Can hi-fis ever sound like real music?

Audiophiles are on a quest; we're always lusting after the perfect fill-in-the-blank (speaker, amplifier, turntable, CD player, etc).

Catch is, perfect gear wouldn't automatically make every recording sound life-like. At that point the gear wouldn't have a sound per-se; the recordings' sound would be laid bare.

The MBL 101X-Treme Reference System, $250,000, approaches perfection.

(Credit: MBL America)

I wrote "How high do you want your fi?" for the April 2009 issue of Stereophile magazine, and I'm still getting a wide range of feedback about that piece from readers and friends.

I'm defining a "perfect" hi-fi as one that's indistinguishable from the sound of live instruments. No hi-fi has ever fully recreated the sound of a symphony orchestra, jazz group, or rock 'n' roll band. Solo instruments fare better, i.e. guitars, flutes, and vocals; you can almost get a glimpse of their sounds over the best high-end systems. But a drum kit? Piano? No way!

Audio components are far from perfect, so it's no surprise their sounds aren't 100 percent convincing. As imperfect as the gear is, the recordings themselves are even further away from documenting the sound of vocals and instruments.

The age-old analog/digital divide is the least of it. The musicians do their thing, and then the microphones, their positions relative to the instruments, the skill and imagination of the engineer/producer/mastering team's use of equalization, compression, processing, etc., create the sound we hear.

Pop or rock music is rarely played by the complete band, with vocals, live in the studio. Out-of-tune singers and players are pitch-corrected, drummers' off-kilter rhythms are tweaked, there's not a lot of there there to reproduce. Most recordings are so heavily processed they could never sound real.

Think about it: if you were in a room with a singer playing an acoustic guitar and a drummer, without any amplification, you'd never hear the singer or the guitar. It takes a whole lot of dynamic range compression and equalization to create the illusion of pop music. And if it never exists in real life, it can never truly sound real over a hi-fi system.

The bottlenecks standing in the way of perfect sound reproduction are, in more or less equal proportions, the recordings, loudspeakers, and the listening room's acoustics. So, even with our fantasy-perfect hi-fi and a dead-accurate recording, the average living room acoustics wouldn't support the sound of a live band. The room's too small.

High-end audio may not be perfect, but it's light years ahead of $49 plastic computer speakers or the freebie earbuds that come with iPods and MP3 players. High-end audio, at its best, gets you a lot closer to the music. If you really love music, every little improvement to sound quality makes the investment worthwhile.

And please don't get the wrong idea, high-end audio isn't always stupid expensive. Vandersteen Audio's Model 1C tower speakers ($785 a pair) are a good place to start. Look for the full review at CNET Reviews soon.

[OStrolphant]

That was a real good article. I like these questions. But, I have a question? is there anything WRONG with all this processed music? what is pure music? at the end of the day it is the idea of the sounds of the artist, right? sure, like you were saying things could be done better, like the whole band be in studio at once, or be involved all they way through the mixing process. But if the end product TRULY is what the band envisioned then of what relevance is the true location of the mics to the "ideal" position?

If I go see a live show sometimes I sit in the back and the sound does not hit me right. or there are people talking. Reproduction of "live" seems like a fantasy unto itself.

Should you strive to reproduce or create?

[poisonedragon]

Yeah, I worked in a studio for a while, and usually what was initially recorded sounded far different from the performance you just heard. From an engineering stand point, it was a tough starting point. As a music lover it was definitely disappointing.

[soundman45]

As a recording engineer I try to think of myself as an enterpreter of sound. The approach to producing a pop/rock record is quite different than doing a classical or jazz recording. Classical recording probably comes closest to the experience of seeing a live performance in my opinion. As far as high fi systems creating reality ??? the really good ones come close but In the end, human hearing and the brain are pretty hard to fool.

[OStrolphant]

are those speakers in the picture for real?? who could put something like that on their floor? the house would break? it must be made of pure steel! 3600 lb? please! ??