Holographic imaging

Norm, even with a temporary suspension of disbelief, reproduced music never sounds live to me; which doesn't mean it can't be very enjoyable and wonderful on it's own terms, but I'm never really fooled into thinking it is real no matter what equipment I've heard it on - but that is ok with me, I accept it. I think Duke's quote on "why" the musicians are on stage really captures the end game for what a great system can do for you - you get what the musicians are doing, what they are trying to say; even if it is not an exact replica of the live experience.

FWIW, the reason recordings don't have the same perspective that you hear in the concert hall, that you have a greater holographic quality in them than in real life, has to do with the microphone placement and post processing (if any).

Try spending some time with the mics at live performances and you will see what I mean real fast. Having a recording that you have taken from the live performance to CD or LP is immensely useful in developing a reference- it makes a difference when you were there and know what it was supposed to sound like.

Detlof, yes I believe there can be such thing as "too much holography". For example, I've heard at a friends house a pair of the old Beveridge SW2 electrostatic speakers. Everytime you hear music it's as if the performers are projected in front of the speakers, floating within a rectangular shaped space. This was for me the ultimate holographic imaging, like the Star Trek Holodeck, like a LSD trip. Personally I think this is too much of a good thing (unless you are addicted to it) and unlike the real life situation. I think the objectivists among us do not believe in "holographic imaging". They believe holographic imaging is always an artifact or the result of phase distortions.

Chris

I'll take timbral accuracy, dynamics and timing over holography/soundstaging any day - if I want to know what the musicians are saying (why they are on the stage). Ralph, is there any reason why the two may be mutually exclusive - that is, does the most accurate equipment in terms of one mean a lessening of the other?

Pubul57,
I like you have been working on the same assumption, especially so, since I am in the lucky position to compare the facsimile of certain music taken from a certain hall with the real event. I started our hobby at a time, when audio writers, having heard live performances say in NY or the CSO in Chicago later compared what they had heard on their Shaded Dogs, Mercuries or their 6 eyes. These days are long gone and Norm has a good point in saying that it is difficult to find a good spot in a live venue where to compare from. I think as you do, that many enjoy their equipment even if they have rarely been to a live event. That is perfectly OK. However, if you don't have some approximation to some sort of benchmark - and basically for me it is still the AS, the "gestalt" of live music out of a huge number of live events, which I carry mnestically in me - you open the door to absolute subjectivism, which is also all right, because we all hear differently with different preferences and different experiences of what we think music is and should be. This makes Audiogon both lively and amusing. In the olden days recording engineers were trained in musicology, you had to have credits in both fields to get a top job with DG, RCA, Phillips or Capitol. Quite a number of reviewers who I found I could trust, were musicians. To this day I prefer manufacturers, who play live music, do not only listen to it. One of them posts here. You guess who it is (: