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The way I think about recorded music is, the instrument being played is ultimately a set of speakers. That’s a musical experience to be encountered on its own t
by sevensor 2y ago
The way I think about recorded music is, the instrument being played is ultimately a set of speakers. That’s a musical experience to be encountered on its own terms. Live music is a wonderful thing, and presenting an illusion of live performance is certainly one thing a recording / reproduction system can do, but that doesn’t mean fidelity is the only thing we value when listening to a recording. Consider the punk music fans who enjoy a cheap stretched out cassette tape; I’m not going to deny them their enjoyment any more than I’ll deny the golden eared audiophile. They enjoy listening to different instruments.
And this brings me to my point: the engineer is no mere technician whose job is only fidelity. The engineer is part of the performance through speakers, an artist no less than the musicians being recorded.
- mrob 2y agoEven the best stereo speakers have an inherent weakness: comb filtering between the channels. You can easily test this yourself by generating some mono pink noise in Audacity (or your favorite audio editor) and playing it on stereo speakers. Move your head and you will hear changes in the sound like a flanger effect. This is most obvious if you are close to the speakers and in an acoustically dry environment. Compare with the same sound hard panned to a single speaker. This is one reason why a real physical center channel improves clarity for movie dialogue.