Why Live-vs-Recorded Listening Tests Don't Work Options

[solive]

Thomas Edison was probably the greatest stereo salesman that ever lived. He believed that "listeners will hear what you tell them to hear", and he was pretty successful convincing thousands of listeners that his 1910 Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph reproduced recordings that sounded identical to a live performance. His secret weapon was an elaborate live-versus-recorded demonstration that managed to convince people that his phonograph sounded a lot better than it really was.

Several times over the past 10 years, I have been asked by live-versus-recorded apologists why I don't do these types of the tests since they claim they are the only true valid measures of loudspeaker fidelity or accuracy. That is what prompted me to write about why I believe live-versus-recorded listening tests don't work, in this month's blog article

Cheers
Sean Olive
Audio Musings

This post has been edited by solive: Jul 10 2010, 11:30

[analog scott]

Thomas Edison was probably the greatest stereo salesman that ever lived. He believed that "listeners will hear what you tell them to hear", and he was pretty successful convincing thousands of listeners that his 1910 Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph reproduced recordings that sounded identical to a live performance. His secret weapon was an elaborate live-versus-recorded demonstration that managed to convince people that his phonograph sounded a lot better than it really was.

Several times over the past 10 years, I have been asked by live-versus-recorded apologists why I don't do these types of the tests since they claim they are the only true valid measures of loudspeaker fidelity or accuracy. That is what prompted me to write about why I believe live-versus-recorded listening tests don't work, in this month's blog article

Cheers
Sean Olive
Audio Musings

Very nice article Sean. I think you make a valid point that one can't use live music as a means of judging loudspeakers per se. But it seems to me that one can use live music as a reference to judge a recording and playback system in it's totallity.

[solive]

Thomas Edison was probably the greatest stereo salesman that ever lived. He believed that "listeners will hear what you tell them to hear", and he was pretty successful convincing thousands of listeners that his 1910 Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph reproduced recordings that sounded identical to a live performance. His secret weapon was an elaborate live-versus-recorded demonstration that managed to convince people that his phonograph sounded a lot better than it really was.

Several times over the past 10 years, I have been asked by live-versus-recorded apologists why I don't do these types of the tests since they claim they are the only true valid measures of loudspeaker fidelity or accuracy. That is what prompted me to write about why I believe live-versus-recorded listening tests don't work, in this month's blog article

Cheers
Sean Olive
Audio Musings

Very nice article Sean. I think you make a valid point that one can't use live music as a means of judging loudspeakers per se. But it seems to me that one can use live music as a reference to judge a recording and playback system in it's totallity.

Thanks. Yes, you can certainly judge the accuracy of the entire recording/playback chain to a live performance but the test makes it difficult to know which component is responsible for the artifacts: the recording, the loudspeakers, or both.

In my view, the closest you can come to recreating a live performance experience is a binaural recording/room scan with a head-tracking headphone-based auditory display. Stereo just doesn't cut it, but multichannel gets a lot closer if the recording is done well. And there are still challenges controlling all the nuisance variables.

What about recordings that are not intended to sound like a live performance? That would include about 95% of all recording made today. How do we judge the accuracy of those? Of course, you know the answer to that question: you define the performance of the loudspeakers and their interaction with the room acoustics where the art (the recording) was created, and simply replicate the playback system in the consumer space. Science in the service of art -- Not a popular concept among the live-versus-recording apologists I've met.




Cheers
Sean Olive
Audio Musings

This post has been edited by solive: Jul 11 2010, 07:50