Understanding What It Means For a HiFi System To Produce Sound That Is As
Close As Possible To a Live Performance
Audio Physic
Classic 30 Loudspeakers shown in a high-gloss glass custom finish
Think about it, the reason why you invest in a high-end
audio system is because, unlike the Sultan of Brunei, you cannot afford to hire
Michal Buble or Celine Dion or any of your favourite singers or musicians to
come to your home and give you a private live performance every time you feel
like listening to their music. The high-end audio system is therefore the next
best thing you could have, but only if it delivers a performance that is
reasonably similar to what a live performance would sound like. So the closer
your audio system resembles the live performance, the better it is serving its
purpose.
In the world of high-end audio, the term ‘neutrality’ is
bandied about a lot. When I speak to my audiophile friends about it, I find
that there is general agreement that neutrality is not so different from the
game of chess, in that, it is relatively simple to understand, but
exponentially more difficult to master.
You will not get too many arguments when you define
neutrality as the ability of an audio system to deliver the sound signal from
the source without adding, subtracting or modifying the basic nature of the
signal in any way. In other words, as the signal moves through the system none
of the components should impose their character on it but rather allow it to
flow through with all its original characteristics totally intact. This holds
true even with interconnects and cables.
One exception to this would be the power amplifier where the
original signal is not passed through but rather more powerful copies of the
signal are made and it is those copies that are then fed to the speakers. In
this case, neutrality would pertain to how well the copies of the signal
resemble the original signal in every way except for the fact that it is more
powerful.
What complicates the concept of neutrality in the world of
audio, from the physiological and psychological point of view, is that we all
hear differently. The ability to hear different frequencies at the same level
of sensitivity varies significantly from person to person. We also tend to
focus on different characteristics of a musical performance to help us evaluate
the fidelity and emotional content in the music. Some of us pay more attention
to the timbre, others tend to focus on the tonality or the pace, rhythm and
timing. What this results in is widely differing opinions. What sounds utterly
neutral to one person may sound grossly coloured to someone else. This is one
of the reasons why it is difficult to arrive at a consensus on which components
and which systems are the most neutral.
When evaluating a component or a system for neutrality, it
is important to have a good reference in your head. One way to ensure that your
mental reference is good enough to judge a system’s neutrality is to attend as
many live performances as possible. This will help your brain understand what
singing voices and instruments sound like alone and together with other voices
and instruments in a live performance. It is even better if you can attend as
many pure acoustic performances as possible, because the unplugged nature of
these events means that you can hear the voices and instruments without them
being run through electronics and transducers which could also alter the
original voice and/or the sound of the musical instruments.
Jeff Rowland Design
Group’s Continuum S2 Integrated Amplifier
This is why most of the leading reviewers ensure that they
feed themselves a steady diet of live performances, which help them retain in
their heads a good reference to use and compare to when they evaluate high-end
audio components and systems. In fact the better reviewers are long time
musicians themselves and play in live performances quite frequently. I, for
one, feel very blessed to have had the privilege of playing the piano and the
guitar since I was seven years old. To keep my ears fine tuned I always spend
some time playing my acoustic piano and acoustic guitar before I begin
evaluating any high-end audio component or system. Despite this evident truism,
I find it amusing that some of the most opinionated audiophiles I have met,
have attended so few live performanc
At the consumer level, we have control over the neutrality
of only part of the whole chain that allows us to enjoy our favourite tunes in
the comfort of our homes. That part would commence from the software that we
use, be it CDs or vinyl records or tapes or digital music files. To examine
neutrality in totality, we need to start not from the software but from the
real genesis, which is the process of making the recording in the first
place.es; they can be counted using the fingers of just one hand.
It is an enlightening experience to attend a recording
session to see how it is done. I would highly recommend this to all audiophiles
if afforded the opportunity, as it is a revelation of how complicated the
recording process really could be. It involves a plethora of components in such
complex configurations; it is next to impossible to obtain two takes that sound
exactly the same, especially in terms of timbre and tone, even if all the
singers and musicians sing and play it exactly the same way in the two takes.
The chain of events begins with the microphone and no one
can argue with the fact that each microphone has it own sonic character and
there are dozens of different microphones used in recording studios all over
the world. In fact, most recording engineers opt for a particular microphone
because he or she feels that the character of that particular microphone is
better suited for the specific requirements of the recording session at hand.
The next step that influences the recording is the placement
of each of the microphones. Depending on what the recording engineer is
shooting for, he or she can choose the close miked position or place the
microphone well away from the singer or the instrument. In some cases the
recording engineer may even choose to have the microphones placed high above
the performers or the audience to attain a certain effect or ambience. Placing
microphones to capture the performance of a piano is particularly complex. In
some cases the microphones are placed just a few inches from where the felt
lined hammers strike the strings of the piano while in other cases they can be
placed a few feet away from the piano as a whole.
The cables used to transfer the signal from one component to
another at the recording venue will also exercise some influence on the
ultimate sound that you hear from the recording. Since the amount of cabling
used can run into hundreds of feet, not all recording studios can afford to use
the most neutral cables which tend to be ultra expensive.
Since most recording sessions utilize multiple microphones,
it is necessary to employ a mixing console to blend the various sounds picked
up by the different microphones. These consoles are complex devices and run the
sound signal through a multitude of circuits to give the recording engineer the
maximum amount of control and each of these circuits will also imprint its
characteristics on the signal that passes through it. This means that from the
time the feeds from the various microphones enter the console to the time the
signal is outputted from the console, the nature of the sound will have been
modified quite significantly.
When recording at a live concert, we also have to account
for the acoustical characteristics of the performance venue. Every venue has
its own sound signature, which vary substantially from each other. For example,
an auditorium has a sonic character that is totally different to a jazz club,
which again, would be a completely different kettle of fish to a church or a
stadium
Once the initial recording has been completed, the sound
track is then subjected to the post recording processes. The first of these is
the mix-down where the sound engineers listen very closely to the recording and
rectify anomalies if any are detected. This is also the stage where a recording
engineer can apply reverb, equalization or dynamic range limiting to make the
recording more amenable for a transfer to particular kind of format like a
compact disc or a vinyl record. These manipulations take the overall sound even
further from what it was at the original performance.
In today’s world where MP3 and other compressed formats
totally dominate the market, many of the younger musicloving consumers choose
tracks based on how dynamic they sound. Since music tracks recorded at a louder
level erroneously tend to be perceived by untrained ears as having better
dynamics, there is pressure on sound engineers to make the music tracks as loud
as possible even at the cost of compressing the overall dynamic range of the
recording. This may be good for sales but it makes recordings sound a lot more
different compared to the original performance and it takes away the goose bump
inducing majesty that only music with a great dynamic range can deliver
We then come to the critical process of mastering, where the
sound track is transferred from the master tape to the digital or analog format
that we buy at the consumer level. Here again, the quality of the replicating
machines, the music consoles, the cables used etc., all stamp their own
character on the sound that is finally recorded in the chosen format
All the aforementioned processes play a part in determining
the quality of the recording and as every audiophile knows, if you start off
with a badly recorded music track, even the best audio system in the world will
not be able to put enough lipstick on that pig to make it sound good. It is
simply a question of garbage in, garbage out!
At the consumer level, the first order of business when
trying to determine the neutrality of an audio component or system is to have a
great reference in your head as to what a live performance sounds like in
person. The next essential requirement is to start off with a few very well
recorded music tracks preferably on a vinyl record or a high rez digital music
file.
Also important is to ensure that your listening room has
decent acoustical properties. This is because most of the sounds you hear,
reach your ears after bouncing off one or more of the surfaces in your room.
This means that depending on whether most of the reflected sounds are partially
or totally reflected, absorbed or diffused, the listening room will allow you
to hear the full potential of your audio system or not. It is also important to
ensure that the speakers and your listening position are optimally placed.
During the actual listening process, you have to focus on
the reference that you have in your head of what a live performance sounds like
and then compare that to what you are hearing from your system. The main
factors that get in the way of allowing reproduced sound to emulate a live
performance are the dynamic range, the air between the different voices and
instruments, as well as the reproduction of the leading edges, and the quality
of the decay of each sound. The most neutral audio components and systems excel
in these departments.
One of my favourite ways to determine the neutrality of an
audio component or an audio system, is to keep tabs on what I call the ‘scary
real’ moments it delivers. These are moments where certain passages in the
music sound so incredibly real, they actually startle you into believing that
the sound was actually live rather than reproduced. The more scary real moments
that an audio system delivers to my ears, the more neutral the system is, in my
books.
The Bel Canto
Black music system driving Focal Scala V2 Utopia loudspeakers.
