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Pirate Vinyl Records! :D

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Carol Haynes:
I generally use a flat EQ with no effects. Why mess with what the band and recording engineers intended? Sometimes I'll put up the bass for some music, but in general, I listen to it flat.-Renegade (March 30, 2013, 09:28 PM)
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Because there is a difference between what is heard in a studio with studio monitors and what comes out of, even expensive, domestic audio equipment.
-Carol Haynes (March 31, 2013, 07:52 AM)
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The difference is because of the location, not the speakers.  You can put the same exact speakers in your living room that are used in a recording studio, but the sound will not be the same because of a different acoustic environment.  The best sound in any given room will be obtained by matching the capabilities of the speakers to the characteristics of the room, and also to where listeners will be positioned.

Sound is the result of complex interactions of pressure waves and it varies as you move around a room, or how many people are in that room.  Newer home audio equipment can do a pretty good job of emulating the ambiance of different concert halls, and the effect can sometimes sound more "natural" than straight reproduction, but neither is more "accurate" than the other.

-xtabber (March 31, 2013, 10:20 AM)
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True - but domestic speakers are going to have different response profiles to studio speakers (actually any two different speakers will have different response profiles). So if you are using different speakers in a different environment you won't hear what the engineers heard by using a flat EQ.

As you say you won't even hear what the engineer heard even if you steal their whole set up and take it home - that is why EQ is used to tweak the sound you hear.

At the end of the day it is all a matter of taste - even if you do hear what the engineer hears it still isn't necessarily the best sound. IMHO engineers in concerts can't mix a decent sound at all - I have yet to go to a concert of any band and not be irritated by the bad mixing!

40hz:
IMHO engineers in concerts can't mix a decent sound at all - I have yet to go to a concert of any band and not be irritated by the bad mixing!
-Carol Haynes (March 31, 2013, 12:06 PM)
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Agree. And IMHO the problem is generally worse with British bands. I guess audio engineers are trained differently over in the UK?

The only UK group I've ever heard sound really amazing in a live setting is Jethro Tull. Tull is hands down the best sounding group I ever heard, regardless of which side of the pond a band calls home -  and only somewhat rivaled by the Moody Blues in a large concert venue. The Rolling Stones, The Police, Genesis, and The Who all sounded absolutely awful whenever I've heard them play over here. Which is a bloody shame considering the level of musicianship all these groups are capable of. Go figure...

Note: I left Pink Floyd  :-* out of the above because they occupy a space all their own when it comes to live performance. It wouldn't be fair to most groups (with the possible exception of Jethro Tull) to lump them in for comparison. ;)

xtabber:
I don’t even consider rock and pop music when talking about the accuracy of sound reproduction, because most of the original sound is electronically generated in the first place. Even the sounds of drums and vocals, which are acoustically produced, are almost always electronically enhanced in performance, as well as in recordings.  Classical music, and to a lesser extent, Jazz, provide a better test of recording techniques.

Binaural sound is a great in theory, not so much in practice, unless you usually attend concerts encased in a concrete block so you cannot move your head.  In practice, we move our heads and ears to adjust both sights and sounds when we listen to music, and that affects what we hear.  And yes, even though it sounds counter-intuitive, what we see affects what we hear, because what the brain perceives as sound is reconstructed from signals received from the ear, and that reconstruction process is affected by other stimuli as well.

40hz:
Older binaural recordings used static microphone placements. more modern examples use a variable positioning mechanism and special microphones designed purely for binaural use.  Can't speak for theory too much when it comes to binaural. But from my purely subjective listening to binaural playback with open design headphones, (and from a working musician's perspective) I find it as close to life as it gets.  YMMV.  :)

I've played classic, jazz, and rock. And I'll have to disagree with the arbitrary distinction separating acoustic from electronic sound generation. Both ultimately depend on creating vibration in the air. So all of it ultimately becomes acoustic sound in the end for live performances. The real difference is found in the method rather than the results. beyond that it's just personal taste.

Carol Haynes:
Classical music, and to a lesser extent, Jazz, provide a better test of recording techniques.
-xtabber (March 31, 2013, 01:44 PM)
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Classical recordings are generally pretty dreadful - especially when soloists are involved. The only place to hear classical music as it should sound is in the concert hall. On recordings the balance of instruments is always wildly different - and usually REALLY unbalanced.

Classic example a few years ago - I was at a live concert with a guitar concerto that was recorded. In the concert the players worked together to get a superb level of balance and integration of sound (all the more so as the soloist was playing with an orchestra for the first time). On the recording it sounded like the soloist and listener were in one room whilst the orchestra was in another. Been my experience of most classical music recordings.

Can't help wondering some times if soloists are to blame as they want their sound to the front!

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