Re: Digital to Analog downloading Question ?

On Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:39:47 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article <fub4f302i0s@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):

> "Jenn" <jennconductsREMOVETHIS@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:fu8nb902b4b@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> In article <fu6cgp02j6c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>> "Norman M. Schwartz" <nmsz@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> 
>>>>> If you listened to the microphone feed resulting from
>>>>> live music and compared that to a good recording
>>>>> derived from that feed, I bet that you would NOT be
>>>>> able to distinguish live from recorded music.
>>>> 
>>>> But the mic feed already isn't live, in the the context
>>>> that I mean it. You're hearing it through a speaker, of
>>>> course.  I believe that you are correct in your
>>>> statement, but neither the mic feed nor the recording
>>>> is "live".
>>> 
>>> I think we all know that. It's my meaning  that
>>> _*recording*_ itself can't approach live sound if *live*
>>> hasn't been captured in the first place. How possibly
>>> can a _recording_ of a trumpet be expected to sound live
>>> if the information going into making any recording
>>> doesn't sound LIVE in the first place?
>> 
>> True enough.  Obviously, some recordings sound more live
>> than others, and none are even close to perfect.
> 
> Avoiding loudspeakers and listening rooms are two powerful steps towards

> improving realism. 
> 

I have a friend with a pair of  Stax SR-404s and a matching headphone 
amplifier which I have listened to extensively. In a way, you are right.
The 
'phones eliminate the speakers and the room and because the diaphragms are
so 
small and low-mass  they can be made absolutely linear over a much wider 
range than can any pair of speakers and as a result, can sound uncanny (no

pun intended) and real to certain point. Where headphones fail, is that 
unless one is listening to a binaural recording DESIGNED for headphone 
listening, normal stereo recording technique gives one a rather strange 
perspective which always breaks the spell for me, and speakers as well as 
live music, assault the entire body, often on a really visceral level 
(especially low bass) and that's always missing from headphone listening. 
Then of course, I've never been to a performance where the musicians
follow 
me as I move my head :-). But a good pair of headphones can sound real in
a 
way that speakers never could.