Art & Herb Discuss Imaging | Stereophile
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- čas přidán 14. 08. 2017
- Art Dudley and Herb Reichert talk about imaging. Filmed June 2017 in Art's listening room in Cherry Valley, NY.
Art Dudley - • Art Dudley | Stereophile
Herb Reichert - • Herb Reichert | Stereo...
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Two of my absolute favorites. RIP, AD.
Hi audiophiles! very very interesting, entertaining and even educative. Both are right, the end target should be to find your own audio nirvana, when listening to music becomes the one and only action one can do at once. My opinion about imaging is that the more things my ears and brain have to pick up and process, the better.The only thing I'm willing to sacrifice is loudness because I don't wan't to disturd the silence of the neighbours. And the listening room plays and important role in the results. KEEP DOING MORE OF THIS PLEASE.
It comes down to this... Does it make me want to listen to more of my music more often? Then it's good. Does it make me want to listen to "good sounding" recordings instead of music I like? Then it's bad. Art and Herb, i've been following you since Listener and Sound Practices... You are both why I still subscribe to Stereophile. Please make sure folks focus on what's important. Wilmer Furman lives!
Seinfeld and Kramer
Very interesting. I know you know but it’s just a reminder: Jan Eric Person is the man behind Opus3Records and his system of recording is very interesting and one can feel the microphone(s) and he mentions that in any music setting the location becomes the extra member of the setting. For example if you have a trio, the trio becomes a quartet and so on. You can feel that this is very true.
Love it. of course, with any version of modern recording it's the curating of the engineer in many cases, save for live recordings.
To me what is most important relative to imaging is a sense of space between instruments such that if one is listening to a jazz quartet (for instance Drums, Bass, Piano, Saxophone) you can sense they are possibly a few feet from each other rather than the musicians sounding like they all occupy the same specific space as if the drums sit on top of the piano, the bass on top of the drummer, and the sax on top of the bass player. Likewise with classical orchestras and instrument sections. It is not that the instruments are in a specific area but moreso that they are not in the exact same space. Every thing else is subjective because unless you were at the actual performance it's a guess as to where things are specifically.
Great discussion. RIP Art. 😔
There has been a similar discussion throughout the history of photography about a similar theoretical topic: The truthfulness of a photograph. What percentage of a photograph is accurate, factual reality- and what percentage is fictional artistic license.
WWII era philosopher Walter Benjamin argued that once we developed an industrial/mechanical process to replicate art for the first time (photography, 1837), then the concept of an authentic artwork not only leaves the conversation entirely.
With this in mind I don't see stereo imaging any different than ANY aspect of a "produced" recording of an authentic sound or authentic performance. It's ALL fake. It's ALL mechanical reproduction of natural sound vibration.
Imaging is neither more or less important than any aspect of a sound recording as an object.
"Space" and "air" are larger contributors to my enjoyment than precision of placing each instrument or singer, or spatial separation between them.
I'm in the side of Herb! If the recording, in the first place, has the soundstage on it, the equipment must replicate in the listening room. Other thing is if you are always in the mood to focus on it so you must sit in the sweet spot, riveted to the chair. Not always I need to do that to enjoy the sound.
RIP. Art 😔
Pc audio would be great conversation, optical out to DAC?, using software? What have you, worth it to go 32 bit? Trust me people want to know, when you have Soundblaster, Asus and HT Omega making soundcards, people want a better sound, pc is the media center now. Wether for gaming or watching a movie.
Thank you sir :)
The first time I watched this video i didn't fully understood. I had an idea but now I understand.
And for my taste I'm with Art. I don't mind good imaging but I like to be in a relax position when listening to music. And it's always better when you don't have to focus on being perfectly in the sweet spot. You relax and let the music come at you. Rythm, pace, texture,.. those are more important. It makes you feel the music. That's why I love headphones. It's only the music and you.
❤️❤️❤️
Hey, imaging priorities change dramatically depending on what you are listening to. Any orchestral recording demands good imaging to sound real. But in jazz or chamber music, imaging is obnoxious, due to the need for a unified sound. Is "Round Midnight", a mono recording, any less interesting being mono and lacking image? As for rock and pop, who cares? The imaging is a creation of the producer/engineer electronically. Those on the right could end up on the left and the drums placed anywhere the engineer decides to place them. But, listening to Heifetz play Tchaikovsky Concerto with the CSO and Reiner, is so thrilling to feel as if he is in my room. Also, after the transition to the 3rd movement from the second, one can hear that Heifetz is standing in a slightly different spot to start the 3rd movement. Not important in any way for the musical enjoyment, but adding to the "you are there" feel (to say nothing of the Elevated Railroad sound going across the sound stage during the solo transition. Again, not important to the music, but adding to the feeling that I am in a center seat in the hall and in Chicago!) Of course, this is just one opinion, but there is nothing like listening to Ella sing Cole Porter right at my face! Oddly enough, I find that, with a decent cartridge, the biggest difference I notice concerning imaging is the quality of the pressing. I have all sorts of recordings of the aforementioned Tchaikovsky including original release, later flimsy release, recent re-release, and the 45rpm release, everything is best on the 45, by a rather large margin. Art was wrong to downgrade RCA's older recordings, as we never know how the bulk of them would sound had they not invented the dreaded Dynagroove mastering system and not pressed them on paper thin vinyl. AND not every Decca recording was a gem. The Solti Mahler 2nd is quite disappointing! Just sayin....
Intense
We listened to a Brubeck album recorded in Dec 1953 recently on a good MC mono cartridge. I could have sworn that we could hear the room and the location of some of the instruments. We had the assistance of some martinis, but I think that Hifi lives.
I'll take your single mic and add one more. Then just a hint of eq and/ or compression if needed.
You know... the Chesky school of capturing a recording is a really cool one. To capture a performance authentically to make it sound as if you are in the room with the performers.... but this is hardly the only legitimate way to frame a sound stage. A sonic picture is cool, but there is so much that can be done creatively with the sound stage. This is almost dismissed as a pop technique which is "distracting" here in this video, which is of course an opinion. However, I find that opinion a bit limiting. Creative liberty with sound is nothing to scoff at. You can tell a whole sonic tale with stereo. I think creating an all new environment to explore that may not be able to exist in a physical space is cool. Creating a radical, unnatural effect by playing with the stereo field can be exciting! Each song on an album can transport you to a different place. Some may find this distracting. I find it engaging. Jazz or Classical? Ok, sure. It could be distracting in this context, depending on the piece, but that may not always be the case... Also the idea of a sound stage being "fake" is kind of funny to me. If it comes through my speakers and I can experience it, it's a real sound stage. No matter what means were used to create or capture it. Purely electronic music has a sound stage, you know. It's not fake. It's engineered!
well that's done sometimes. however - the one thing I think you are NOT taking into account is that there is no standardized way of rendering any such 'soundstage' and it will render differently (maybe even in an opposite fashion) in different systems ...
sooo... if you DON'T know how a particular space will render on a give playback system- how can you POSSIBLY manipulate it in any kind of predictable way for a given listener??
The Weeknd...Pink Floyd.
I'm very much in agreement with art here about things, you know I kind of have always felt that phenomena such as sound stage or depth and things are just consequences of production and not necessarily inherent to the recording. for me the very much aspect that I enjoy of music is the sense of pace and rhythm and the tonal textures of music versus sound staging. because I believe that that is way more representative of what the actual recording is versus any exaggerated notions of soundstaging.
fascinating discussion that resonates with my listening.
I too am interested in the placement of the mic. I find that a lot of studio recorded music is disorienting in that it plays as a mash up of several independent events. You can sense the mics around the drum set. The close mic'd singer. The piano. But the scale is all misplaced. A giant drum set overlaid on a giant piano with surgically placed sax or guitar. All of it interesting but as a collage it incorrectly relates to reality and messes with your brain. When your brain is working overtime to understand an unnatural illusion it is fatiguing more than enjoyable.
Then you get a good Chesky or MA recording and there is a wonderful marvel at the musical event.
1950 recordings , one mike all the band, magic
Wow, studio techniques almost an annoyance? You mean like the Sgt. Pepper, or Dark Side of the Moon, or how about Yazoo, In My Room? Different strokes I guess.
On the other hand, I would agree about mics. The other day I was listening to the microphone on the outtakes of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong The Great Summit/Complete Sessions for the first time(Love those recordings from April of 1961). It is almost scary, listening to Louis Armstrong joking around during the session. Unbelievably realistic, like the first time I went on the Sun Studios tour, where they play that tape recording of Elvis. Awesome!
I can't always "hear" as good as these guys (who have tremendous ears, btw) so not sure I can hear these spatial aspects as well. I DO hear it from time to time, but not every time (or is it that I'm just not always "aware" of it?). What I wonder about, too, is my ability to hear spatial aspects due to the recording or the quality of the playbook equipment? Or both? The Sun Sessions provide tremendous room sound, perhaps none so dramatic as "Tryin' To Get To You." That one's really eerie sounding. BTW, Art is a VERY GOOD guitar player.
I don't understand how capturing a performance with one microphone and then reproducing that recording through two speakers can give you a sense of where the performers were on stage....I guess I would have to hear this in a system that was capable of reproducing this phenomenon.
it's called panning
Tony N. In order to pan to get a stereo effect you have to have more than one source. You can pan a single microphone but that wouldn’t make much sense.
What they did in Led Zep's Whole Lotta Love song, just panned a single electric guitar.
Just because it was a single guitar doesn't mean there was only one microphone.
or one source moving from one side of stage to the other
I like pop and hip hop music but since I became an audiophile i can't ear it on speakers. I have to use headphones because the soundstage is always messed up and it messes me up.
I spent a lot of time discovering jazz and real live recordings and after a year of that i can't enjoy heavily mixed songs on speakers. You can always feel that the space isn't right. Sometimes videos on CZcams of people recording feels better because you feel the microphone and you feel the space they're in. You loose yourself easily into the content.
How does one who cares so much about imaging (looking at Herb) have anything to do with headphones?
The baseline is live sound not the recording... If your system doesn't get you close to a true to life experience you probably need more vacuum tubes in your life!
It sounds different when you talk with a candy in your mouth ... lol
I only care about recording accuracy to a point, getting the accuracy of the master is my focus. The mastering tech is really another band member, a DJ, and his rack an instrument. You can impose the listener and his stereo into a similar role if you're feeling that level of arrogance. I want to know what cool stuff the tech did and what the band was impressed enough with to send for pressing. I'm also the guy who likes ambient/drone/soundscape music which is electronic music based around artificially created soundstaging. Fully virtual ambiance, can put you in all kinds of environments. Requires the same qualities in your stereo as a real perfectly preserved stage to come through
This Guy tells Herb We Need to talk. This guy is talking to the King .
Duder, just let the King
Talk. Or Let's hear from
Herb. You should be writing down everything The king says & learn. Yes!!
1 omnidirectional microphone. That's it. Purity.
Go easy on this Guy Herb
Example of many Barber female jazz singer at the concert she site left of center making music on a nice stereo same spot big dog many other examples
RIP Art! :(
So sad.
There always recorded separate in a recording studio , it’s all an illusion, I think a live recording is the only one that images well , but only my opinion
Hifi puts a lot of rubbish into a recording. Listen to live music in the street that isn't amplified. You don't get a soundstage. You don't get images. It's audiophiles speal..i.e. Bull.
Ok ok ok what the heck are these guys talking about. He has a hard drive in his head?
After all these years it occurs to me that {maybe} audiophiles are neurotic about their music. But, that could be said also about the guy with a solid gold toilet, or a collection of unique sports cars, a stamp collection and a craze for baseball statistics. End result. You need a lot of money and you then set your priorities. neurotic.
this people are master of manipulation. just enjoy your music and your system. more expensive audio system, dose not mean better, only mean difference.
Now I can understand why I was never impressed with Stereophile magazine. They yap about nothing.
Sorry, The more expensive the system does generally mean better. There are exceptions but generally, you get what you pay for.
When you actually listen to a system that images very well, it puts listening to music on another level. You get to experience ALL the work the producer put into the track and when you have a system thats able to reveal all that a picks up every little reverb, etc thats there.. it is definitely better than some random computer speakers or some bluetooth speaker.
On a side note.. for being "audiophiles" wtf is up with the audio and the super sharpe Ses?
Key word in what you're saying is "generally".
Yes, if you go from a system with a total cost of $ 1,000 to one worth $ 20,000, there is a significant and very noticeable difference. After that, the improvement becomes incremental and rather difficult to justify. It's more of a change in sound rather than an improvement.
Of course, if you go from a very expensive pair of stand mount speakers to a very expensive floor standing, multiple driver set, you WILL get a very audible difference only because of the physical size of the transducers, the latter being much more capable to display a large and very convincing sonic picture.
Somewhere there though, there is a (financial) level after which, there's nothing much to improve on, no matter how much one spends.
I listen to three songs while these two discussed imaging and was not even concern about the microphone. Go listen to music and forget about these two fools.