by Peter W. Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:12 am
OK, and here goes. Please do not suggest that you were not warned, and I ask no forgiveness for being blunt, and perhaps rude as a result.
First, we need to agree on what is under discussion: Soundstage. Which I am taking to mean the extent to which sounds as we listen to them in our various venues differentiate between the various instruments in play (and the human voice is an instrument), and place them in a virtual space as created by our speakers via our electronics from some source. This source may be anything from a single microphone through any-of-many traditional sources from vinyl to CD. If we can agree on this as a firm base, then >I< think what follows will hold together. If not, it will not.
The purpose of electronic amplification is to reproduce what is fed into it without adding or deleting artifacts of any sort at any level. “Straight-wire-with-gain” is a common catch-phrase. And this is entirely irrespective of solid-state, vacuum-tube or any combination or permutation thereof.
Often, the ‘soundstage’ is idealized as the actual recording venue – and the goal is that what is heard “at home” is to get as close to that venue as is practical. With that in mind:
a) Much music in these troubled times has never seen a stage, virtual or otherwise. It is a whole-cloth creation on a computer by an engineer – who may or may not be a musician – to a goal that is probably nothing like
entertaining a live audience. Dimensionality, such as it exists, is leavened into the mix, not a natural part of it.
b) Whatever the original soundstage, what is recorded is done via microphones into leveling mixers that will enhance or reduce any given instrument at any given moment based on the sound-engineer’s particular take on the
moment. c.f. the triangle strike – Beethoven’s 9th Choral. If the Omni mikes were used only – that critical moment would be lost.
c) A piano will generally overpower almost any other instrument (organs being the exception), but not all of them.
So, even the recording soundstage is largely a chimera as heard “at home”. There are, as always, exceptions. But few enough that the reality must be accommodated.
Now: “At home”. Wherein we must account for:
• Type and placement of speakers.
• Size and nature of the venue.
• Amplification power available
Sound reproduction is a matter of vibrating air. Vibrating air is 100% and purely a matter of Newtonian Physics – as it applies in our little world. More energy gives more vibrations, a larger vibrating surface is capable of making longer wavelengths, but will require proportionately more energy to do so, and so on and so forth. Pretty irrefutable, pretty basic. The amount of energy vibrating the amount of air during a tutti section of a full-orchestra presentation will not happen at home – without a moderate power-plant and other supporting infrastructure being involved. Do not even think about that, allude to that or consider that as anything approaching a realistic goal. Meaning:
Most music cannot be reproduced accurately in any home venue.
What can be done “at home” is reproduce the electronic signal as presented via the recorded venue in a reasonably accurate matter into reasonably accurate speakers placed reasonably well in a venue that will allow the speakers to perform with the least amount of external interference. Some venues may even enhance the capacities of the speakers. But *WHAT WE ARE HEARING* is the red-headed stepchild of the recording engineer, producer and any of a dozen others, and their decisions from the first note to the last on what gets miked, what gets enhanced, what gets diminished. At the extreme: 100 instruments, 60 voices, 20 mikes, ultimately onto two tracks. Soundstage.
I noted that the Hafler Circuit showed up recently. The Hafler Circuit is a Sum/Difference separation of signals laid down on the two tracks as noted above. *THAT* is what your soundstage includes. Neither more, nor less. Just be glad that many recording engineers have pretty good instincts, and some of them are both musicians and artists. BUT, don’t for one hummingbird heartbeat think that what you are hearing through your speakers at home is even the 3rd cousin, twice removed of what you hear from the 10th row of Carnegie Hall. And, unless we get our collective and several butts out into the world of live performance on a regular basis – these absolute and simple truths will be forgotten, which is very dangerous.
Peter, points well taken. And I have been to Carnegie and the JFK Centre in D.C. as well, and heard the real magilla. It's a blood-stirring experience that one should not attempt at home, regardless of net worth. I don't envy the chain of engineers & etc. that try to manipulate that down to two tracks. Best they can do is close, but no cigar. Not possible. 