5 ms·

Why does this guy seem to think live concerts and musicals are the yard stick of sound quality? Standing front-row at a stadium concert, a festival tent or a l

Why does this guy seem to think live concerts and musicals are the yard stick of sound quality? Standing front-row at a stadium concert, a festival tent or a local live-house isn't exactly great sounding audio. It's an experience, yes, but there's a reason people tend to buy studio recordings over live recordings. Reading the rest of this blog post makes me want to cancel my apple music subscription.

bayindirh 5y ago
> there's a reason people tend to buy studio recordings over live recordings. There are live recordings and there are proper live recordings. The second one is very hard to do, and very hard to find. Blind Guardian, Metallica, Manowar, Iron Maiden, Iced Earth and Pink Martini tend to do this right IME. Classical performances are another category, but the environment is utterly different in these.
josephcsible 5y ago
Why did you bring up recordings of live events? The comparison is with actually being there live in person.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Last concert I was at (Red Hot Chili Peppers) live in person the audio was so bad I could not even make out the words. It was literally just noise with a drumbeat.
- acdha 5y ago
  Live is often worse than a sound-board recording of the same show. Too many concerts have audio “engineers” who think the job consists of cranking a knob up to 11 – I basically stopped going to big shows in San Diego when I realized that the popular venues were totally okay with letting the speakers distort horribly all night. Unless the band had better standards it just wasn’t worth it.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  How else would you argue that people in general go to concerts for the experience and not the sound? By saying that when you remove the experience people aren’t really that interested.
packetslave 5y ago
Ironically, the front row at a concert is usually one of the WORST places you can be for good sound. The main PA hangs don't cover the first few rows, so you're stuck with whatever front fill they threw in as an afterthought for coverage, and (if they're not flying the subs) you get pounded with low-end.
plorkyeran 5y ago
Yeah, I love live concerts, but even hanging out by the sound board (which is usually the spot that sounds best) you usually get something that other than the volume sounds about as good as you'd get with some cheap headphones. Unamplified live performances in a concert hall with good acoustics can sound amazing, but as soon as there's a PA involved they nearly always go for volume over quality.

bayindirh 5y ago

> there's a reason people tend to buy studio recordings over live recordings. There are live recordings and there are proper live recordings. The second one is very hard to do, and very hard to find. Blind Guardian, Metallica, Manowar, Iron Maiden, Iced Earth and Pink Martini tend to do this right IME. Classical performances are another category, but the environment is utterly different in these.

josephcsible 5y ago

Why did you bring up recordings of live events? The comparison is with actually being there live in person.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Last concert I was at (Red Hot Chili Peppers) live in person the audio was so bad I could not even make out the words. It was literally just noise with a drumbeat.
acdha 5y ago
Live is often worse than a sound-board recording of the same show. Too many concerts have audio “engineers” who think the job consists of cranking a knob up to 11 – I basically stopped going to big shows in San Diego when I realized that the popular venues were totally okay with letting the speakers distort horribly all night. Unless the band had better standards it just wasn’t worth it.
wodenokoto 5y ago
How else would you argue that people in general go to concerts for the experience and not the sound? By saying that when you remove the experience people aren’t really that interested.

packetslave 5y ago

Ironically, the front row at a concert is usually one of the WORST places you can be for good sound. The main PA hangs don't cover the first few rows, so you're stuck with whatever front fill they threw in as an afterthought for coverage, and (if they're not flying the subs) you get pounded with low-end.

plorkyeran 5y ago

Yeah, I love live concerts, but even hanging out by the sound board (which is usually the spot that sounds best) you usually get something that other than the volume sounds about as good as you'd get with some cheap headphones. Unamplified live performances in a concert hall with good acoustics can sound amazing, but as soon as there's a PA involved they nearly always go for volume over quality.