Two guitars may not sound the same, however a guitar cannot/shouldnt sound like a Mandolin either. There are many "hifi" components which are guilty of doing that. It may still sound pleasing but do we take it home ? This is where I guess an audiophile comes into picture.
Tannoy Westminster
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Two guitars may not sound the same, however a guitar cannot/shouldnt sound like a Mandolin either. There are many "hifi" components which are guilty of doing that. It may still sound pleasing but do we take it home ? This is where I guess an audiophile comes into picture.
panditji
Well-Known Member
Fair enough... but I think it would be extremely diffucult for any component to make a guitar sound like a mandolin and it would take an extraordinary mind to design components to be able to do that...
Jokes apart, Dr. Bass this is a very unlikely scenario and I doubt if there are any such components which change the sound only....
My question is why the obsession with the whole live experience when most of the music we listen to is recorded in studios which will always be different in sound to a recording in a open hall/venue?
Jokes apart, Dr. Bass this is a very unlikely scenario and I doubt if there are any such components which change the sound only....
My question is why the obsession with the whole live experience when most of the music we listen to is recorded in studios which will always be different in sound to a recording in a open hall/venue?
I dont think people really mean open hall/venue when they refer to "live". It is about getting as close as possible to the sound of the live instrument or the live human voice (no matter where they are played they are easily distinguished as something live and unprocessed). That you know is "real" and getting closer to that experience is what people term as feeling of live.
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panditji
Well-Known Member
ok...got it..
I have heard a 60K+ floorstander with horn loaded tweeter that made snare drums sound very metallic, making it sound more like someone was hitting a very heavy metallic percussion instead of stretched skin
This is a huge discussion and has been done before in this forum a number of times.
Of course the backdrop of the discussion is the Tannoy Westminister, and generally the Tannoy Prestige line of speakers. There were a few statements regarding the 'very very colored" nature of these speakers - and then a whole discussion ensued on neutral sound, its feasibility in a system and the live unamplified sound as reference.
IMO and experience, no single audio equipment can be perfectly neutral. I firmly believe, there are scientific reasons behind it. Any equipment has passive elements like internal cabling and capacitors, and even stuff like volume pots etc and these necessarily produce some coloration. These act like a medium through which the signal passes and the unavoidable effect of that is scattering of the signal and a necessary consequence of that is that the spectral distribution of the signal changes, something that we call coloring. In simple terms these passive elements act like mild equalizers on the signal.
Now if the above is true, the job of the listener is to pick and choose all components including cables so that the overall result is as close to neutral as possible. Now, about cables, I have have heard the purists say that the cables should be transparent. But I have not been able to understand how that is possible, because a cable, no matter what it is, is not vacuum and is a piece of a conducting material and the signal passing through it is going to experience the material and as a result some of its characteristics would change inevitably.
Now, coming to the Tannoy Prestige line, I have heard a few of them, most recently the Turnberrys with a variety of amplification (Naim, Odyssey, Leben, LM Audio etc). The tonalities are pretty good, that is, the Ali Akbar Khan Sarod does sound like an Ali Akbar Sarod. What color is to a picture, tone is to a sound. And tone is decided by the spectral distribution of all the frequencies of a given piece of sound. Hence, I do not understand in what sense a Tannoy Prestige is "very very colored". What these speakers do is to produce a lot of harmonics that makes the melody tuneful and the sounds extended. Harbeth is another speaker that does this, albeit in a different presentation than Tannoys. All acoustic musical instruments are made with these harmonics in mind, and they all use Helmholtz' theory of resonance. This is the reason why every sitar, sarod, tanpura, violin, piano etc and the Indian drums like tabla, pakhawaj, mridangam etc are tuned every 6 months or so (all Indian drums are tuned to the melody unlike the Western drums) - purpose of the tuning is to ensure that all the important harmonics are there, otherwise the instruments sound unmusical and out of tune.
The usual examples of colored speakers I am aware of are the ones which tries to produce an unnatural plentiful of bass and/or cutting down the highs.
Live unamplified music is rightfully held as a reference for neutral sound - something that the reproduced music should be compared to. The question that has been correctly raised in some form or the other is that how many people have the opportunity of listening to the live unamplified music. True, a very valid concern. But the trick is to listen to a given artiste on many occasions live (amplified), and then listen to the same artiste on many systems. From this one gets a fair idea of the tonality of the artiste's voice or the instrument. Fortunately I have heard quite a number of Indian artiste's live and unamplified in somebody's home or green rooms of auditoriums or in studios (when the recording was being done). I have also been fortunate to be in some of the very famous concert halls in the West and Western music in those halls is largely unamplified. For me, it's very difficult to accept a system or recording, overall effect of which is to make Ali Akbar's sarod sound almost like a guitar. Believe me, I have heard such systems.
But for people who do not have this opportunity, still I'd encourage them to attend as many live performances as possible even though the sound systems in auditoriums in India are mostly unbearable. This will still give an idea of the overall flow of emotion by the artiste through the music and try to reproduce that part at home in his/her system. Listening only to reproduced music at home in your system will never give you the impact a live (even amplified) performance can give.
Regards.
Of course the backdrop of the discussion is the Tannoy Westminister, and generally the Tannoy Prestige line of speakers. There were a few statements regarding the 'very very colored" nature of these speakers - and then a whole discussion ensued on neutral sound, its feasibility in a system and the live unamplified sound as reference.
IMO and experience, no single audio equipment can be perfectly neutral. I firmly believe, there are scientific reasons behind it. Any equipment has passive elements like internal cabling and capacitors, and even stuff like volume pots etc and these necessarily produce some coloration. These act like a medium through which the signal passes and the unavoidable effect of that is scattering of the signal and a necessary consequence of that is that the spectral distribution of the signal changes, something that we call coloring. In simple terms these passive elements act like mild equalizers on the signal.
Now if the above is true, the job of the listener is to pick and choose all components including cables so that the overall result is as close to neutral as possible. Now, about cables, I have have heard the purists say that the cables should be transparent. But I have not been able to understand how that is possible, because a cable, no matter what it is, is not vacuum and is a piece of a conducting material and the signal passing through it is going to experience the material and as a result some of its characteristics would change inevitably.
Now, coming to the Tannoy Prestige line, I have heard a few of them, most recently the Turnberrys with a variety of amplification (Naim, Odyssey, Leben, LM Audio etc). The tonalities are pretty good, that is, the Ali Akbar Khan Sarod does sound like an Ali Akbar Sarod. What color is to a picture, tone is to a sound. And tone is decided by the spectral distribution of all the frequencies of a given piece of sound. Hence, I do not understand in what sense a Tannoy Prestige is "very very colored". What these speakers do is to produce a lot of harmonics that makes the melody tuneful and the sounds extended. Harbeth is another speaker that does this, albeit in a different presentation than Tannoys. All acoustic musical instruments are made with these harmonics in mind, and they all use Helmholtz' theory of resonance. This is the reason why every sitar, sarod, tanpura, violin, piano etc and the Indian drums like tabla, pakhawaj, mridangam etc are tuned every 6 months or so (all Indian drums are tuned to the melody unlike the Western drums) - purpose of the tuning is to ensure that all the important harmonics are there, otherwise the instruments sound unmusical and out of tune.
The usual examples of colored speakers I am aware of are the ones which tries to produce an unnatural plentiful of bass and/or cutting down the highs.
Live unamplified music is rightfully held as a reference for neutral sound - something that the reproduced music should be compared to. The question that has been correctly raised in some form or the other is that how many people have the opportunity of listening to the live unamplified music. True, a very valid concern. But the trick is to listen to a given artiste on many occasions live (amplified), and then listen to the same artiste on many systems. From this one gets a fair idea of the tonality of the artiste's voice or the instrument. Fortunately I have heard quite a number of Indian artiste's live and unamplified in somebody's home or green rooms of auditoriums or in studios (when the recording was being done). I have also been fortunate to be in some of the very famous concert halls in the West and Western music in those halls is largely unamplified. For me, it's very difficult to accept a system or recording, overall effect of which is to make Ali Akbar's sarod sound almost like a guitar. Believe me, I have heard such systems.
But for people who do not have this opportunity, still I'd encourage them to attend as many live performances as possible even though the sound systems in auditoriums in India are mostly unbearable. This will still give an idea of the overall flow of emotion by the artiste through the music and try to reproduce that part at home in his/her system. Listening only to reproduced music at home in your system will never give you the impact a live (even amplified) performance can give.
Regards.
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I agree that this has been discussed at length in other threads.
I too have had the opportunity to listen to a lot of western classical music live and also have studied the piano. For me it is the instrument, due to my experience, to judge a system ....I find it very hard to judge components on their own unless I put a lot of time into it.
The piano's action (as a percussive instrument), the reverberance of a 9 foot sound board, the movement of the pedals damping a set of strings (and you really have to dismantle a piano to realize what a big piece of the piano this is), the dynamic range and the frequency range, all really help me guage a system within a few minutes. It is also the benchmark that I have used to build and refine my own system.
Is it completely neutral? I have no idea, but I do feel like a real piano is in my listening room when I play the right recordings. There is a certain weight to a piano tone that cannot be bluffed.
Other people surely have their own instruments to make such judgements - like the sarod for Asit.
I truly believe at the end of the day my live listening was a great experience and my recorded music listening can also be a great experience. But they are not really ever the same type of experience IMHO....
I too have had the opportunity to listen to a lot of western classical music live and also have studied the piano. For me it is the instrument, due to my experience, to judge a system ....I find it very hard to judge components on their own unless I put a lot of time into it.
The piano's action (as a percussive instrument), the reverberance of a 9 foot sound board, the movement of the pedals damping a set of strings (and you really have to dismantle a piano to realize what a big piece of the piano this is), the dynamic range and the frequency range, all really help me guage a system within a few minutes. It is also the benchmark that I have used to build and refine my own system.
Is it completely neutral? I have no idea, but I do feel like a real piano is in my listening room when I play the right recordings. There is a certain weight to a piano tone that cannot be bluffed.
Other people surely have their own instruments to make such judgements - like the sarod for Asit.
I truly believe at the end of the day my live listening was a great experience and my recorded music listening can also be a great experience. But they are not really ever the same type of experience IMHO....
As I write this I have just returned from a session conducted by the Chicago philharmonic consisting of only violins, viola, cello and the double bass. It was a live unamplified session where 30 of us had the chance to move around and even sit in between the players and listen
A fantastic experience and I can truly understand what asit above is in talking about by meaning of live sound..but the best sound is near the conductor !! And as you move around the room the sound presentation completely changes although the tonality of instruments remain the same.
And the violins sound heavenly and very rarely turn harsh..which is a learning. Conducted by roger nierenberg http://musicparadigm.com/creator-roger-nierenberg/
Also got a chance to sit a feet away from a double bass..so have a reference now.
corElement
Well-Known Member
Neutral is just another colour. A speakers ability to reproduce an instrument accurately means nothing. Just as the ability for it to reproduce an electronic tone accurately also means nothing.
A tone on chart will never match what we recognize it by.
A tone on chart will never match what we recognize it by.
As I write this I have just returned from a session conducted by the Chicago philharmonic consisting of only violins, viola, cello and the double bass. It was a live unamplified session where 30 of us had the chance to move around and even sit in between the players and listen
A fantastic experience and I can truly understand what asit above is in talking about by meaning of live sound..but the best sound is near the conductor !! And as you move around the room the sound presentation completely changes although the tonality of instruments remain the same.
And the violins sound heavenly and very rarely turn harsh..which is a learning. Conducted by roger nierenberg,The Music ParadigmWow Arj ! Sounds like a fantastic experience. Very jealous
So where does that leave all these studio monitor manufacturers who have been striving for the most neutral possible audio reproduction? And how about audio engineers who base their mixing decisions based on what they hear from these transducers?
Whether one likes an uncoloured sound or not, at least for the engineer in the studio it is an essential ingredient to getting a good mix.
And why is uncoloured sound important? Because every component - right from the player, the interconnecting cables, preamp, power amp, speakers, speaker cables (and whatever else one may insert in the chain) WILL introduce a change to the original signal. The quantum of change varies across components, but what is immutable is that a component will introduce a change, purely by virtue of it not being a perfect medium to conduct the audio signal. It is physics. In popular audio terminology, the component that introduces the least change to the incoming signal is said to be transparent (to the source).
So is uncoloured sound the best sounding? You decide! But speaking for myself, I find the sound of most studio monitors totally boring. If what a large format Tannoy speaker produces is colouration, sign me up for some more
And why is uncoloured sound important? Because every component - right from the player, the interconnecting cables, preamp, power amp, speakers, speaker cables (and whatever else one may insert in the chain) WILL introduce a change to the original signal. The quantum of change varies across components, but what is immutable is that a component will introduce a change, purely by virtue of it not being a perfect medium to conduct the audio signal. It is physics. In popular audio terminology, the component that introduces the least change to the incoming signal is said to be transparent (to the source).
So is uncoloured sound the best sounding? You decide! But speaking for myself, I find the sound of most studio monitors totally boring. If what a large format Tannoy speaker produces is colouration, sign me up for some more
Actually Yes. it does have a that physical impact but it is a lot less than what i expected. you hear a very very rich tone (so many undertones/overtones) but some of it is very light and delicate unlike what I expected. so many systems make the sound a lot more denser and also with much more physical impact which now seems wrong
But this was classical..in Jazz the plucking of strings is a lot more prevalent hence the sound would be different
Please look at the quote above in bold. Many high end systems overemphasize some aspects - this has been precisely my experience. That's why a direct experience as you had is so important. But I agree, everybody does not get that opportunity.
As for the post by Staxx, I must say any struck or plucked string instrument is the hardest to reproduce including guitar, piano, sitar, sarod etc. The impact of the plucking and the extension of the sound thereafter is not easy. Reproducing the full spectrum of the piano keys, including the depth of the lower notes and the sparkle of the higher notes is one of the hardest I feel. For myself, I do not take only the Sarod sound for reference, I also use sitar, vocals etc for my reference. And just as Ravishankar's sitar has a very different sound from Vilayat Khan's, or for that matter Nikhil Banerjee's, all vocalits too have different tonality. BTW, I made a special mention of the Ali Akabr sarod, because his sarod tonality was special, very deep and full and a great impact of the plucking. As a result, strings used to break in the middle of a concert, but he was such an expert in rewiring his sarod, he used to put in a new string within a max of half a minute. But all that trouble was worth it - such was the tonality of his sarod. Amjad Ali, in contrast, has a very different technique, and at the same time he is an excellent player of the instrument, but the tonality is a lot lighter.
As Arjun has written, reproducing the correct tonality is difficult and the most important.
Regards.
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One thing that I wanted to add (which is perhaps why I feel that a concert music listening experience is so different from a recorded one) is that we depend a lot on the recorded sound as to what we hear through our systems. And sad to say that this can vary greatly. Double basses in an orchestra for example are usually placed at the rear right side of a modern orchestra (as the conductor sees it) and the notes are low enough not to allow for any specificity in terms of imaging. However, sometimes recording are made to highlight certain aspects or the sound is so "clean" (no audience distractions or physical impediments of several rows of people in front of you) that the recorded sound is so much more directly presented to us, particularly with voices or particular instruments. Of course, I revel in this...but it does not substitute for a concert experience. Often when I go to a concert after an extended amount of time I am struck by how gentle (as opposed to harsh) a full orchestra can sound...of course when it is not called to rip in some Mahler or Bruckner climax....
panditji
Well-Known Member
Sorry for butting in again, but the above posts imply that even the instruments tonality can be different depending upon the person playing it and the playing style as well...So again how do we determine what is the true tonality of an instrument with which we compare the sound coming out from the audio equipment????? The benchmarks seem to be very subjective as well as the equipment...
No offense to anyone but when everything is subjective and based on personal preferences, then should'nt we stick to the objective measurements and whether the sound is good or bad?
No offense to anyone but when everything is subjective and based on personal preferences, then should'nt we stick to the objective measurements and whether the sound is good or bad?
The difference is in playing posture and holding the violin, bowing technique, and also the embellishments used in the Indian and the Western music. I do not think the Indian classical violinists, especially the Hindustani ones, learn the Western bowing techniques well. In addition, Indian classical music very often uses what is called gamak which the Westerners do not use. If the bowing technique is not good enough, the gamaks are bound to sound harsh.
Regards.
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