There has been recent discussion centered on our ability to recreate a live performance. I believe we participants have been pulled a tad off course. I believe most of us are not seeking to create a duplicate auditory experience as the mikes “heard”. I believe what we want is to be able to close our eyes (or even better, leave them open) and experience a soundstage that is believable. We don’t really care if it sounds exactly like if we had been there-after all, how many who were in Koln for Keith Jarrett’s epic performance are still alive?
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Jim, I think this is the proverbial
Some listeners are “absolute sound”, others are “true to the source”, so on and so on… Everybody’s looking for their own thing that makes them happy. 
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I know someone who lives in La Jolla, CA. He bought the house next door, tore in down, built a dedicated performance hall, with experienced acoustic talent designing the interior. All the wood paneling on the walls-exotic African hardwoods. Had the pleasure of hearing a performance by the three principal strings of the San Diego Symphony. And you know, it just didn’t sound the same as at the Jacobs Music Center in downtown San Diego. But talk about your high end audio system creating a realistic sound stage, wow.
Jim Whitesell
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Soundstage is an artifact of the stereo recording process.
I can produce a detailed precise soundstage of a string quartet with a pair of small diaphragm microphones with a cardiod polar pattern in an X/Y configuration five feet from the group.
At the other extreme, using large diaphragm microphones with an omni polar pattern spaced six feet apart 20 feet away 15 feet up I will get a rich warm enveloping soundstage. One can still easily hear whether the violins are sitting next to each other or across, but the soundstage is diffuse.
Which is better is a simple matter of taste.
Neither accurately reproduces what we experience when physically present listening to an unimplified acoustic ensemble. The first is the least accurate, but that which is often preferred by audiophiles.
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Geez, my students were right, I am too subtle. That was exactly my point.
Jim Whitesell
So what do you want as the soundstage as produced by an audio system?
That is, what is a “believable” soundstage?
I’ve been to many concerts at halls like Lincoln Center–Geffen Hall. I don’t ever hear precise imaging. And I can’t imagine how that could happen considering the hall size, timing, reflections, etc. I remember noticing depth, width, height that we call soundstage but not imaging.
I like the illusions that I get from a good stereo system.
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Thanks for the recording details and explanation Elk. When I started this adventure I thought I wanted the first but found I preferred the second. The main buzz kill attribute I find now is lack of layering. My system plays plenty deep but, aside from a subtle but noticeable improvement with the addition of a proper pre, it remains stubbornly 2D.
What I want is an auditory experience that sounds “real”. Perhaps an example of What is not real: the reverb that is added to so many vocals. As far as I can tell, each reverb is just a delayed, attenuated version of the original. Not real at all. Real reverb like that in a cathedral is what I would like and I’m not that particular about catholic versus Muslim venue although there are some that are better than others. But the majority are better than what is created artificially.
Jim Whitesell
What is real? Can open, worms everywhere.
In rock, other pop, music reverb is added as an effect. You are meant to hear the snare hits with their own reverb trail. Same with voice.
Reverb is also useful in layering. A little bit of reverb and EQ bringing the highs down makes a sound appear to be further back.
While I may have an artistic objection to what such a recording sounds like, I don’t find it real or unreal. It is not meant to be realistic, put rather a soundscape.
Consider a Diana Krall recording. Her voice is extremely close miked, so that you hear every fricative, each bit of spittle. And then it is compressed. The average audiophile 60-year-old male goes wild over this stuff. For me, it is the near height of unreal.
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Just in case you’re wondering, I meant to open the can.
I agree with your opinion of Krall. Which I think speaks to part of the problem-the “solution” to mike issues being isolating performers in cubicles requiring mixers to recreate “reality” by adding the now absent reverb, etc. to the point that they feel a part of the creative process.
They are part of the creative process, legitimately so.
Most pop recordings are not intended to sound real in any sense. There is nothing wrong with this. It is its own creation. Many greatly enjoy these recordings.
I listen almost exclusively to classical. I expect a basic level of realism. Timbre is most important, followed by clarity and microdynamics.
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I was listening to an old Dylan CD and his voice and guitar dominated on the right speaker, and his harmonica on the left. Nothing live and natural about that.
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Similar to the piano which stretches all the way from far left to far right. Or the drumkit which is similarly presented from full left to fall right.
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Hi-end audio is about revealing as much details as possible from an engineered recording, and to eliminate as much electronic noises generated from the audio components as possible in reproducing the music that is close to the original recording.
Live experience? You are not going to find that in your listening room. It is an entirely difference experience. A great audio system may produce a music experience that you deemed is believable, that is about it.
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But isn’t it fun when the piano span in our listening room seems just about right, with Jarrett’s occasional mutterings coming from about the middle of the imaginary keyboard.
One word answer “BACCH”
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Mutterings? It often sounds like upper GI trauma reflected in distraught suffering manifested in “Doc, the pain level is 10!” I love Jarrett’s playing, but I can only imagine his contract with ECM included an “under no circumstances are the artist’s guttural utterances to be diminished by the recording process” clause.
The first time I heard his “distress” call I said “I sure wish that ass in the audience would shut up”. Perhaps now that I know it’s Kieth is why I can tolerate it.
