Re: Digital to Analog downloading Question ?

On Apr 12, 5:42 pm, Sonnova <sonn...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Sigh! I really don't think you guys understand the context. NOTHING
sounds
> like a live trumpet (for instance). It always sounds like a live trumpet
-in
> any venue, under any conditions.

If you mean, in a particular venue, under particular conditions, then
I agree.

> A recorded and reproduced trumpet always
> sounds like a recorded and reproduced trumpet. It never sounds like a
real
> trumpet. If you know what a live trumpet sounds like, irrespective of
where
> you hear it, you will always recognize it as a live trumpet and the
finest
> stereo system will never fool you for long. This is what makes live
music
> played in real space the absolute reference.

I think we just disagree on what constitutes an absolute reference. As
Arny notes, a reference is a fixed standard. "The sound of a live
trumpet" is not that. "The sound of this trumpet played by these lips
in this hall, filled to capacity, from this seat" would be an absolute
reference. But that's not a very useful reference if you're trying to
decide which of two speakers sounds "more like live."

> Audio will be perfect when a
> stereo system can play back a trumpet in the same room where it was
recorded
> and listeners cannot tell the real thing from the play-back. By
definition,
> that makes the live trumpet the absolute reference. It's what the stereo
> system is trying to recreate (in this case).

I've never participated in an experiment like that. You have, a long
time ago. I'd be interested to know whether there have been any more
formal experiments along those lines--i.e., live instrument vs.
anechoic recording of same.

But it's my experience that the dead giveaway of a recording isn't the
timbre of the instrument (i.e., "the sound of a live trumpet") but the
messed-up spatial cues of a recording (two-channel in particular).
Inevitably what you're hearing is the combination of the room it was
recorded in and the room you're listening in. And there's absolutely
no standard for what that ought to sound like.

> > It's really a subjective standard, based (let us hope) on objective
> > experiences. And being subjective, it is subject to a whole lot of
> > influences (including, ironically, our experiences of recorded
> > music!).
>
> The biggest obstacle to using live music as the absolute reference is
human
> aural memory. It's not that good and is easily corrupted by personal
> listening biases.

That is definitely an obstacle. It's why I argued earlier that what we
really do is construct our own mental image of what live music "ought"
to sound like, and compare what we hear to that. The fact that such an
image is highly mutable confounds the process greatly.

bob