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What Constitutes Accurate Musical Replication?

Posted by thetubeguy1954 (A) on April 19, 2007 at 12:10:31

What constitutes accurate reproduction of music?

Many would describe accurate reproduction as being the amplifier who's signal output most closely replicates a microphones signal output of the music being recorded. Many others would describe accurate reproduction as being the amplifier who's output most closely replicates a musical instrument's acoustic output of the music being recorded.

Why does this great divide exist between these two differing beliefs? Well the divide is created because there's a vast difference between what the ear/brain perceives as musically accurate and what test equipment perceives as accurately tracking the output signal of a microphone as it's transfered on the software. It seems that those who propose using audio signals as the means for verifying musical accuracy are forgetting something, i.e. it was our ear/brain combo that taught us how to listen, not microphones. Look at infants. Even with their very senses just developing, eyes that cannot see, ear/brain combos learning a myriad of new sounds and yet look how quickly they learn to recognize their mother's voices over all others. So much for the short-term audio memory arguement. Now as it was all our ear/brain combos that were responsible for originally teaching us how to determine what a violin, sax, singer piano, guitar etc sounds like in the first place, shouldn't it be these very same ear/brain combos also be responsible for deteremining how accurately an audio component is replicating the instrument(s) in question?

Humans are not machines. We don't hear/listen like machines do. No matter how many studies have been done that "prove" that ear/brain combos can be fooled, I don't know one serious music lover/audiophile that's ever mistaken live music for recorded or visa versa. The ear/brain combo for all it's faults is remarkably adept at recognizing sounds it's famliar with. Just like you immediately recognize your spouse's or parent's voice on the phone, "IF" you attend live unamplified concerts you'll also learn to immediately recognize individual instruments unique voices and when one audio component get's it more correct than another at replicating that voice, no matter what some piece of test equipment says.

To those that would dismiss this approach and insist that the best way to accurately replicate a recorded event is to choose the audio components that most closely track the software's output signal as it was recorded by a microphone. I'd like to say that a a microphone and the ear/brain combo don't hear/listen the same way. If that's true and I believe it is then why would we want to follow the output of a device that doesn't hear/listen like we do? Sure you could accurately follow it's output, but you'd be accurately following an output isn't a reasonable facsimile of what the ear/brain combo heard in the first place, so why use it as reference standard?

All serious music lovers/audiophiles need to attend live unamplified concerts, to be sure their ears are calibrated to what these instruments really sound like. If you attend concerts indoors sit at various locations in the hall and go to different halls. Attend as many outdoor unamplified concerts as possible. Listen to your friends play their instruments. Best yet is play and record yourself in your audio room. Put the mic where you sit when you listen to your audio system. Now play the instrument 1/2 way between your speakers and record yourself playing --just be prepared to be shocked when you listen to this recording! The more you listen the more sensitive your ears become to subtle differences. Anyone who does this will eventually come around and see that what test instruments call accurate often aren't what your ear/brain combo calls accurate. Once you've done all this, NOT before, then you can honestly decide for yourself which method provides the closest to accurate musical reproduction to you. There's really no one correct way for everyone, but unless so educated, you cannot make an educated choice for yourself.

Finally for Pat D who seems to need the blatantly obvious explained to him, when listening to amps it is required that a source, wires and speakers be used. I cannot believe anyone needs to be told this, but sadly Pat D does, or else he'll comment on how can an amp make a sound by itself!

Thetubeguy1954

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