What is best?

I am guessing others on this forum may be here for similar reasons. These are mine:

·      -  I love music

·      - To listen & learn from others (& social interaction with fellow enthusiasts)

·      - How to improve my system to sound as close as possible to reality

·      - At home, try and recreate the emotions I feel when I attend a live performance

I may be alone here but I have spent a large part of my life where outwardly I was proud of how my system sounded but secretly, and when listening on my own I noticed ‘issues’. Unnatural effects with timing, phase, harsh treble, floppy or boomy bass and especially a lack of definition with loud complex passages. Many times, a simple recording, well mastered sounded phenomenal, only to be followed by something at the other end of the scale which started me off on another round of searching and reading…..(think Cat Stevens - Teaser & the Firecat followed by Mountain – Mountain).  I have since almost eradicated most of these issues but it has taken a lot of mistakes along the way to get there

Live music is a reference for me, I cannot count the number of artists I have seen, festivals attended etc  and my system has to somehow measure up to that. For me it has to be clarity, attack, dynamics and emotional involvement every time. I am not a classical music listener so I apologise that what I describe is very one-sided. (& please bear with me, I do have a habit of meandering towards making my point - I will get there in the end)

As I have aged, I have realised that this ‘holy grail’ is really difficult to achieve, probably impossible, for a few reasons:

1.     When younger, I stood as far forward as possible at a venue, often centre stage. The place where the drums literally ‘kick in the stomach’ and you hear direct sound, pretty well unaffected by the surroundings. That is the place where other emotions than just music are involved, where the real fans generally put themselves, where you both hear and ‘feel’ the music and where you are almost physically connected to the artist. You are also well away from the ‘bar-prop gossipers’, a pet hate of mine and very disrespectful to the performers.  I still spend a fair amount of time in this spot, front centre and always choose to stand at an event rather than sit if the option is there

2.     A few years ago at a festival I was hit in the neck by a cupful of something other than the usual beer or water from an over enthusiastic yob - I decided that for ‘younger bands’, in future I would head back to the edge of the mixing desk where it doesn’t happen. Certainly the emotional connection with the music is different back there and theoretically it sounds ‘better’ (not that often though)

3.     Whilst most of the time I enjoy what I am attending, there are always going to be occasions where a live performance fails to connect for some reason. When that happens, I find myself listening critically and even, dare I say it starting to find fault with the sound…. just as I described the ‘issues’ my system had above. When I do this, I realize that actually, live amplified music often sounds far worse than most decent systems. So what is reality? I guess classical lovers have an advantage here as the venues are mostly acoustically tuned

4.     One other thing…live amplified music sometimes contains sibilance on vocals, loud passages often sound ill defined and confused (just as I used to think was a failing with my older systems), speakers hum & buzz in quiet passages & bass can be atrocious as soon as you move back and the venue starts to play its part. Often it doesn’t matter though. - I have purchased a fair few ‘direct feeds’ after attending various Who concerts down the years and when played back at home, something that raised the hairs on my neck at the time seems nothing like it at home on the same performance - all sorts of vocal and acoustic abberations become apparent

So…. what am I trying to say?

Well, for the type of music I listen to there is no ‘holy grail’ at home. The system has timing, attack, dynamics and punch aplenty. It has neutrality, precision and a beautiful naturalness. It even has its own dedicated room with just one chair. However it cannot possibly recreate the real emotion of ‘being there’ with the artist. Close at times… and often sounding better than the real performance I had just witnessed but never as good

I would say on balance my system probably wins on pure ‘audiophile’ terms 70/30 but on emotion and the full experience it’s more like 95/5 the other way.  That’s why I no longer fret quite so much about the last ounce of performance and just enjoy the music when I listen at home. I hope I’m not seen as a heretic on this forum when I say I still prefer the live ‘thing’ over hi-fi any day

I finish by saying I envy one of my best friends - Jim. He has a ‘musical jukebox’ in his head, listens to his mid-fi ‘stereo’, tinny headphones, am radio, speakers playing in shops etc, in fact anything to do with music and he loves it unreservedly, unencumbered by concerns with ‘fidelity’. Six of us will be at his house tonight, his turn for our 6 weekly (so far 23 yrs!) ‘music night with curry & beer’ …..it isn't fidelity but it sure is fun !