Do you seek accuracy, or realism from hi fi? And what is accuracy?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by raferx, Dec 31, 2014.

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  1. raferx

    raferx Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    Hello all,

    I've been pondering how to approach this since having my thread dumped off the Harbeth User Group last week after apparently upsetting the apple cart there with discussions of tube amps and M30.1s. I encourage you to read the whole thread as I couldn't honestly believe the turn it took.

    A chap posted this to me specifically, well into the discussion when I stated I was more interested in instruments sounding real, rather than accurate:

    "I'm struggling to understand how realism and accuracy seem to have a different meaning for you. If a violin's sound is reproduced 'accurately' then it will also sound 'real' won't it? If anything in the reproduction chain has less than flat frequency response then the violin sound will be shifted to be neither accurate nor real."

    That got me thinking, so I shared my thoughts with fellow SHF poster Warren Jarrett, who responded thus:

    ..."accuracy" means nothing. It is un-knowable. How can we know what the grooves on a record actually sound like? But knowing what we LIKE them to sound like is within our capability to listen and evaluate.

    You can quote me."


    I agreed with Warren, and with his blessing posted what he wrote to me to the HUG and this was the response I received:

    "It may sum it up for you, but it is palpable nonsense, as anyone who has been close to the recording end of the process will affirm. It is one of the most misguided comments I have have seen posted here and doubtless said as a sales inducement. I wholeheartedly reject it as a gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what high fidelity. At the age of 13 or so, as a Saturday boy at a BBC radio station I was already by them aware that there was a frame of reference, and that's stood me in very good stead. High fidelity, by definition does not mean personal, emotional satisfaction, it means objective fidelity...

    The reproduction of an effect (as sound or an image) that is very faithful to the original
    Mainstream classical music is recorded by serious professionals using first rate equipment, engaging expensive professional musicians in expensive halls, playing fine instruments in tune with the objective of maximising the retail price of music (CDs) made of the recording, to an educated audience who will pay because they know how instruments sound, how the score should sound, and how the performance has previously sounded in other broadly similar recordings.

    Furthermore, for those making the recording, either technical, administrative staff or musicians themselves there is plenty of opportunity to walk between the live, microphone side of the glass into the control room and hear the recording underway or the playback. Within the confines of today's technology, the gap between recording and playback is, and has been for many years, adequately close for the illusion of recreation of that performance at home.

    Don't have an orchestra on hand to make a live v. reproduced comparison? No problem: use human speech. It's free, easy to record and devastatingly revealing of speaker deficiencies.

    This thread is now firmly closed, as suggested by contributors. This is a non-productive waste of HUG resources, none of which solves the basic issue that we lay down recommendations for the good of all customers who wish to extract the very best performance from our loudspeakers.
    "

    To me (IMHO) it's like saying "of course [I, we, audiophiles?] know exactly what every recording sounds like..." which again, to me, is like saying everyone should know exactly what the 1955 recording of Johanna Martzy – The Unaccompanied Violin Sonatas sounds like, or The Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street sounds like because...? We were there? It's impossible to declare that IMHO.
    How could we know exactly? How could anyone say "ahhh, now that's accurate playback."
    IMHO the whole hi fi chain is colored in some way; power coming in to feed the equipment, cabling, source material (CD, high-res, vinyl, tapes, who did the mastering...) the amplifier and finally the speakers.

    Does the signal/hardware path actually have zero effect on playback?

    This is the question, in my own humble way, that I put to you all.
    I look forward to your responses and to having a real discussion of this.
    Again, this is just me putting it out there, I don't claim to have all the answers and I'm always looking to learn.
    I've formed my own opinions listening to music (both live and recorded) over the years, but I'm interested in hearing yours.
    Cheers all.
    –R
     
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  2. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I find it strange when people say that don't want accuracy. In the HiFi hobby that's their choice of course, but I think sometimes people see accuracy and think of the mixing desk and what you can get with some advice monitors.
     
  3. Baron Von Talbot

    Baron Von Talbot Well-Known Member

    Realism is more important to me than accuracy. To achieve realism a certain grade of accuracy is always involved or it would not be realistic..
     
  4. Ozoid

    Ozoid Member

    Funny, I'd read a similar thread from this spring on the Harbeth forum, but that one centered on amp power. Even Shaw weighed in, a bit stuffy to my taste.

    I'm looking for a satisfying representation of a musical event. There's no way I can reproduce the full dynamic range of live music for anything much beyond a solo acoustic guitar. The Grateful Dead, an 18-piece big band or a symphony orchestra performing live in my living room? And the micing and mixing gives you a perspective you'd never get in a real performance. Just consider how close the mics are often placed.

    So I don't think in terms of accuracy or realism. The highest compliment I can pay to a recording and audio system is that it sounds musical. And right now, at least, I can't give you much of a definition of what I mean by "musical." Kinda like swing, I guess.

    Back in the mid-’80s, when the summer CES was in Chicago, Krell shared a hotel suite with an audiophile label, Reference Recordings. Only in the last hour of the last day, did RR bring in a group of musicians from the Chicago Symphony who had recorded some chamber music on RR. "We'd never allow people to compare this performance with our equipment," a Krell rep told me. "This could only happen after we've turned off the amps for good." And, man, was he right — those CSO players absolutely smoked some of the best gear available at the time.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2014
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  5. HenryH

    HenryH Miserable Git

    I think it's more difficult to achieve a realistic sound than an accurate one. I know, that sounds silly and possibly non-intuitive, but let me explain...

    The best sounding systems I've heard all sound realistic, in that you get the sense of hearing singers and/or instruments as they would in a real space, effortlessly,. In these cases you tend to forget about "the sound" and get drawn into the music. Lots of accurate sounding systems can sound quite good, most do, but they have a certain artificial character to them that reminds you that you are listening to a recreation; it seems to stand out more, in a slightly unnatural way. Accurate sound can get you about 90% of the way there, but a realistic sounding system is something special.

    Of course, this is all dependent upon the quality of the recording, natch.

    So, count me in for realism.
     
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  6. norman_frappe

    norman_frappe Forum Resident

    I basically agree with them low watt tube amps with harbeth speakers are not accurate.
     
  7. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    And that would be active monitors!
     
  8. Warren Jarrett

    Warren Jarrett Audio Note (UK) dealer in SoCal/LA-OC In Memoriam

    Location:
    Fullerton, CA
    I find this concept of "accuracy", as a goal for high-end audio playback, to be extremely interesting, and controversial. I agree with the Harbeth User's Group leader, AS, that evaluating an audio system requires a frame of reference. I use my experience in two realms as my references. (1) Since my first visit to the CES in 1984, I have been listening to the world's best audio equipment assembled into remarkable audio systems by the same people that designed and marketed that equipment. And, (2) I have attended a great number of unamplified live classical and jazz performances, as well as an equal number of amplified concerts of all kinds, in many countries of the world. I have listened in jazz clubs, cathedrals, famous concert halls, and even to in-home solo performances. So, I think I have very good instincts about how real instruments and voices sound, as well as what to expect from high-end audio systems.

    But "accuracy"? I don't believe that concept has any place in the evaluation of high-end audio, from a consumer's approach. From a designer's approach, yes, he needs to make measurements (S/N, distortion, frequency response, etc), listen to signal-in versus signal-out, and compare measureable results from his design options, to create the most accurate presentation he can. Then, when we, as listeners, get ahold of his equipment, and compare it to his competition, we will always hear differences. And, we will never know which is more accurately conveying the sound of the source. Nor should we try. Our goal is merely to choose whichever sounds best to us, compared to our frame of reference. We need to listen for all the nuances that we like to hear, in order to justify the expense of what we purchase, and in order to woo us into listening to music for hours.

    So rather than choose some catch-all concept like "accuracy", I think we need to focus our attention on specific sonic attributes that we individually listen for, and compare these to our frame of reference, whether it be live music, a reference audio system we heard, a lust for terrific bass, full concert-level loudness, delicate low-level background pleasure, or whatever floats-our-boat.

    "Accuracy" is un-knowable. We don't know what a particular CD actually sounds like. We were not there for the recording AND mixing AND remastering. Even if one of us was (Steve for example), I suspect the studio playback equipment was nothing like our high-end audio set-up at home. We don't know how various non-linearities and distortions in our playback equipment affect the sound we hear, compared to the studios' and what the artists heard. We don't know what our matching LP's grooves actually have transcribed into them, compared to the CD's pits. We only know what we hear, and how it pleases us.

    So, I suggest your educated opinions of "WHAT YOU LIKE THE SOUND OF" is more important than any assumption of "ACCURACY".
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2014
  9. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    Neither. I seek aesthetically pleasing sound. As it happens the most aesthetically pleasing sound I have ever heard is live acoustic music played with excellent quality instruments by fine musicians in a world class concert hall from a prime seat. So as it happens, with most recordings of acoustic music played in a concert hall, realism and aesthetic excellence go hand in hand. Accuracy is only interesting to me in so far as it serves aesthetic excellence.
     
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  10. norman_frappe

    norman_frappe Forum Resident

    As a classical concert goer I'm sure you can remember the orchestra going from whisper quiet to thundering loud in a blink of an eye. In order to reproduce that effect at home you need head room. The OPs system will not do that without lots of distortion. I don't care what people call it but it's not hi fidelity to me.

    As far as knowing what accuracy is we do know it imo. It's the voltages stored in the media that's what they intended us to hear. We can see it on a computer screen. That represents the 100% accurate starting point. And it's pretty well preserved intact right up until the point it hits the speakers.
     
  11. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    No speaker is accurate. It is physically impossible. Apples to oranges. Apples go in (an electrical signal/two dimensional waveform) Oranges come out (acoustic energy/ four dimensional waveform) How do you measure the accuracy of that?
     
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  12. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    You talk about a live orchestra. There are no voltages to speak of in the acoustic output of a live orchestra. The accurate passage of a line level signal from one electrical component to another in no way assures one they are going to get any closer to the aesthetic experience of a live orchestra in their home.
     
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  13. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    One would hope that you want your equipment to reproduce the source accurately. There is sterile accuracy and then there is accuracy that embodies life like qualities. I believe the second form of accuracy is what give the source its realism. This can come from tubes, how a room is set up and of course the synergy of the components that you assemble.
     
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  14. norman_frappe

    norman_frappe Forum Resident

    I was making two different points. Read what I wrote again.
     
  15. norman_frappe

    norman_frappe Forum Resident

    Of course no speakers accurate. But to pair a relatively medium to low sensitivity speaker with very low watt is even less accurate
     
  16. Warren Jarrett

    Warren Jarrett Audio Note (UK) dealer in SoCal/LA-OC In Memoriam

    Location:
    Fullerton, CA
    There we go. This exemplifies the problem with using the word "accuracy" at all. I do believe the vast majority of audio equipment is extremely accurate, as offered to us by qualified designers. But it all sounds different to our ears: sterile, life-like, electronic, realistic are the words we've read in this thread so far. As norman_frappe continues to emphasize, component mis-match may actually create gross inaccuracy (although I do not agree that a fine 10 wpc SET amp, with soft-clipping compared to a hard-clipping 25 wpc transistor amp, into 85 dB sensitive speakers qualifies for this characterization -- how many actual dB of loudness difference is this to gross compression and distortion? Far less than 3 dB, I would guess).

    Shouldn't we drop the word "accurate" and specify what we are actually hearing, instead of just spouting off this general concept word? I don't think this word means anything tangible to a listener.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2014
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  17. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    You have made an eloquent defense of the "anti-accuracy" (so to speak) point of view, but it seems to me that it does not really address this question: If, as you say, it is the goal of equipment designers to "create the most accurate presentation [they] can", then why should the buyer/listener not seek the equipment that is most capable of reproducing that "most accurate presentation"? The argument that "we will never know which is more accurately conveying the sound of the source" paints with too broad a brush. It is not clear to me why, in principle, we can "never" know that one component is more capable of reproducing that "most accurate presentation" then another.
     
  18. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Because no two people hear the same, nor are the listening rooms that we play back the recording in going to be the same acoustical environment that the music was played/recorded in, therefore we become the final mixing artist and put together systems and rooms that sound best and most "accurate" to what we imagine it should sound like.
     
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  19. Warren Jarrett

    Warren Jarrett Audio Note (UK) dealer in SoCal/LA-OC In Memoriam

    Location:
    Fullerton, CA
    The principle is simply that we don't know what a particular recording ACTUALLY should sound like. We know what Peggy Lee's voice actually sounded like (if we were lucky enough to hear her live), but we don't know what the microphone, tape recorder, sound engineer, and mastering engineer ACTUALLY put into the record groove, nor how the re-mastering to digital further changed the sound of her voice.

    Does a CD have a "sound" if it is not played back through a chain of audio equipment? Does a LP record groove have that exact same "sound" before it is interpreted by a stylus instead of a laser?

    A tree that falls in the forest definitely makes a sound, even if there is nobody there to hear it. But a CD does not make a sound, nor does an LP. We need equipment to create a presentation for us, and then we have no way to compare different presentations to a reference.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2014
  20. Shiver

    Shiver Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Often I find the sound at amplified concerts really isn't that clear (if you close your eyes and focus on it) - energy and scale aside. To the extent I wouldn't want it 'accurately' reproduced as such.

    Closing your eyes with your own system and being able to truely imagine the instrument/singer there - in the room: that's a (wonderful) kind of realism to have. However accurate. Can still raise hairs. Especially coming from low-scale acoustic recordings. But then when I go to a live acoustic performance I realise it's really not the same. Nothing like. No doubt you can get closer with systems far, far better than mine - but can anything replicate those real first-response sound waves running through the air.

    As for what a studio-recording is meant to sound like, sat there on your couch wondering what's it real or accurate and what part your system is playing... Can only be subjective perception... unless you were there
     
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  21. Hipper

    Hipper Forum Resident

    Location:
    Herts., England
    Firstly, can we please have some definitions of 'accuracy' and 'realism'.

    This is my understanding:

    Accuracy: reproducing the exact aural experience. In other words recording a concert and replaying it exactly in your listening room.

    Realism: the replayed music sounds real - violins sound like violins; placement of voices, instruments are believable etc.. This is not the same as accuracy.

    There is a discussion on HUG - mostly a monologue by Alan Shaw - on what we want from an amplifier and how the voltage signal picked up by the microphone at a concert should be EXACTLY repeated at the speaker terminals with a bit of additional power:

    http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/...-is-something-you-really-need-to-know!-Part-1

    That of course is the theory. In practice there is often a lot of interference on the way - recording and reproduction equipment is not perfect; there are different recording techniques; we also have producers and engineers adapting the results either to make it sound more accurate (making up for the limitations of the recording methods), or to adapt it for their target audience (the people who buy the music). And, as has been pointed out, speaker abilities are variable and limited and the room, contents and positioning also play a big part.

    The answer must be 'no, it does have an effect'. The ideal to strive for is no effect but it can't be achieved.

    All this means that accuracy, using the definition above, is for most of us an unassailable goal. Realism however is reachable.
     
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  22. ggergm

    ggergm another spring another baseball season

    Location:
    Minnesota
    The goal is accuracy. But, given the limitations of transducers (speakers and phono cartridges), amplifiers, digital recording/playback and room acoustics, accuracy is extremely hard to achieve. Years ago at CES, I remember B&W doing a live vs. recorded demo, with a clarinet player between the two speakers. He was playing along with a recorded piece but measures were missing, which he'd fill in. I could always hear the difference. Make it a tougher demo, like a rock band or an orchestra on full bore and accuracy becomes almost impossible. It certainly will be impossible for me to achieve, given my budget and room.

    Fortunately, the human ear is very forgiving. Play a grand piano through a portable radio and you can still tell it's a grand piano, even though the correlation between what you are hearing and a real grand piano is maybe one tenth of one percent.

    Therefore, I choose realism. I want to be involved with the music. It should draw me in. A stereo that sounds real does that. I don't hear the music as much as feel it. When the magic is right, the music becomes part of me, not out there, playing in front of me.

    Realism is a second person experience. It's the music in me. Accuracy is third person. It's the music out there.

    If I ever could accurately reproduce music - having the Grateful Dead's 1974 Wall of Sound PA in my living room, which remains the finest PA I've ever heard - I'd take it. Or I'd joyfully accept have the jazz trio of Ray Brown, Shelly Manne and Joe Sample play in my house. I've got that on record but it will always remain on record, never to be totally accurately reproduced. I accept that.

    In that case, make it real. Make it involving. Make the music move me. It's a great secondary goal, and one that I can achieve.
     
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  23. Warren Jarrett

    Warren Jarrett Audio Note (UK) dealer in SoCal/LA-OC In Memoriam

    Location:
    Fullerton, CA
    Beyond what I have written above, I don't want to hear "accurately" whatever the recording/mixing/mastering engineers intended me to hear. In most cases, they used small satellite speakers, maybe with a poorly matched subwoofer in some convenient but imperfect location, and equipment that was nothing at all like what I would choose to listen through. My audio system should sound much better than they could have even imagined.

    Ask Steve what kind of sound is/was available to most engineers who determine for us how our CDs and LPs should sound.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2014
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  24. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    I don't think it's a good idea because it limits the SPLs. I don't think it's as much an accuracy issue.
     
  25. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

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    Not really relevant to the one point I was making.
     
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