Music, or acoustic event? By Jack Handy.

Per my status message, let's make this a thread. I think it could be interesting:

"do you prefer a speaker system that accurately portrays music, or an acoustic event? could warrant a thread. deep thoughts while listening."

So, let's get a little more specific. Maybe I'm an outlier here, but i significantly prefer my speaker set up to any of my headphone setups. So I'm really talking about my experiences with my speaker setup, almost exclusively. That's one caveat, at least, i guess.

What i mean is that I feel like my speaker set up is providing me with an accurate portrayal of the musical content in most of the recordings I listen to/own and that it seems to communicate emotionally more than intellectually (not sure if that's the right word...). I don't feel like my speaker setup is giving me the experience of a specific recorded acoustic event. I know this is kind of generalizing, but I don't get the sense that I'm focusing on, or having certain aspects of the recording emphasized that are more about the event of the recording. However, I do feel that my headphone setups tend to cause me to focus more on the event of the recording itself.

I'll stop here because I'm interested in your thoughts, and I could probably just start rambling incoherently.

 

Just to clarify -
Musical means you're hearing the 'soul' of the song, feeling the emotions, energy, pace, etc. the musician intended.
Acoustic event means you're hearing as accurately as possible what folks in the recording engineer to producer chain intended; you're aware of mic placement, panning, filtering, really many dozens of choices in how the music is being presented.
Yes, or I'm off my rocker?

 

Honest question: What’s the difference? Shouldn’t a system that “accurately portrays music” just as accurately portray the event it was recorded at if it is a live recording?

 

What's an "acoustic event?" Noise of some sort?

Hearing the music accurately, as it was, is a myth. As a recording engineer contributed to another conversation in another place, we love to say that speakers, system etc, make us feel there; that we are listening to a guy playing guitar in our room. But, fact is, however superb, we can all tell the difference between a pair of speakers or phones, and being with the people making the music.

I don't think that there is a contradiction. Nor do I think that, in the face of "ultimate truth," we need to throw away the myth.

Don't overthink it.

But hey, while we are getting all thinky-thinky intellectual about it, there is a concept from literature which ties it all together. It is the willing suspension of disbelief.

Enjoy it