AudioCircle
Music and Media => The Music Circle => Topic started by: abk456 on 10 Sep 2021, 10:11 am
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I wonder whether views about this might be interesting. What instrument is the most difficult to reproduce accurately? For mine I think that a system that can make a piano sound like a piano has to be pretty good. Other views?
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Agreed
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For the 50 years I've been in this hobby, the consensus has been piano.
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Agreed... Piano is arbiter of a hifi system.
But, the kick drum from a system doesn't even come close to the real thing.
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Agreed... Piano is arbiter of a hifi system.
But, the kick drum from a system doesn't even come close to the real thing.
Totally agreed. For discussions sake, have you ever listened to a kick drum from the drummers position then from the other side of it? It's a completely different sound, right? Then, if you listen near the port hole on the front of the kick drum head it sounds different there too. Then, if you listen from 10' away it's different again. So, which sound would you prefer to be on the recording?
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Great topic!
Agree with the consensus and would add female vocals as hard for a system to reproduce properly. And the term "properly" is subjective in this case.
As to how I want the system to reproduce a recording, it's that position in the front (or near) to the stage. Obviously this doesn't work for all recording venues, ie. studios. Then there are close multi-miked recordings that sound like all instruments and vocals are right in your face. We rely on the engineer to to get the best recording possible but in the end they all have thier biases about how to make a recording and they are all a bit different.
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Agreed... Piano is arbiter of a hifi system.
But, the kick drum from a system doesn't even come close to the real thing.
I agree, though I've heard one recording that comes close, if not in the physical impact you feel in your solar plexus, at least in providing a slight sense of the sudden and almost violent motion of the air. It's Kris McKay's recording of "Wish You Were Here," the opening track of a Pink Floyd tribute album called "A Pink Floyd Tribute: Echoes of Pink." On my system it sounds like a real kick drum being struck in the next room.
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Totally agreed. For discussions sake, have you ever listened to a kick drum from the drummers position then from the other side of it? It's a completely different sound, right? Then, if you listen near the port hole on the front of the kick drum head it sounds different there too. Then, if you listen from 10' away it's different again. So, which sound would you prefer to be on the recording?
Agreed. The bass drum is tuned to make the presentation on the resonant head to the "public" side. So, yes, it sounds quite a bit different out there versus sitting behind the drum on the batter side. So, do we want folks to hear the batter side or the resonant side?
Having owned a baby grand and knowing what they sound like and being a drummer, I am always yearning for the tone, especially tom heads to come through.
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Greetings & Welcome to AC abk456 :thumb:
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I agree with the piano being the most difficult. Here’s another question, does analog (phono) or digital do it better?
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At least for vinyl and stylus tracking, Peter Ledermann believes a muted trumpet is the most difficult waveform to reproduce. This is due to it being one of the most spiked waveforms that can be recorded instrumentally. Of course cannons or the like can do this to a greater extreme, but instrumentally, a muted trumped gets the closest.
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Agreed. The bass drum is tuned to make the presentation on the resonant head to the "public" side. So, yes, it sounds quite a bit different out there versus sitting behind the drum on the batter side. So, do we want folks to hear the batter side or the resonant side?
Having owned a baby grand and knowing what they sound like and being a drummer, I am always yearning for the tone, especially tom heads to come through.
It's all subjective as someone mentioned above. What is heard on recordings is usually from a microphone near the hole, a microphone outside of the front head and then some microphones in the room (including some of the microphones on the other drums). So, it becomes a combination of the real thing. The last several years have also seen a lot of "drum replacement" in recordings (and live for that matter) where they stack a kick drum sound on top of (or replacing) the original kick drum sound. You will hear this in more "produced" albums. But that goes to show how much the engineer, mixer and producer have to say about the end result of what something sounds like. You can have any home stereo that you want to design but that won't fix a badly mixed record or a poor sounding kick drum. We could even go down the rabbit hole of drum makers and drum tech's because it is as vast and interesting as our stereos. If the drum doesn't sound good to begin with then it will only get worse after that.
It's rare to hear the beater side of the kick drum since it has less of the body of the kick drum.
I agree that a piano is probably the most difficult since it's a percussion instrument, has notes and a vast array of harmonic overtones. But a good piano recording is just so beautiful.
What are some good recordings where you like the sound of the kick drum and/or piano? I'm interested to hear from everybody on this.
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I have to agree with Piano but horns like the Trumpet and Sax are right up there with the piano.
The most realistic piano tone I have heard was from a Marantz NA11s1 DAC in my system. The Marantz Ruby KI Integrated amp that I heard in a shop also produced a very natural piano. Ken Ishiwata of Marantz knew what he was doing. He loved a fabulous midrange.
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I agree with the piano being the most difficult. Here’s another question, does analog (phono) or digital do it better?
I think it's important to consider if the recording has ever been in the digital domain also. Was it recorded to tape and stayed analog until it was put on the record? Or was it recorded to digital then a record was made? That isn't always easy info to find out.
My opinion is that analog usually sounds better in every way, but digital has certainly come a long way to getting closer.
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Hi,
The Starting Block Circle is really for people to introduce themselves.
This question/thread is best posted in the Music Circle, so I wll move it there for you now.
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I think it's important to consider if the recording has ever been in the digital domain also. Was it recorded to tape and stayed analog until it was put on the record? Or was it recorded to digital then a record was made? That isn't always easy info to find out.
My opinion is that analog usually sounds better in every way, but digital has certainly come a long way to getting closer.
Danny, you make excellent points regarding the original recording. I’ve been digital, but I’ve wanted to go analog for some time. I’ll be trading in my other VAC preamp for a turntable/cartridge combo. My phono pre will be a Luxman. It should be fun.
Get well soon Larry.
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I think it's important to consider if the recording has ever been in the digital domain also. Was it recorded to tape and stayed analog until it was put on the record? Or was it recorded to digital then a record was made? That isn't always easy info to find out.
My opinion is that analog usually sounds better in every way, but digital has certainly come a long way to getting closer.
This was always my opinion as well. Two systems, all things being equal (best of the best), one being analog, and one being digital: The analog one will reproduce the analog recording better, and the digital will reproduce the digital signal better.
Currently in my system, even digitally recorded material sounds better on my analog rig. BUT, we'll see if that's still the case when I receive my new DAC.
Recently I've re-watched all the Peter Ledermann Soundsmith videos, and he quoted a find from an Ortofon engineer, that a stylus can track and accurately reproduce a sound from groove displacement as small as .005 microns, or 50 hydrocarbon molecules, and can be "easily heard". This was with an "average" stylus. So better stylus for instance he believes it will be about 20 molecules will be easily heard, and of course smaller could be heard as well, but not "easily".... If you then take that and assume this is a "step" or cut of sound in a digital domain of a 24bit/48khz recording, it would be somewhere around 100 TIMES the resolution of the 24bit stream.... something that simply blows my mind... vinyl should not work :lol: at least as well as it does.
But if this was recorded using a digital signal, of course it wouldn't be the case, as you'd have the "steps" of the recording in the record groove itself. And again, back to "all things being equal" it then SHOULD sound better on a digital system IMO.
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The problem is no one knows how to record the piano. They do not know how to record a cymbal crash either.
Especially, in stereo.
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There's always the perspective to consider. For most instruments it just one mike. For a piano you have close miking the soundboard, then the ambient room miking. and is it right to have a classical concert perspective or is it better to have the presentation be from the perspective of the person playing it, which means left hand (bass notes) is from the left speaker and the right (tinkly) keys are coming from the right speaker.
Personally, as a piano player I want full left and right as if I'm sitting on the bench. I know most well know pianists want this too, but in a classical concert the piano is just another instrument and it usually sits in a very monophonic place in the mix.
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When I evaluate my system, I listen to a solo upright bass. Difficult to reproduce its subtleties because you need a pitch-black background and the ability to retrieve nuanced bass detail. In a live performance, an upright bass often sounds boomy and monotone, but that's not how it actually sounds.
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My go to evening music is Female vocals with Jazz trio...Piano, Standup & drum. It is no wonder I like to listen to Dipole Planar transducers because they, to my ears, are the best to recreate this sound all other things equal. High Res has been able to get me pretty close to hearing the Piano in the room. I think it is not an easy challenge to reproduce a section of violins...though that may have a lot to do with the recording?
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This thread is really interesting. Though not overly familiar the output of most instruments I can't contribute. Even with my great deal of live show experience (amplified music) that is different. I have been to the symphony, and heard live jazz trios, but not the genre of music I listen to often on my systems. Cheers
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My go to evening music is Female vocals with Jazz trio...Piano, Standup & drum. It is no wonder I like to listen to Dipole Planar transducers because they, to my ears, are the best to recreate this sound all other things equal. High Res has been able to get me pretty close to hearing the Piano in the room. I think it is not an easy challenge to reproduce a section of violins...though that may have a lot to do with the recording?
I have to agree with you about planars and piano. I have not heard a box speaker that sounds as good as a Magnepan for piano, especially with the Marantz NA11s1 DAC that I use to own. It sounded like a grand piano was in the room (and I know what one sounds like as my mother in-law was a concert pianist). The tone, texture and decay were phenomenal. But of course I have not heard all speakers but maybe someday if I live to be 200. :)
By the way, thanks KMMD! It is a slow recovery but I am getting a 12 week break from the craziness of COVID patients. You stay healthy and safe.
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A Bösendorfer Grande Imperial 97 key piano and the Wanamaker/Macy pipe organ.
There is not a loudspeaker made today that can "faithfully" portray the power, nuance and harmonic series of these instruments. The stupidly over the top Wilson WAMM Chronosonic fails...
Disclaimer: I am not a fan of the etched, overly sterile reproduction of top shelf Wilson speakers.
That said, there are more than a few speakers that will give a tremendous degree of enjoyment of 99.9% of available recordings including the instruments mentioned above as well as SRV, Twenty One Pilots, Alicia Keyes, Pete Belasco's "Deeper" CD and much, much more. :thumb:
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This was always my opinion as well. Two systems, all things being equal (best of the best), one being analog, and one being digital: The analog one will reproduce the analog recording better, and the digital will reproduce the digital signal better.
Currently in my system, even digitally recorded material sounds better on my analog rig. BUT, we'll see if that's still the case when I receive my new DAC.
Recently I've re-watched all the Peter Ledermann Soundsmith videos, and he quoted a find from an Ortofon engineer, that a stylus can track and accurately reproduce a sound from groove displacement as small as .005 microns, or 50 hydrocarbon molecules, and can be "easily heard". This was with an "average" stylus. So better stylus for instance he believes it will be about 20 molecules will be easily heard, and of course smaller could be heard as well, but not "easily".... If you then take that and assume this is a "step" or cut of sound in a digital domain of a 24bit/48khz recording, it would be somewhere around 100 TIMES the resolution of the 24bit stream.... something that simply blows my mind... vinyl should not work :lol: at least as well as it does.
But if this was recorded using a digital signal, of course it wouldn't be the case, as you'd have the "steps" of the recording in the record groove itself. And again, back to "all things being equal" it then SHOULD sound better on a digital system IMO.
Yes!
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The problem is no one knows how to record the piano. They do not know how to record a cymbal crash either.
Especially, in stereo.
I disagree. There are some great piano recordings and many great ways to deal with a cymbal crash. But again, this is dependent on the player. For cymbals, most recordings have 2 overhead microphones that are several feet above the drummer. These are panned hard left and right which will get you a stereo sound of the cymbals and drums. If the drummer knows how to hit the cymbals without bashing them then you get a great crash sound (John Bonham was really good at hitting his cymbals correctly). For piano it becomes complicated because it's such a 3 dimensional instrument that putting it into stereo is tough, but there are many ways of using two microphones to create a good stereo image of a piano.
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the Wanamaker/Macy pipe organ.
Or any organ for that manner. If you've ever heard a live Hammond/Leslie in a concert hall, then went back to your system and put on a recording of a Hammond/Leslie combo you will immediately laugh, because it sounds like a toy compared to the real thing.
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The "Ting" of a triangle.....
Domes, Ribbons, Planers, Electrostats all
have a different take on the "Ting"
Which do you PREFER is what really matters I suppose...
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I use a resonator guitar as a test on speakers. It's fun to hear the difference. As I think it is Tyson who states "it's all a fake".
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Or any organ for that manner. If you've ever heard a live Hammond/Leslie in a concert hall, then went back to your system and put on a recording of a Hammond/Leslie combo you will immediately laugh, because it sounds like a toy compared to the real thing.
Yes, sir. You nailed it with the Leslie. It is hard to get that 3-D thing going in 2-channel Audio. There are a few recordings done with QSound that get very close though: Richard Wright "Broken China" and on Pink Floyd's "Pulse".
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It has to be the kazoo as far as I’m concerned. It always sounds like someone blowing into a comb that’s covered with Kleenex.
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Cannons.
1812 Overture - Tchaikovsky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8)
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There are a number of hard to solve impediments to reproduce a large instrument as the piano as a hi-end audio in a home, another thing even more difficult is to realistically reproduce the piano in a room, note that the source of these reproductions are not a real piano but a recording.
A piano heard near has a wonderful sound of wood, years a go a pianist and music producer I knew always said nothing surpass the acoustic instrument, until today this has been true.
So if the system is really good it will be faithful to the recording, however as we know a recording is very different from an real instrument heard two meters from your ear. After decades of try and error evaluating and considering the problem of fidelity in a home room, I come to conclusion that the fidelity to live music prob should not bother the audiophile, the objective of a hi-end audio system is above all reproduce a beautiful and pleasant sound of recorded music according to its owners personal taste.
I cant say here what loudspeakers with xovers and sound emission only to front are, objectify the faithful reproduction of the live music in a room is a goal created by audio magazines and of course is a waste of time.
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Dizzy Gillespie playing harmon muted trumpet above high C, and loudly.
(https://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=229559)
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For those of us that have spent a few years sitting at big grands, the complete sound of a piano is hard to get right. It's almost like three different instruments in the bass, mids, and treble... each with their nuance. I've only heard a small handful of speakers do it well.
I've had one of them for quite a while, and am unlikely to ever look for a replacement.
Is guitar the easiest??
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For my ears, everything is difficult to reproduce; however, my list of speakers listened to isn't long. I'd have to say Maggies were the most realistic. As mentioned in my intro to AudioCircle, I'm in the market for some big boy speakers, X3 or X5. I expect they would equal or surpass what I heard from the Maggies. I've had the privilege to conduct some fine musicians, so I'm afraid I'll never get the same sonic experience from an audio system. Then again, it's nice to distance myself from the players and enjoy the room too, which is how most large ensembles are recorded.
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I've had the privilege to conduct some fine musicians, so I'm afraid I'll never get the same sonic experience from an audio system.
In this case maybe would be interesting to you test a nice headphone as HifiMan Ananda or Arya, they will offer you a detailed POV of the musical performance that you may like and may be useful to your position as a conductor.
Ananda and Arya needs a amp to sound great, but will keep wife happy due no big speaker in the living room, since she dont know its prices :thumb:
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Piano
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Weird.. my system reproduces piano quite convincingly to my ears. That's the 1 thing I can say it does better than most others. However, everything else... I can tell it's fake.
I guess that's why I like electronica with real piano layered on top (Radiohead, Coldplay, etc.)... Which begs the question.. do you gravitate to music that plays well on your system now... or do you try to find gear that matches what you want to hear. :) Or are you always in that continuum? forever! :icon_lol:
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Weird.. my system reproduces piano quite convincingly to my ears. That's the 1 thing I can say it does better than most others. However, everything else... I can tell it's fake.
I guess that's why I like electronica with real piano layered on top (Radiohead, Coldplay, etc.)... Which begs the question.. do you gravitate to music that plays well on your system now... or do you try to find gear that matches what you want to hear. :) Or are you always in that continuum? forever! :icon_lol:
That"s an interesting question. I do a little of both, but I have to say that my system has opened up new genres of music to me because it sounds so good on my system. Same for my 30 year old son who is an audio enthusiast.
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In this case maybe would be interesting to you test a nice headphone as HifiMan Ananda or Arya, they will offer you a detailed POV of the musical performance that you may like and may be useful to your position as a conductor.
Ananda and Arya needs a amp to sound great, but will keep wife happy due no big speaker in the living room, since she dont know its prices :thumb:
I would like to try something g from HifiMan. I recently took the plunge into headphones. Bought Emotiva's GR-1 and was happy. Then I gave into the hype on the GL2000s and I'm so happy I did. They sound amazing. It seems that some people dislike them, but thud people have probably heard the best. Anyway, I can appreciate good detail and response from speakers and headphones, but there's something about how the sound resonates and projects from the live instrument that I can't seem to reproduce. Consider this sound test...a live solo musician or ensemble in front of you and then the same music through the tiniest audio system out there. Do you really think it would be difficult to notice which is live vs recorded?
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but there's something about how the sound resonates and projects from the live instrument that I can't seem to reproduce.
Do you really think it would be difficult to notice which is live vs recorded?
I cant say, as an audiophile who already made lots of mistakes when buying equipment, a few years ago after listening the Carver Amazing I completely abandoned the search for live music fidelity in a room in exchange for the reproduction of a beautiful music sound at home, I have not had anymore disappointments since then.
Assembling a system that reproduces a pleasant and beautiful music is much easier than chasing to reproduce all the live music in a room, the search for live music reproduction in home was never achieved until today for being impossible IMO.
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I cant say, as an audiophile who already made lots of mistakes when buying equipment, a few years ago after listening the Carver Amazing I completely abandoned the search for live music fidelity in a room in exchange for the reproduction of a beautiful music sound at home, I have not had anymore disappointments since then.
Assembling a system that reproduces a pleasant and beautiful music is much easier than chasing to reproduce all the live music in a room, the search for live music reproduction in home was never achieved until today for being impossible IMO.
I second this response to that. The problem with trying to reproduce live music in the home is that 99% of recordings don't sound anything like live music. They are produced and altered to sound "better" or more pleasing to the ear. Even live albums or songs are incredibly altered to sound better. Live shows, which I have mixed hundreds of, do not sound the same as a band in a room. They are meant to sound better. If you went into a room with a band, the cymbals would be blaring, the kick drum would be punchy but not as bossy, the hi-hats would tear your ears off and the guitars would generally sound shrill. The bass would likely be unbalanced. Recording/mixing engineers get past this with different microphone and mixing techniques to smooth it all out.
That being said, some speakers and systems produce a more "accurate" sound. So, for me, what I'm going for in a system is accuracy to the recording. I want to hear what the artists are trying to put across to me. I want to take the room problems out of the system. I want a speaker that becomes almost invisible and I just hear what the recording does.
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Very well put Danny!
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another vote for piano yet the best I've heard to date was on a pair of Martin Logan CLX's in a super listening room @ Overture Audio, Wilmington, De. I firmly believe stats do piano best, YMMV
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Here are some of my favorite albums to test real holography with as if you are in the room.
Chesky Records...binaural.
https://chesky.com/collections/music/binaural
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I'm still a relatively new guy , to the Hi End audio groups ( about 5-6 years ) ..
I attended T.H.E. SHOW in L.A. a couple years back..
At THE SHOW, I found my way into the MBL room , where I was "Schooled" on how large a sweet spot can be, and just how accurate a system can sound..
When I got home and compared my system with the MBL system, I was very disappointed with how my system reproduced the same music..
Most notably would be the Cannon Blast..
The MBL system reproduced the Cannon blast extremely well , where as on my system the Cannon blast weren't even close to sounding "REAL"..
But, I believe the MBL system I was listening to had a price tag of some where’s around $250,000 to $300,000 ..?!?!
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Many speakers do a good job with solo I instruments, even piano. As one person here noted, massed strings are the most difficult for speakers to reproduce even when the recordings are great. Small ensembles sound fine, Mahler and Bruckner symphonies never sound like the real thing (ir)regardless of the speaker brand.
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I'm still a relatively new guy , to the Hi End audio groups ( about 5-6 years ) ..
I attended T.H.E. SHOW in L.A. a couple years back..
At THE SHOW, I found my way into the MBL room , where I was "Schooled" on how large a sweet spot can be, and just how accurate a system can sound..
When I got home and compared my system with the MBL system, I was very disappointed with how my system reproduced the same music..
Most notably would be the Cannon Blast..
The MBL system reproduced the Cannon blast extremely well , where as on my system the Cannon blast weren't even close to sounding "REAL"..
But, I believe the MBL system I was listening to had a price tag of some where’s around $250,000 to $300,000 ..?!?!
Danny's OB designs (GR Research) and Clayton's OB designs (Spatial Audio) also give you that type of sound, and for a whole lot less money.
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> When I got home and compared my system with the MBL system, I was very disappointed with how my system reproduced the same music.
mbl is at the very high end of omnidirectional speakers. you can spend a lot less for speakers taking this approach. e.g. ohm acoustics or decware.
here are my ohm f5's.
(https://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=225013)
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Not a omni but a Dipole OB fullrange as the LII F15 or F18 maybe could please you at $520/pair, it dont need a xover so its very accurate>
https://www.lii-audio.com/product/one-pair-18-inch-full-range-speakers-superb-scale-soundstage-with-new-imaging-f-18/