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From: rshapiro@arris.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Re: Imaging, ambiance, sound staging, and all that.
Message-ID: <4897@uwm.edu>
Date: 7 Jul 90 23:13:10 GMT
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Approved: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

In article <4865@uwm.edu> hugo@griggs.dartmouth.edu (Peter Su) writes:
>The audio press seems to make a big deal about imaging and ambience
>information in recordings...
>The obvious question here is why is this one aspect of sound
>reproduction so important to so many people?  Is equipment good enough
>to correctly reproduce all the other aspects of music, and this is all
>that is left?  I don't think so. 


I think it's because (a) it's only fairly recently that equipment has
been able to do this and (b) good imaging etc *dramatically* improves
the illusion that real instruments are playing in your living room,
probably more than any other single factor (imho, of course).



>The other question to raise is whether or not people hear any of this
>stuff at concerts. 

I've commented on this before. Basically, the typical modern concert
hall isn't very good for most music. It should not be used as the
yardstick for measuring audio equipment. In fact, recording gives the
listener access to many more aspects of the music than any concert
experience could. One of the principal aspects which typically
disappears in a concert setting (especially in a large hall) is the
distinctness of each instrument in the ensemble. This is what "air"
makes apparent; and this is why good audio equipment is superior to
most concert performances in this regard (among others). You don't
hear "air" in most concert halls, but this means, not that the
recording is phony, but that the hall is inadequate for the music
being presented.