Visual is easy, audio is not

[magiccarpetride]

It seems very easy to evaluate a camera or a monitor screen with regards to how realistic it is in capturing the likeness of the visible world. Take a snapshot, or record a short video clip using a camera of your choice, play it back on your TV or on your monitor, and it will be plainly obvious whether the reproduced image is faithful to the real object (in terms of proportions, visible details, texture, colors, etc.)

Things are for some reason not that easy with audio. Take a recording device, point it to the live performers, record the performance, and then play it back on your stereo. You'll realize that it's a challenge when it comes to assessing how faithful to the real sound the playback gets.

Maybe this is so because of the fact that music is fleeting? While a physical object that we just took a snapshot of still remains present, and we can compare its representation on the screen with its actual presence, we can't do that with music. Once performed, the performance is forever gone.
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[maggior]

I'm not so sure I agree. It's happened a few times that I was at a concert and obtained an audience recording of the concert weeks after the fact. I distincly remember thinking to myself "wow, this recording very faithfully captured the sound of the performance - flaws and all".

With pictures and video, framing in addition to visual quality come into a play. Take a crappy picture, crop it to frame it more properly, and you have a totally different picture. I've experienced this myself many times.

Another thought - evaluating an audio recording in this manner is complicated by the fact that both the playback and recording setups are in play. With amateur and stealth audio recording, equipment and equipment placement have a huge bearing on the sound. A crappy recording played back on the best sounding multi-million dollar audiophile's wet dream system will still sound like crap - just very faithfully reproduced crap :-).

Yet another thought - how you feel about this depends on what "type" of person/learner you are. I am both visual and auditory, leaning toward the auditory side. Taking this into account, my thoughts on this aren't surprising. Take somebody that is very visual in their learning/thinking (as perhaps you might be) and they have a completely different opinion.

[Curt962]

I don't think simple comparisons are really the issue here. I think I understand what you're asking, but....something gets muddled in your query.

Does anyone here REALLY need to hold a photo up to the subject, and "compare" to see which is real?

One thing that comes to me is that we live very "sighted" lives. Nobody here would be remotely fooled by a picture, or the screen of a TV into believing for a millisecond that the image was real.

Similarly with sound. Our survival depends on determining what it was we just heard, where it is, if its getting closer, and do we need to react. This assessment occurs in a fraction of a second.....ADM not required to determine that a REAL car is about to hit us.

Your audio system might have startled you with an unexpected sound, but it has never made you fear for your life, nor elicited a survival instinct reaction from you.

Actually...mine did once, but it was when my wife found a sales receipt. Ooops. Totally different thing, but no less frightening.

There is obviously a difference, and perhaps it is one of perspective.

A guitar recorded from a microphone distance of 3" will not sound the same on your audio system, as it would if the musician sat in front of you and played. I believe this is a difference in the scale of the sound rather than any gross change in the actual sound the guitar made. It leads me to believe that there may be more to IMAX theatres, and top-end surround sound than simply larger screens, and more speakers. It completely changes the perspective of the viewer/listener...from that of an onlooker, to that of a participant.

Gotta think about this some more. Interesting conversation material though.

[magiccarpetride]

A guitar recorded from a microphone distance of 3" will not sound the same on your audio system, as it would if the musician sat in front of you and played.

What follows is an interesting alternative take (I'm quoting verbatim) on what you've said above (this is from another audiophile responding to my relentless trolling):

"I recall a newspaper story in Albuquerque years ago. Hudson Audio set up a blind demo - a single musician (classical guitarist IIR) and planar speakers/amps/recorder (tape IIR) all behind an acoustically transparent curtain. The musician repeatedly played for a group of listeners on the other side of curtain as well the recording of same, listeners were not told which was which. The listeners were mostly able to tell which was live vs. recording, but had to listen very carefully to distinguish, and thought the two were very close.

Hardly a rigorous scientific test, but instructive. No viewer of a still or video picture would have to pay close attention to tell if it was a recording or the real thing."

[darrenyeats]

J

(this is from another audiophile responding to my relentless trolling):

Ha ha!

I agree with Curt962's point about close-mic recordings actually. But I go along with the thrust of your post (that demo didn't necessarily use a close mic technique).
Darren

[darrenyeats]

One difference between the audio and visual worlds is that video enthusiasts are more willing to accept that measurements are useful.

As a matter of fact I was reading about projector measurements. I didn't know there are several ways of measuring contrast ratio and some are thought to be more helpful than others. Obviously measurements aren't everything - my point is, people don't get flamed on AV forums for talking about measurements.

As I wrote on another thread, for audio my opinion is that measurements on line level components are more straightforward than with rooms, speakers and power amps.
Darren

[magiccarpetride]

my point is, people don't get flamed on AV forums for talking about measurements.

True. My guess is that it's due to the fact that in video we don't have elusive concepts and constructs such as 'imaging' and 'soundstage'. In audio, how do you measure soundstage? Obviously, you can sit down and turn your hi fi on and play some music and 'see' the soundstage in front of you, but how do you measure it?

[Phil Leigh]

True. My guess is that it's due to the fact that in video we don't have elusive concepts and constructs such as 'imaging' and 'soundstage'. In audio, how do you measure soundstage? Obviously, you can sit down and turn your hi fi on and play some music and 'see' the soundstage in front of you, but how do you measure it?

You can't because it doesn't exist... it's 100% illusion

[Curt962]

It's interesting to note, that in live music "imaging" is something that is only present in the most vague sense. Being able to pinpoint a specific instrument in space amongst many is done with the eyes....or in the studio with microphone and mixing techniques. If amplification was involved, you're totally hosed.

Try it next time your at a concert. Close your eyes and see if you can tell where everyone is located on the "soundstage". Best of luck!

It really pays to calibrate the ears to reality. Audiophiles obsess over the micro-details, and manufactured, verbal measures of "the musical truth" that almost never occur in real life. It's almost as if the truth isn't good enough. We want something ever better. Hyper-truth.

Analyze and Discuss.

[magiccarpetride]

You can't because it doesn't exist... it's 100% illusion

And yet, many of us are discussing different systems that seem capable of producing differing levels of that illusion. Interesting, to say the least.

Since I'm not a photographer/videographer, I'd be curious to learn whether there is a similarly elusive, illusion-producing 'feature' in the field of visible reproduction, something parallel to the 'soundstage' in the audio world?