live music versus hi-fi
Dear audiophile, far be it from me to be contentious, but ... I have to touch on a sore spot!
In my professional life, I have met a consistent number of audiophiles with crazily expensive systems. Can you believe that the large majority of them have never set foot in a concert hall?
Even worse, the same applies to the owners (and sales assistants) of hi-fi stores that have reached the status of “hi-end temples,” as well as to the reviewers in hi-fi magazines!
This scenario is particularly grave because retailers and reviewers can heavily influence the minds of their naïve customers or readers.
Throughout my 50 years of experience in this field, I can state that, with few exceptions, sonic and technical ignorance is a common reality among insiders of the hi-fi world, including the high-end sector, as well as among the audiophiles, who lack the basics to properly evaluate the items they have bought or are considering buying.
Generally speaking, if all the above-mentioned categories (hi-end “gurus”, reviewers and audiophiles) attended concerts, they could achieve a better understanding of music and its live sound. In particular, audiophiles would become less susceptible to the “succulent baits” presented by the other two categories. In turn, these “gurus” and reviewers, if acting in good faith, could finally provide an overdue, serious and useful service to their customers and readers.
However, to be honest, I have to say that while being a regular concertgoer is surely enjoyable and essential for developing a better culture in music and sound, it's not enough to judge the sonic accuracy of a hi-fi system unequivocally. Why? Simply because you don’t know anything about the specific real sound contained within any CDs (or LPs, for the "nostalgics") you are going to use to judge, for example, two speakers.
It’s a fact that without knowing the peculiar timbre of the instruments, the venue’s acoustics, the recording technique, the placement of the microphones and the manipulations of the master, with the possible addition of sonic effects and compression, you risk misjudging a good system as bad, and vice versa.
For example, if you play a sharp and harsh CD on a very “soft” and “slow” system (which I call “funeral systems”), the resulting sound might appear almost “acceptable”. You might then conclude that the system is good, but this isn’t true. The “acceptable" sound is the result of two opposite flaws self-compensating each other. In reality, you’re playing a terrible CD on a terrible system! Now, if you play a CD with a perfect recording (good luck finding one) on the same “funeral system,” the result will obviously be… a “funeral”. You’ll then say that the same system isn’t good. Furthermore, bad sound can also come from the combination of a perfect system with an awful CD, and so on.
In light of these incontrovertible facts, I hope you start realising that all the reviews, the opinions of esoteric “gurus”, and even your judgments are based on nothing certain! The puzzling reality is that these individuals, the modern-day Pythias of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, claim to provide solutions to problems posed with unknown data! So, by blindly trusting reviewers and “gurus”, you risk “investing” a lot of money in a sandcastle!
Now you probably agree with me that the only way to correctly evaluate a system (or just a single component) is to use a sound source whose original sound is known. But, how can you get hold of a known source of music? If you are based in Auckland or its surroundings, it’s simple: come to the concerts of Bach Musica New Zealand and later buy the CD of the concert you attended! I make live recordings of these concerts, and I assure you that the resulting CDs are a real reference. They are totally genuine (inclusive of coughs, various noises, and air conditioning too!), in phase, and free from any electronic manipulations or effects. Plus, depending on the musical piece, they can feature a dynamic range of 80 dB!
A further benefit of buying these CDs is that you will eventually realise that “digital” is an astonishing medium and not harsh at all! Furthermore, these CDs include perfect recordings of the audience’s applause, and clapping is one of the most taxing and complex things you could feed to a hi-fi system. Clapping encompasses an incredibly large frequency range (infra-bass aside, unless the clapping audience starts stamping their feet too), plus lightning speed and dynamics: every single clap is a small explosion! For these reasons, a perfectly recorded clapping is one of the most useful things you can use (I might even say, more than the music itself) to evaluate a hi-fi system! A system that, when playing one of my CDs, sustains perfect, crisp, clean, and natural clapping, has got all its “documents” in order to accurately reproduce music too. But if the clapping doesn’t sound real and alive (too smooth, homogeneous, not crisp enough, and sometimes a bit confused and nasal too), the system has got NO chance at all of playing back music appropriately. You may believe it or not, but that’s out of the question!
Attending a Bach Musica NZ concert allows you to memorize the sound. Later, when playing the CD through different systems in some “hi-end temple”, you will have a trustworthy reference to evaluate them accurately. You can also use this CD to judge your system, and I hope you won’t get any shocking news. My best wishes!
To understand the uniqueness of the sound and quality of these CDs, please visit the live recording page and, to know more about their sale, click here.
I’d also like to add that the Bach Musica NZ orchestra, its chorus, and the conductor Rita Paczian are of very high calibre! In the beautiful setting of the Concert Hall at Auckland’s Town Hall, they usually perform Baroque music, but sometimes bring us concerts of Kiwi contemporary composers, as well as world and NZ premieres.
If you are interested in joining the Bach Musica “family", you are welcome! To learn more about this orchestra and its conductor Rita Paczian, please visit their website, by clicking here. To finish, have a look at the 2024 program! The ticket prices are extremely reasonable, but you could also consider subscribing for the whole Season, to enjoy even more affordable rates.
Below, a few shots of Bach Musica New Zealand, performing in the Concert Hall and in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Auckland.
