Forgive me Father.. aka confession of audio heretic..

Well there's the question of whether hi fi systems can produce sound indistinguishable from live sources - generally speaking, with some exceptions and caveats - no.

Which leaves us with questions like 'can an audio system reproduce some of the qualities of live music?' and if so which ones and which of those are most important to an individual?
A lot of people don't even care if their music sounds "real" (most non-audiophiles don't, and some audiophiles don't chase realism at all).

So it boils down to preference and a high level of subjectivity.

Personally I do use live music as a touchstone for some aspects of my hi-fi rig. I find that live unamplified instruments and voices have a significantly more appealing sound than their hi-fi counterparts. Live sources (e.g. an acoustic guitar, a sax, drums etc) sound far bigger, richer, more acoustic power, more dynamic variation, richer and more subtle harmonic character.
And I find that to be the case virtually ALWAYS, in most acoustic situations, whether it's in a not so great room, a good room, or outside.

I live in an area where there is constant live music being played outside, on the sidewalks, in our local parks etc. So I'm constantly stopping to listen to, for instance, live jazz ensembles unamplified, and closing my eyes listening for what distinguishes the sound from any high-end system I've heard. And it's all the above. Just a few days ago listening to some jazz drumming in a local park, the sonic impression was that everything just sounded bigger, richer, more substantial, clearer and more powerful. In other words, things sounded as big as they actually were - the drum cymbals sounded like the BIG resonating metal disks they were, when being struck. The snare sounded big and meaty. The kick had that waft of air to the chest and underlying weight. Whereas on most sound systems drums tend to sound unbalanced relative to the real thing. Cymbals in particular become these tinier spots of sparkling noise in the sound field, having nothing like the power and scale of the real thing. Snares also usually sound reductive.

Of course all that is a mish-mash of causation - it has to do with how things are recorded as well as the limitations of stereo hi-fi.

But nonetheless I find that some systems have aspects of sound that remind me of the real thing more than others - e.g. sounding more organic, wood sounding more like wood less like plastic or some electronic simulation of wood, that kind of thing.

Ultimately, insofar as I reference real sounds in what I'm looking for in my hi-fi, it's not done with the expectation of true indistinguishable realism, but more like the "believability" of a movie. It's all artifice, but certain aspects can be more believable making it easier to sink in to the illusion. So for me, for instance, for snare drums I like to hear that density, and sort of "papery" snappy timbral texture of a snare drum that I hear in real drums. That at least has my mind go "Yes, that's right, that's a snare drum" and it has some of the character I love about snare drums. Etc.

Then there's all the music that has no real world reference - e.g. electronic music, of which I'm a huge fan. The first thing I'd say is that, there is a sort of real-world reference of sorts, at least if you've either played electronic instruments yourself (I played keyboards/synth in a band) or paid attention to them live. Even if you've just plugged some decent headphones in to your keyboard, or if you are going straight to a cabinet or whatever, there is a timbral richness even in the average synth patch that you just rarely hear in recordings over hi-fi systems.
I always noted this, and especially when we'd set up to play a gig, and I'd practice my keyboards through the system. So much nuance I just didn't hear when we recorded ourselves.

So even when it comes to electronic music, I look to see what degree of richness and harmonic/timbral nuance is coming through with electric sources, and the more I hear the more engaging I find the listening experience.

 

I can't say anything about analogue source, I'm a digital guy but IME all these aspects - in particular timbral richness and nuance and also the illusion of hearing real, physical instrument of realistic size improve with switching from 16bit to 24 or DSD/DSF. And in my opinion the difference is more than subtle..

 

' Life-like ', natural, real... is fine enough for me.

 

I have a high-end system and while it can sound very realistic, most standard CDs don’t have the same sense of body and texture as live music has. Pure DSD SACDs, DSD downloads, and well recorded all-analog LPs come close, though. I sometimes find it more enjoyable to listen at home: I always have a great seat, can program exactly what I want to hear, and no idiots interrupt with unstifled coughs or cell phone calls! Of course, it is great fun to watch talented musicians perform in concert, too.

 

I often like the sound of vinyl records in my system because, often enough, it seems to have a bit more density, texture and "pop" - drums especially tend to cut through in a very "drum-like" manner.

If it's added distortion, it's a distortion that can mimic certain characteristics the make it sound more believable to my ears.

 

Despite the fact that I've been playing only digital music in recent years (mostly hi res), I think I know what you're talking about. Maybe it's not only about analogue distortion but also about the limited dynamic range (both are objective, measurable facts). Digitally reproduced drums often sound 'too good' or 'better' than live ones.

 

If I'm honest, I don't think I've ever gone to a concert and really thought about the quality of the sound, or compared it to what I hear at home. I mean, unless it really was a horrible venue that sounded like @ss!

Home is home and it's great, and live is... also great, just a different experience.

 

Most definitely. What I basically meant was that I prefer it home soundwise.

 

I think it's the conceit of the "purist" which calls the whole point of audio systems into question, without allowing for the heresy of the truth: most music people listen to, is unnatural, by design. The expectation the purist has, for the music to exist in a real space at its' origin, is what leads them to the expectation that it should be reproduced in such a manner in the home, in-between a fireplace, and the coffee table. So, while it is laudable that there are those with the means and the willingness to achieve a system that can reproduce naturally-occurring music in that more unnatural atmosphere of their homes...most music as it was recorded, was a lie, to begin with.

Let's document the atrocities starting with the sacred cow upon which this entire forum is based. The Beatles made their mark on the world on hit singles comprised of edits. Dropouts. Multi-track recording. Studio trickery, unproducible in a live venue, let alone the solitude of the studio in itself. Expanding the reality of the recorded product to the point of both absurdity, and the bliss that came from it.

So, there's that. All that.

Then, you have decades of audience indoctrination by radio singles, to the unreality of based on multitrack sessions that never occurred in realtime, let alone in the staged positions created either from the mono backseat speaker of the Buick they made love to at "the submarine races". (spoiler alert - there were also no submarines...not that Johnny and Betty Lou were paying any attention... )

Even the concept of stereo, is based on the illusion of a soundstage which in most cases, was an artistic choice made not by the artists, but the post-recording mixing choices of the producer and engineer, determining the vocals "belonged" in the middle, right in front of the drums (which were "spread" wider so you could ear each tom or cymbal separated from the snare and the kick...not to mention the guitars, over here and there, the background singers spread out over yonder, and maybe an added session man or two inserted into a master take he/they never took part in.

For every "accurate reproduction" in the parlor of a legitimate event that was captured on tape (and even then, the different tracks re-sequenced into a "program" in a different order according to either the disc or lacquer side's time constraints), there are perhaps twenty others on any seasoned "audiophile"'s wantlist, that they are willing to fool themselves into believing, these other albums were just as based in reality as the one they hold up as "an accurate reproduction" of some realtime example.

In short...Soylent Green is still people, my friend...but I hope that doesn't ruin your opinion of its' deliciousness. Now go play five "Hail Mary J. Blige"s, and perform at least ten acts of cold, digital contrition.

 

This is easy and without over thinking it, I don't think a HI -Fi system can accurately reproduce a performance whether it be live or studio unless you where actually present when either said performance took place

 

I was at that show, THANK YOU!

 

To paraphrase StarKist's reply to Charlie the Tuna, "I don't want music with good sound, I want music that sounds good!"