"N_Cook"

Interesting idea , acoustic guitar+singer recorded professionally and then
played back in front of a couple of pairs of ears via 2 different pairs of
speakers , in turn, driven from the same amp and also the live performer
again, for 3 way comparison.
What did the human ears detect, so readily, to distinguish the live
performance?


** What the listeners heard was a combination of what sound was on the
recording, plus what the room added, plus any alterations made by the
speakers. Any resemblance to the live version would be purely accidental.

Rule #1 of a " live v. recorded " comparison is to remove all trace of room
acoustics from the recording so when it is played back ONLY the listening
room acoustics are involved - just as it is with all live sound.

This can ONLY be achieved by making the recording in an anechoic room or
similar non-reverberant environment. Also, the microphone used must have
ruler flat response and NO proximity effect - which counts out the vast
majority of professional studio microphones, straight off.

Rule #2 is keep it simple, ie record a single, small sized instrument or a
voice - not a whole band.

Upon playback, via a sufficiently good speaker, such a recording will sound
like the speaker has become the original instrument or voice. Quite
startling if you have not head it done before.

However, if you compare this with a NEW live version, it will not sound the
SAME - as no singer or musician can produce the IDENTICAL result twice.

So, the whole darn idea is fundamentally flawed !!!!

But wait - there is another, cleverer way to play the game:

Play a recorded voice or instrument through a good quality speaker while IT
is sitting in an anechoic room and record THAT - then this becomes your
reference speaker with reference sound accurately recorded.

The exact same speaker can be moved to another place ( your listening room )
and the sound it produces from the same recordings will of course be
EXACTLY the same - plus you have a precise, anechoic recording of how it
sounds.

If the anechoic recording is played back via a " perfect speaker " the
resulting sound should be indistinguishable from the reference speaker
playing the original recordings in the same room.

I only know of one occasion when such a test was done ( in the USA) - the
result reported was that the majority of hi-fi speakers tested sounded
nothing like the reference while a few rather expensive models sounded quite
close.

Why not have every hi-fi shop set up such a simple comparison test for
buyers to experience ?



....... Phil