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How close to the real thing?

Recently a friend of mine heard a Chopin concert in a Baptist church. I had told him that I had gone out to RMAF this year and heard some of the latest gear. His comment was that he thinks the best audio systems are only about 5% close to the real thing, especially the sound of a piano, though he admitted he hasn't heard the best of the latest equipment.

That got me thinking as I have been going to the BSO a lot this fall and comparing the sound of my system to live orchestral music. It's hard to put a hard percentage on this kind of thing, but I think the best systems capture a lot more than just 5% of the sound of live music.

What do you think? Are we making progress and how close are we?
peterayer
phaelon
1,038 posts
 
Very, very nice post Bryon - as erudite as I've seen.
nilthepill
842 posts
 
Definitely more than 5% (Caveat: In a well set up non-hifi, musical sounding ref system, regardless of price) less than 95%, and at times, depending upon type of music and recording quality, it may approach 95% at times. 100% is 'never' going to be possible!
edseas2
12 posts
 
Somewhere in the miasma of the OP's question is another beguiling paradox, namely:

What percent of the time has live, unamplified music ever been mistaken by anyone as being other than "real"?

If the answer to this question is close to "zero" (as in "zero" percent of the time I have mistaken live music for being recorded ) then, how is it or, rather IS it possible for the OP's question to be other than the reciprocal?
pubul57
3,712 posts
 
If OP's friend is right, then it just might be that 5% sound pretty darn good, but I suspect "5%" is just hyperbole.
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
I only disagree with the 5% part. I think that should be more like 90% and mostly constrained by the room size. A properly set up system in an auditorium could get much closer to the real thing.

As a trumpeter, I've seldom felt that I heard a recorded trumpet sound as live. There were a few direct-to-disk exceptions in the analog days and some reel-to-reel recordings got close, but most lacked some key overtones and dynamic range. Now, with DSD and other hi-rez recording techniques, I'm hearing the real thing more and more.
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