Audio systems span the range from inexpensive radios and cell phones all the way to very complex, and expensive, hi-fi and home theatre systems set up in dedicated rooms. On one level they all have the same basic function: to enable one or more listeners to hear an audio recording. However, high-end systems are about much more than just producing an intelligible sound from a recording.
There are obvious differences between listening to loudspeakers and headphone listening. However much of what we will discuss applies to both.
A listener’s experience of an audio recording depends on:
- The recording itself
- The sound the audio system produces from that recording
- The sound received by the listener
- How the listener perceives the sound received
The sound the listener receives is itself a combination of:
- The sound produced by the audio system
- The interaction of that sound with the listening room
- Sounds reaching the listener from other sources in the room and outside it
So what we experience is the result of audio component and audio system design and setup, acoustics (how sound behaves in rooms), and psychoacoustics (how humans perceive and interpret the sound they receive). These disciplines are interrelated, but each is in itself complex. It is important to note that sound, a physical phenomenon, is distinct from hearing, the human perception of that phenomenon.
Audio recordings are produced in many different ways. In some cases a recording captures an actual acoustic event. However, many times recordings are crafted in the studio, combining sounds recorded from different sources, places and times to produce the final product. These recordings don’t capture an actual acoustic event. They are a creation of the performers, sound engineers and producers. Whatever the approach used, we can consider that the recording presents an acoustic event, actual or crafted, and has a recording venue, real or virtual. This recording is the starting point, what the audio system is intended to reproduce for the listener.
An ideal high-end audio system and associated listening environment would deliver to the listener the sound captured on the recording. Unfortunately, this is impossible because:
- The audio system cannot reproduce perfectly the sound on the recording. Additionally, the imperfections of the listener’s system are different from those of the studio monitor system used to guide the production of the recording.
- The sound from the audio system interacts with the listening environment in very complex ways. These interactions are not part of the recording. They are also different from the interactions between the monitor system and its environment, which influenced the production decisions.
- Sounds reach the listeners from other sources within the listening environment and outside it. These sounds are also not part of the recording.
Therefore, the sound the listener receives will always be an imperfect version of what was at the recording event. It will also be different from one place to another within the listening environment. Also, these imperfections affect the listener’s perception to different extents, so some require more attention than others.
Based on this, I propose that the goal of a high-end system and its associated environment should be to produce in listeners perceptions as similar as possible to those they would have had at the recorded acoustic event.
This is indeed a challenging goal. It requires that:
- The sound that listeners receive from the audio system and its interaction with the listening environment is as similar as possible to that at the recorded acoustic event.
- The difference between the sound the listeners receive and what they would have received at the recorded event produces the smallest effect possible on the listeners’ perception.
- The perceptual effect of noises from within the listening environment and outside it is minimised.
Many important factors must be considered in selecting and setting up the audio system, including:
- Budget
- Whether the system is for music, movies or both
- The available space
- Domestic considerations for that space, such as other uses and users, and the desired décor
However, a clearly understanding of our goal can guide us to ask the right questions, evaluate proposed solutions, and make the decisions that will lead to fuller enjoyment of our audio recordings.
© Wayne Butcher
Pitfalls of becoming a critical listener. There are dangers inherent in developing critical listening skills.The first is an inability to distinguish between critical listening and listening for pleasure.Once started on the path of critiquing sound quality.It”s all to easy to forget the reason you are involved in audio is because you love music,and to start thinking that every time you hear music,you must have an opinion about whats right and whats wrong with the sound.This is the surest path to a condition known as Audiophila Nervosa.Symptoms include constantly changing equiptment,changing cables for certain music,refusing to listen to great music if it happens to be poorly recorded,and in general listening to the hardware instead of to the music.When for pleasure which should be the vast majority of your listening time forget about the system forget about the critical listening.Draw the line between critical listening and listening for pleasure and know when to cross it and when not to cross it. There is also the danger that your standards of sound quality will rise to such a height that you cannot enjoy music unless it is perfectly reproduced.I get a great deal of pleasure from my car stereo although it is not very high quality reproduction.Do not let being an audiophile interfere with your enjoyment of music of music anytime anywhere.When you can”t control the sound quality lower your expections
While it is true that consumer playback technology has traditionally lagged behind recording technology, I think it may be incorrect to state that “ the sound the listener receives will always be an imperfect version of what was at the recording event.“
In many cases (e.g. mastering rooms), an audiophile system may actually outperform the audio system the record was mixed on, thereby revealing flaws that may not have been apparent to the recording or mix engineer.
I know of one instance where the mix engineer on a Celine Dion record heard it being played back on an audiophile system in the Caribbean, and was mortified to hear an obviously poor edit that he had missed at the time while mixing in a fairly prominent studio in Canada.
I’m aware of another edit on a recent Adele album that is not audible on an average playback system but that can be clearly heard on any passable mid-level to high-end system. And this most likely is as a result of the all too common practice of popular music records being mixed on consumer-grade bookshelf speakers (e.g. Yamaha NS10) in a perhaps mistaken attempt to simulate a typical consumer listening environment.
This is a well thought out, thorough and remarkably concise analysis of the goal of audiophilia and the considerable challenges in pursuing same. Job well done, Wayne.
The sad truth is that sound, sound recording and sound reproduction are all complex phenomena, which are as yet not fully understood. The pleasant truth is that almost any audiophile grade system in almost any room will reproduce music (and movie sound) better than the vast majority of non-audiophile systems.
It behooves any music lover to expose him/herself to any audiophile system s/he has access to. A sense of getting closer to the music will surely ensue. That first taste of richer sound, greater realism, greater detail, higher presence, and stronger emotional involvement will illustrate to the neophyte what we are after. Why we face the pursuit will become evident. The ultimate endpoint of the chase will vary from one audiophile to the next, but the direction is the same: greater musical truth.