound. When in fact it is completely irrelevant.

Yes if you build a system that makes an accurate studio recording sound like a live event it must have all sorts of colourations, not necessarily bad ones mind you.

[Macca]

Yes if you build a system that makes an accurate studio recording sound like a live event it must have all sorts of colourations, not necessarily bad ones mind you.

Not necessarily, no. But if you add the same colour to every recording you run the risk of making some recordings unlistenable. It's clear from reading forums that this is an issue because many people complain about poor recording quality when (professionally made) recordings that are so poor they cannot be enjoyed are pretty much non-existent.

On the other hand absolute accuracy to every recording is impossible due to the 'Circle Of Confusion' https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/...confusion.html

However it is possible to put a system together, without spending big money, that will prioritise the sound of the recording over the sound of the equipment - to an acceptable degree at least.

In terms of comparing this to a painting, you would not go into an art gallery to appreciate the paintings and keep your sunglasses on. Or your tinted lenses. I mean you could but you would hardly be appreciating the work as the artist intended. Likewise the gallery would not put paintings behind coloured glass. No art lover would want that.

There's a tendency amongst the arch-subjectivist to over-simplify - 'If it sounds good to me then it is good.' Which prima face seems reasonable but the problem is what recording sounds good? There's such a variation in recording styles and presentation. What sounds good with Laura Marling will not necessarily sound good with Motorhead.

If you have only a few recordings all in the same vein that's not a problem. But the vast majority of us have hundreds, or thousands of recordings of many different types of music, recorded years apart, in different studios, with different equipment, with different producers all adding their own flavour.

To put together a system that does justice to them all requires a little more appreciation of how audio replay works than 'sounds good to me.' Of course you may stumble on the solution by happy accident, or you may have many years experience of trying many different types of equipment and get a feel for it that way. But that is to take the long way round.

[Pharos]

I cannot see any validity in any argument against trying to reproduce accurately what is on the recording.

[struth]

thats fine if your replay system approximates the one where the music disc was set up initially, or it will not perhaps sound right and may need tweaked. then there is the; everyone hears differently too, and need assistance to get the most from your music..

[Macca]

thats fine if your replay system approximates the one where the music disc was set up initially, or it will not perhaps sound right and may need tweaked. then there is the; everyone hears differently too, and need assistance to get the most from your music..

The first is an insurmountable problem, although not as big a problem as you might think. See the link in my previous post. The second is generally not true although you will always get some outliers. Even then the fix would be to adjust frequency response rather than adding colouration via distortion, which is only going to make the problem worse.