Don Pearce wrote:

I was surprised when Stewart admitted that he liked
colourful speakers. A recent discussion here about
headphones reminded me that other champions of the
reproductionist school share his taste for paradox.

Seems to me that you've teased out the contradiction quite
well here, and because I believe that it's a key issue, I
would welcome some discussion.

Why do you want your room to get involved?

Room involvement ranges from anechoic as a minimum to a
tiled bathroom
at the other end of the scale. If you have ever spent any
time in an
anechoic chamber, you know that it is not somewhere you
want to
linger, even listening to music. Likewise trying to listen
in that
bathroom is just a cacophony. The best environment is one
in which the
room is just live enough to give a sense of space and
immersion, but
not so live that you are consciously aware of its
contribution.

OK. That would be a room I would be most comfortable in.
Neither exposed nor closetted. Cosy but still aware of my
surroundings.

Why does this preference depend on what you're listening
to?

If the material contains a huge acoustic of its own - a
live symphony
orchestra, say - then you need less from the room to make
it good. On
the other hand, a close miked jazz quartet sounds great in
a live
room. The difference is on the one hand being transported
to the
venue, and on the other having the instruments play in
your space.

Yes, good. That last sentence is just right, except that the
transporting doesn't quite work for me, especially if it's
an orchestra, that patently wouldn't fit in my space.

Why do you at the same time note that you're ears can tune
out the room errors?

It is just what they (or rather they plus the brain) do.
You can test
this by stopping one ear, sot he normal brain function is
impaired.
Instantly you will hear all of the room problems you
couldn't before.
Acousticians do this all the time. It is the standard way
of deciding
where to place a microphone.

Well, OK, but if the brain merely "tunes it out", then what
remains for you to prefer? You say you like a room "just
live enough", but then that your ears defeat the liveliness.
Do you prefer the liveliness to be greater than what your
ears can compensate for?

Alternatively, it could be that ears don't simply "tune it
out", but rather resolve it into another domain...into a
sense of space rather than a sense of "error".

Why do you consider them to be errors?

Because they make the sound depart from what was intended
on the
recording.

This seems like the contradiction I'm trying to identify.
You say they give you a sense of "space and immersion" which
you prefer, and at the same time say they are errors. Thats
why I asked...

Does it follow that you have a preference for some errors?

No, I have a preference for no errors, but some errors are
easier to
tune out than others. A huge slap echo is pretty near
impossible, and
has to be attended to.

That contradiction again. What about the "errors" that give
you the sense of "space and immersion" that you prefer?

To me, an error would be a departure from fidelity, rather
than from reproduction. I like to think I'm staging a live
performance.

Is that first sentence what you meant to type? I can't
make sense of
it. The second sentence would be my second scenario in my
first reply
paragraph.

Yes, definitely, to both questions. Fidelity is not the same
thing as accuracy of reproduction.

A neat hypothesis occurs to me, that a performance
requires
a single time and place, and that must be your room. It
follows that the source medium should be timeless and
spaceless. The band's playing for me, now, not for a
studio,
some time ago.

Wouldn't that be nice? If your living room could be
adjusted at will
to the size of the Albert Hall, or Ronnie Scott's that
would be
possible. Unfortunately we have to make the best of what
we have, and
that means finding a compromise in our listening acoustic
that works
best for what we listen to most.

The band's not playing for me now if it was playing at the
Albert Hall for someone else. Nor if it was playing at
Ronnie Scott's. That's why, for me at least, the whole idea
of recorded, 'live' music doesn't work. Most music *is*
played for me, though, in a studio with an absent audience,
and an absent place, in mind.

That's why 'live' recordings...of a band playing for some
other audience at a different time and place...are so
compromised. The idea of 'being there' simply doesn't make
sense because I know I'm here sat in my chair.

While I'm at it, why don't hi-fi headphones have
gyroscopes?

Because you would be forced to listen sitting on top of a
little model
of the Eiffel Tower.

You'd need to explain the Eiffel Tower thing. The question
was prompted by the chap who asked about high quality
wireless headphones, which seem to me to be an oxymoron. If
I'm moving around, how can I immerse myself in a sense of
space that rotates when I turn my head? I would want the
band to stay still when I moved about, as it might with
motion-sensitive stereo processing. Perhaps other motion
sensors would do. Perhaps the radio signal could be used as
a reference for orientation.

Ian