Soundstage challenge

[Barbapapa]

Tom Jones 'Praise and Blame (as mentioned by JonathanRD Friday 16:18) indeed sounds to me like he described.

Led Zeppelin "No Quarter" (mentioned by insider9, Friday 17:09): starts with synthetic sounds to the left, then bass notes in the center, and later drum slightly right of center, distorted guitar left of center.

Other tracks:

"Tin Pan Alley" Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Morning" Beck
"Caribbean Blue" Enya
"Export Import" Tosca

(Insider9 Friday 17:49)

Spotify tracks

Tusks, Burn

Twin Caverns, Pyramid: to me sounds bit generic trance-like music, with sounds pulsing from various directions throught the vocals.

Rosemary & Garlic, I come to you: voice seems to be placed clearly in center, but other sounds seem to be stretched over whole background. Some instruments are more clearly placed.

Zola Blood, Leaves: sounds like the recording engineer deliberately moved the strange background instrument to and fro from left to right (like someone making noises with left and right hands after each other).

Sophie Jamieson, I Don't: This sounds like the guitar? at the start is coming from two sides simultaneously, like mirrored instruments.

Sophie Jamieson, The Weight comes

(Electro, Sat 14:05)

The Doors, Crawling King snake: all instruments sound clearly placed. Interesting, this is the classic way of soundstage that I remember as being common: it seems like you really have the band lined up before you. Nowadays sounds seem more like in the examples of Electro, which on consideration appears more processed/unnatural (which is not bad in itself, just different).

(Grim Harry, Sat 18:32)

Jeff Beck, Shape of Things

(Vladimir, Sat 19:01)

I'm quite sceptical as regards extravagant claims about the soundstage, but I must admit that the different tracks show some differences. Fun exercise.

 

[Barbapapa]

Personally I'm more a classical music fan. For testing soundstage I'd listen, for example, to:

- Bach, Brandenburg concerto's, such as no 5, first movement, or no 4, first movement. I've got the Dunedin Consort (Linn recording)

- Vivaldi, L'Estro Armonico, concerto no. 11 for 2 violins and cello

- Mozart, Symphony no 40, 4th movement.

- Mendelssohn, Octet

- Mendelssohn, Scherzo from A midsummer night's dream. NativDSD has some DSD test files for free for members.

- Brahms, String sextet no 1. Such as the recent recording of Renaud Capucon and others.

 

[nopiano]

Personally I'm more a classical music fan. For testing soundstage I'd listen, for example, to:

- Bach, Brandenburg concerto's, such as no 5, first movement, or no 4, first movement. I've got the Dunedin Consort (Linn recording)

- Vivaldi, L'Estro Armonico, concerto no. 11 for 2 violins and cello

- Mozart, Symphony no 40, 4th movement.

- Mendelssohn, Octet

- Mendelssohn, Scherzo from A midsummer night's dream. NativDSD has some DSD test files for free for members.

- Brahms, String sextet no 1. Such as the recent recording of Renaud Capucon and others.

Me too, and the benefit is that you can hear small forces like quartets and sextets almost anywhere - churches, recital rooms, concert halls - very close to the recording layout. 'Pop' music is created by the mixing, not trying to reproduce anything vaguely natural but create a mix from separate tracks. Therefore you have something to judge your hi-fidelity against, rather than whether or not you like it!

 

[Vladimir]

Personally I'm more a classical music fan. For testing soundstage I'd listen, for example, to:

- Bach, Brandenburg concerto's, such as no 5, first movement, or no 4, first movement. I've got the Dunedin Consort (Linn recording)

- Vivaldi, L'Estro Armonico, concerto no. 11 for 2 violins and cello

- Mozart, Symphony no 40, 4th movement.

- Mendelssohn, Octet

- Mendelssohn, Scherzo from A midsummer night's dream. NativDSD has some DSD test files for free for members.

- Brahms, String sextet no 1. Such as the recent recording of Renaud Capucon and others.

Me too, and the benefit is that you can hear small forces like quartets and sextets almost anywhere - churches, recital rooms, concert halls - very close to the recording layout. 'Pop' music is created by the mixing, not trying to reproduce anything vaguely natural but create a mix from separate tracks. Therefore you have something to judge your hi-fidelity against, rather than whether or not you like it!

It's so overproduced it's practically as artificial as techno music. Rarely anything that was proper hi-fi standard applies to music today. A lot of audiophile terms we inherited from the era of tubes, voice of the theater speakers, windup gramophones with huge horns and artists that can actually sing and play instruments, and when the industry's challenge was recreating natural sonics with machines, today are meaningless. Looking for a soundstage with accurate instrument locations in Dire Straits is a pointless excercise. Even more today with sound engineering done through a DAW station.

What matters today is what's the 'bass' like (in the outmost generic sence of the word 'bass') and what are the 'highs'. Music is made as a background distraction to listen to while you are doing three or four other things in paralell (walking, texting, checking mail, instagram pics). No one sits and just listens for nuances. But that makes sense. What doesn't is listening to the same overproduced overcompressed garbage on proper hifi equipment critically. Like eating burgers on a silver platter and using the fish fork for the fish burger. Yet we do it. I'm doing it right now.

 

[grimharry]

Insider 9

listening to gaucho at the moment must say not bad more late night lights off feel

 

[insider9]

Insider 9

listening to gaucho at the moment must say not bad more late night lights off feel 

 

[jonathanRD]

Money for nothing:

Starting from 2:00: Bass seems to be in the middle, possibly slightly to the left. The distorted guitar is clearly to the left (later on it seems to come from both speakers). Strangely it seems as if the bass is placed lower than the drums, which appear slightly more to the back. This may easily be an illusion, though. The vocals make it harder to distinguish the accompanying instruments. The drums also sound from different places (depending on the drum?).

Excusing my slightly frivolous reply last Friday, I had another listen to Money for Nothing (MfN) and heard similar to Blacksabbath25 and Barbapapa. Personally, I enjoy recordings where the soundstage sounds 'real' - so as above, when suddenly the sound of an instrument seems to come from both speakers, that doesn't sound real to me. For much of what I listen to, the speakers dissappear - sometimes you get an instrument coming from one speaker, but when it comes from both (as it does on MfN) that doesn't sound right. Also on MfN - sometimes the drums sounded as if they were coming from different places, or possibly that I was stood directly infront of the drum kit. Eitherway. again it didn't sound right to me.

 

[Gazzip]

Money for nothing:

Starting from 2:00: Bass seems to be in the middle, possibly slightly to the left. The distorted guitar is clearly to the left (later on it seems to come from both speakers). Strangely it seems as if the bass is placed lower than the drums, which appear slightly more to the back. This may easily be an illusion, though. The vocals make it harder to distinguish the accompanying instruments. The drums also sound from different places (depending on the drum?).

Excusing my slightly frivolous reply last Friday, I had another listen to Money for Nothing (MfN) and heard similar to Blacksabbath25 and Barbapapa. Personally, I enjoy recordings where the soundstage sounds 'real' - so as above, when suddenly the sound of an instrument seems to come from both speakers, that doesn't sound real to me. For much of what I listen to, the speakers dissappear - sometimes you get an instrument coming from one speaker, but when it comes from both (as it does on MfN) that doesn't sound right. Also on MfN - sometimes the drums sounded as if they were coming from different places, or possibly that I was stood directly infront of the drum kit. Eitherway. again it didn't sound right to me.

Dire Straites do like to play with the soundstage. If you want to here percussion and drums coming from different places then have a listen to Telegraph Road from Love Over Gold. They are everywhere!

If I were setting a soundstage challenge to locate instruments in space then I would suggest Fleetwood Mac's The Chain or Big Love.