什么是好声？

hugoo · Aug 2nd, 2011, 11:35

发烧的同志经常争论系统的好坏，
这种争论经常是鸡同鸭讲，
原因就是，
每个人对“好声”的理解和感悟都不一样

下面这个就是我喜欢的”好声“的定义。。

Dear Steve: This is a tough question for me to ask, but how do you define "good sound"? It seems like all of my most opinionated audiophile buddies' systems sound different. Who's right and who's wrong? I'm new to this and I don't have any idea who's on the right track. Help!

Steve answers: Good sound? You'll know it when you hear it. Yes, there's an intellectual component to analyzing good sound, but the essence of it depends on your emotional response to it. The best stuff, music and/or sound, stirs your soul. When you play a really good recording, and any Chesky release will do, the instruments and vocals should sound natural, as they would in real life. On the best systems you should feel a more direct connection to the musicians. When everything is clicking just right, the sound will draw you in to the degree you might find it difficult to stop listening! Good sound is never boring!

The intellectual part of focused listening refers to concepts like transparency or resolution. Both terms seek to describe a sound that's completely pure; it's as if you could imagine you're not listening to a recording over an audio system, but instead listening to the sound of the original event. The speakers have disappeared and you're hearing the actual instruments. Of course no system, not even the absolute highest-end ones can ever really do that, but as you compare one system, or one speaker against another, you might sense that one is more transparent than the other.

snacktime · Aug 2nd, 2011, 12:53

引用:

作者: hugoo

发烧的同志经常争论系统的好坏，
这种争论经常是鸡同鸭讲，
原因就是，
每个人对“好声”的理解和感悟都不一样

下面这个就是我喜欢的”好声“的定义。。

Dear Steve: This is a tough question for me to ask, but ho...

好文，谢谢。

我觉得先是有感觉，才能有感悟。

就像对那个“人声低音炮”赵鹏，我从第一次到最近一次听，从未有任何好感。实际上，我听他的炮声感觉很折寿。当然不排除有人听他的低吼如浴春风。

vwgolf · Aug 2nd, 2011, 13:58

引用:

作者: snacktime

好文，谢谢。

我觉得先是有感觉，才能有感悟。

就像对那个“人声低音炮”赵鹏，我从第一次到最近一次听，从未有任何好感。实际上，我听他的炮声感觉很折寿。当然不排除有人听他的低吼如浴春风。

同感，不能为低音而低音，把不适合低音表现的歌毁了。

好声音

适合自己的就是最好的。

尽快找到适合自己的，缩短折腾之路。

找到适合自己的，再尝试其他风格也是一种玩法。

hugoo · Aug 2nd, 2011, 16:30

喜欢就好，没有错，
不过我还是更欣赏Chesky的那种求真的态度，回放器材也应该以尽力还原musical truth为目标，虽然这个目标永远无法100%的达到，但这并不应成为放弃努力的借口。。

再转一篇：
http://www.chesky.com/core/body_libr...cfm?newsid=198

Reverberation and Space.

Most pop and jazz recording sessions take place in acoustically damped studios, which are, trust me, unsuitable environments for music listening. That's equally true for the musicians themselves: They're frequently put in separate isolation booths, so the only way they can listen to each other is with headphones. And since they can't hear each other acoustically, they tend to play at one volume, loud. In fact, the studio acoustics are so acoustically dead analog or digital reverberation must be mixed into the recording to create a more lively room sound. The problem is that the added reverberation doesn't sound like a real room.

I am perplexed that so many consumers and reviewers enjoy this sound. Perhaps it is just years of living with pop recordings that this artificially created reverb has become the norm, and that some listeners actually prefer it over the natural reverberation of a real space or concert hall. It seems like most mainstream recordings are made to be listened to over $10 computer speakers. Such is the aesthetic of modern recording, and, perhaps, our whole culture.

At Chesky we have no need for artificial reverb because we always record musicians in great sounding, real acoustic spaces. We prefer the sound of music performed in churches, concert halls, and clubs over the digital artifice generated in the very best studios of the world. But believe it or not, some musicians have to acclimate themselves to our more natural and organic recording style. How did we get to this point?

Today, musicians are so used to recording in acoustically dead studios it takes them a while to get used to a real environment, where they can listen to each other. Whether it is a rock band, a string quartet or jazz group, the most exciting music is created by the interplay of the musicians reacting to each other in real time in a real space. Too bad the vast majority of today's recordings are tracked, and assembled from individually recorded bits and pieces. The rhythm tracks may have been recorded in August, keyboards and guitars in October, and vocals the following January, all this rendering the music less alive, more fabricated. I find that many young musicians use modern studio technologies as a crutch, "Lets overdub it, or fix it in the mix." This makes you lazy. In a real live session you are nervous and you have to focus to give a good performance. At Chesky we always record the entire band and the vocal "live." It keeps you on your toes (I only know too well from my own experience as a player) and makes you focus like never before.

Tonality.

Our entire recording chain features the finest custom vacuum tube microphones, microphone preamps, mixers, and digital converters. We spend as much time as high- end companies do designing, building and testing our gear. All in an effort to produce recordings with accurate tonality our signal path is kept as short as possible. When you hear one of our recordings on a good system you will hear the musicians? nuances and micro dynamics. This is not so with mass market studio recordings where much of that is lost in overprocessing and signal manipulations. If you do not believe me do this experiment at your home. Substitute your high-end equipment with a cheap receiver and see what it does to the music. Now remember this is what most commercial recordings go through in a recording studio. I'll remind owners of the very best high end components, your investment in the best gear can only preserve information, not improve it, and if it is lost in the recording chain you can never recover it. At Chesky we're crafting audiophile recordings for audiophiles.

Why would an audiophile listen to recordings done through the recording consoles that have miles of cables, cheap resistors, capacitors, countless op amps and switches? I am amazed by the double standard that exists in audio magazines. They would never dream of reviewing a hundred dollar receiver, but they have no problem in reviewing a lo-fi recording. Some reviewers even go to the point of calling these CDs their references. Remember, most of these discs were produced with every type of artificial electronic gadget available in a modern recording studio, and have no reference whatsoever to real acoustic spaces. Would a home theater critic use a DVD made from a grainy, out of focus home movie to evaluate a high definition video projector? I don't think so.

Contrast and compare.

We've invested countless hours evaluating microphone capsules and building the most transparent microphone pre amps. We even have a custom made OTL tube mixer that rivals state of the art audio pre amps in transparency. We also do countless listening tests to hear minute differences in analog to digital converters.

The best cables are used just as you would at home to preserve the musical signal. We also spend hours before each session making sure that all the cable connections are cleaned and have the best contact when hooked up to the system. We spend hours upon hours on minute details to improve the recording chain. In high-end audio a little goes a long way.

In the end our goal is to make transparent recordings. We want to give you a clear picture of the event, not one that is colored by equipment or aesthetics.

Imaging and depth.

Imaging is the left to right stereo picture of a musical group. For instance, if we went to hear a live jazz quartet in a club they might be set up like this: starting from the extreme left is the piano, then the bass, the drums are in the middle, and the saxophone is on the right. Together these instruments would be laterally spread across the stereo image.

However, in most pop and jazz recordings there is really no imaging or depth. All instruments and vocalists are individually close mic-ed so what you hear is "multi mono." The mixing engineer pans the instruments into positions in the stereo, (or multichannel surround) image. There are no spaces between the instruments, and absolutely no sense of a continuous left-to-right soundfield; it's more like a series of little dots where the microphones where placed. So you really can never get a true seamless left to right image because all of the mono microphones interfering with each other.

At Chesky we use a single microphone to capture the entire stereo or surround image. You also hear the actual spatial relationships between the instruments. I believe this is the only way to create this illusion at your home: live musicians being picked up by a single point microphone. Our very special microphone features a number of closely spaced capsules that receive sound from a number of directions.

Depth.

In a studio recording there is no depth. The mixing engineer simply puts on reverb to create some illusion of depth. One of the best ways to capture true depth of the original recording event is to use a "single point" microphone.

Imagine the following experiment. Record an orchestra and put a microphone on the first violin, and second microphone on the tuba (which is located all the way in the back of the orchestra). When the two players hit their notes their sounds would arrive at their respective microphones at the same time. The result would sound flat, lacking spatial dimensionality. There goes your illusion of depth. Most of today's orchestral recordings are done with many, many microphones.

Consider a different, more audiophile approach. I have a single point microphone capturing the sound of the close first violin, and the same microphone also captures the tuba located fifty feet away. The resulting time delay between the two instruments arriving at the same microphone documents the spatial relationship of the two instruments. This is how we hear depth in the real world. And that is how we record at Chesky records to capture the depth and space of the musicians. We never overdub instruments or vocals, we record the entire band live. It sounds better, and there's no other way to capture realistic depth and acoustic space. For some reason, the major labels rarely do.

Dynamics.

In many pop and jazz recordings there are no soft to loud dynamics, and the reason for this is simple. Mainstream pop radio relies on dynamically compressed music recordings that seem equally loud all the time. This approach may work well in a disco, but is bound to fail in acoustic music. All acoustic music has dynamics; in fact, its very appeal lies in ever-changing dynamics. Acoustic music gets loud, and it can get really soft as well. When you compress the dynamics you get this punchy sound that is loud all the time. If this is what we really want, I suggest that all young music students forget about pp, and mf markings and just learn fff. Because this is what super compressed commercial world of recoding is all about.

At Chesky we give you the complete dynamic range of the music. Sometimes people complain that the overall volume level of our recordings is lower than commercial recordings. Yes, this is true. The reason is, we need headroom so that when the band does get loud we can capture the full dynamics range of the music - just like in real life. Imagine going to an acoustic music concert and listening to music at the same volume for two hours, one constant level with no dynamics at all. LOUD, LOUD, LOUD!

What we are trying to do at Chesky is to give you the most accurate recording and documentation of a live event. We want to put you as close to the real event as possible. We work toward this goal by using all the techniques mentioned in this article. Trying to achieve this in any other way may be nice, and some people may like it, perhaps even rave about how great it sounds. But the result is not the sonic truth. You may like it, but it is what it is, and no more: it's artificial and fake.

What we are offering is the musical truth. A pure recording, an authentic moment captured in real space and time. I believe that when heard back on a proper high end system capable of resolving musical detail you, the listener, will hear the difference!

Aug 2nd, 2011, 11:35	#1
hugoo Senior Member 注册日期: Jan 2008 帖子: 1,974 积分:11 精华:4	什么是好声？发烧的同志经常争论系统的好坏，这种争论经常是鸡同鸭讲，原因就是，每个人对“好声”的理解和感悟都不一样下面这个就是我喜欢的”好声“的定义。。 Dear Steve: This is a tough question for me to ask, but how do you define "good sound"? It seems like all of my most opinionated audiophile buddies' systems sound different. Who's right and who's wrong? I'm new to this and I don't have any idea who's on the right track. Help! Steve answers: Good sound? You'll know it when you hear it. Yes, there's an intellectual component to analyzing good sound, but the essence of it depends on your emotional response to it. The best stuff, music and/or sound, stirs your soul. When you play a really good recording, and any Chesky release will do, the instruments and vocals should sound natural, as they would in real life. On the best systems you should feel a more direct connection to the musicians. When everything is clicking just right, the sound will draw you in to the degree you might find it difficult to stop listening! Good sound is never boring! The intellectual part of focused listening refers to concepts like transparency or resolution. Both terms seek to describe a sound that's completely pure; it's as if you could imagine you're not listening to a recording over an audio system, but instead listening to the sound of the original event. The speakers have disappeared and you're hearing the actual instruments. Of course no system, not even the absolute highest-end ones can ever really do that, but as you compare one system, or one speaker against another, you might sense that one is more transparent than the other.
	------------------------------- You Cannot Be Serious!

Aug 2nd, 2011, 16:30	只看该作者 #4
hugoo Senior Member 注册日期: Jan 2008 帖子: 1,974 积分:11 精华:4 声望: 1172365	喜欢就好，没有错，不过我还是更欣赏Chesky的那种求真的态度，回放器材也应该以尽力还原musical truth为目标，虽然这个目标永远无法100%的达到，但这并不应成为放弃努力的借口。。再转一篇： http://www.chesky.com/core/body_libr...cfm?newsid=198 Reverberation and Space. Most pop and jazz recording sessions take place in acoustically damped studios, which are, trust me, unsuitable environments for music listening. That's equally true for the musicians themselves: They're frequently put in separate isolation booths, so the only way they can listen to each other is with headphones. And since they can't hear each other acoustically, they tend to play at one volume, loud. In fact, the studio acoustics are so acoustically dead analog or digital reverberation must be mixed into the recording to create a more lively room sound. The problem is that the added reverberation doesn't sound like a real room. I am perplexed that so many consumers and reviewers enjoy this sound. Perhaps it is just years of living with pop recordings that this artificially created reverb has become the norm, and that some listeners actually prefer it over the natural reverberation of a real space or concert hall. It seems like most mainstream recordings are made to be listened to over $10 computer speakers. Such is the aesthetic of modern recording, and, perhaps, our whole culture. At Chesky we have no need for artificial reverb because we always record musicians in great sounding, real acoustic spaces. We prefer the sound of music performed in churches, concert halls, and clubs over the digital artifice generated in the very best studios of the world. But believe it or not, some musicians have to acclimate themselves to our more natural and organic recording style. How did we get to this point? Today, musicians are so used to recording in acoustically dead studios it takes them a while to get used to a real environment, where they can listen to each other. Whether it is a rock band, a string quartet or jazz group, the most exciting music is created by the interplay of the musicians reacting to each other in real time in a real space. Too bad the vast majority of today's recordings are tracked, and assembled from individually recorded bits and pieces. The rhythm tracks may have been recorded in August, keyboards and guitars in October, and vocals the following January, all this rendering the music less alive, more fabricated. I find that many young musicians use modern studio technologies as a crutch, "Lets overdub it, or fix it in the mix." This makes you lazy. In a real live session you are nervous and you have to focus to give a good performance. At Chesky we always record the entire band and the vocal "live." It keeps you on your toes (I only know too well from my own experience as a player) and makes you focus like never before. Tonality. Our entire recording chain features the finest custom vacuum tube microphones, microphone preamps, mixers, and digital converters. We spend as much time as high- end companies do designing, building and testing our gear. All in an effort to produce recordings with accurate tonality our signal path is kept as short as possible. When you hear one of our recordings on a good system you will hear the musicians? nuances and micro dynamics. This is not so with mass market studio recordings where much of that is lost in overprocessing and signal manipulations. If you do not believe me do this experiment at your home. Substitute your high-end equipment with a cheap receiver and see what it does to the music. Now remember this is what most commercial recordings go through in a recording studio. I'll remind owners of the very best high end components, your investment in the best gear can only preserve information, not improve it, and if it is lost in the recording chain you can never recover it. At Chesky we're crafting audiophile recordings for audiophiles. Why would an audiophile listen to recordings done through the recording consoles that have miles of cables, cheap resistors, capacitors, countless op amps and switches? I am amazed by the double standard that exists in audio magazines. They would never dream of reviewing a hundred dollar receiver, but they have no problem in reviewing a lo-fi recording. Some reviewers even go to the point of calling these CDs their references. Remember, most of these discs were produced with every type of artificial electronic gadget available in a modern recording studio, and have no reference whatsoever to real acoustic spaces. Would a home theater critic use a DVD made from a grainy, out of focus home movie to evaluate a high definition video projector? I don't think so. Contrast and compare. We've invested countless hours evaluating microphone capsules and building the most transparent microphone pre amps. We even have a custom made OTL tube mixer that rivals state of the art audio pre amps in transparency. We also do countless listening tests to hear minute differences in analog to digital converters. The best cables are used just as you would at home to preserve the musical signal. We also spend hours before each session making sure that all the cable connections are cleaned and have the best contact when hooked up to the system. We spend hours upon hours on minute details to improve the recording chain. In high-end audio a little goes a long way. In the end our goal is to make transparent recordings. We want to give you a clear picture of the event, not one that is colored by equipment or aesthetics. Imaging and depth. Imaging is the left to right stereo picture of a musical group. For instance, if we went to hear a live jazz quartet in a club they might be set up like this: starting from the extreme left is the piano, then the bass, the drums are in the middle, and the saxophone is on the right. Together these instruments would be laterally spread across the stereo image. However, in most pop and jazz recordings there is really no imaging or depth. All instruments and vocalists are individually close mic-ed so what you hear is "multi mono." The mixing engineer pans the instruments into positions in the stereo, (or multichannel surround) image. There are no spaces between the instruments, and absolutely no sense of a continuous left-to-right soundfield; it's more like a series of little dots where the microphones where placed. So you really can never get a true seamless left to right image because all of the mono microphones interfering with each other. At Chesky we use a single microphone to capture the entire stereo or surround image. You also hear the actual spatial relationships between the instruments. I believe this is the only way to create this illusion at your home: live musicians being picked up by a single point microphone. Our very special microphone features a number of closely spaced capsules that receive sound from a number of directions. Depth. In a studio recording there is no depth. The mixing engineer simply puts on reverb to create some illusion of depth. One of the best ways to capture true depth of the original recording event is to use a "single point" microphone. Imagine the following experiment. Record an orchestra and put a microphone on the first violin, and second microphone on the tuba (which is located all the way in the back of the orchestra). When the two players hit their notes their sounds would arrive at their respective microphones at the same time. The result would sound flat, lacking spatial dimensionality. There goes your illusion of depth. Most of today's orchestral recordings are done with many, many microphones. Consider a different, more audiophile approach. I have a single point microphone capturing the sound of the close first violin, and the same microphone also captures the tuba located fifty feet away. The resulting time delay between the two instruments arriving at the same microphone documents the spatial relationship of the two instruments. This is how we hear depth in the real world. And that is how we record at Chesky records to capture the depth and space of the musicians. We never overdub instruments or vocals, we record the entire band live. It sounds better, and there's no other way to capture realistic depth and acoustic space. For some reason, the major labels rarely do. Dynamics. In many pop and jazz recordings there are no soft to loud dynamics, and the reason for this is simple. Mainstream pop radio relies on dynamically compressed music recordings that seem equally loud all the time. This approach may work well in a disco, but is bound to fail in acoustic music. All acoustic music has dynamics; in fact, its very appeal lies in ever-changing dynamics. Acoustic music gets loud, and it can get really soft as well. When you compress the dynamics you get this punchy sound that is loud all the time. If this is what we really want, I suggest that all young music students forget about pp, and mf markings and just learn fff. Because this is what super compressed commercial world of recoding is all about. At Chesky we give you the complete dynamic range of the music. Sometimes people complain that the overall volume level of our recordings is lower than commercial recordings. Yes, this is true. The reason is, we need headroom so that when the band does get loud we can capture the full dynamics range of the music - just like in real life. Imagine going to an acoustic music concert and listening to music at the same volume for two hours, one constant level with no dynamics at all. LOUD, LOUD, LOUD! What we are trying to do at Chesky is to give you the most accurate recording and documentation of a live event. We want to put you as close to the real event as possible. We work toward this goal by using all the techniques mentioned in this article. Trying to achieve this in any other way may be nice, and some people may like it, perhaps even rave about how great it sounds. But the result is not the sonic truth. You may like it, but it is what it is, and no more: it's artificial and fake. What we are offering is the musical truth. A pure recording, an authentic moment captured in real space and time. I believe that when heard back on a proper high end system capable of resolving musical detail you, the listener, will hear the difference!