Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio and the Milllennials . . .

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
> Let me cite one instance, an opera singer, Alessandro Bonci, who was 
> considered in their day to be a worthy alternative to Enrico Caruso. I 
> never 'got' Bonci; all of the recordings I had heard showed a rather 
> reedy and relatively light voice in no way comparable with Caruso's. 
> Then I heard a track on a Nimbus Prima Voce - the one with room 
> resonance in their Ambisonic sound. Suddenly, this was indeed a singer 
> to reckon with.
> 
> Now, most Ambisonic recordings are disasters. The idea of adding another 
> room reverberation to the listening experience cannot help. Except that 
> in some instances, including this one, it does. I'm not enough of an 
> acoustician to understand either what is 'wrong' with conventional 
> transfers or why this and a few other sides prove good, but that's what 
> my ears tell me.
> 
I would guess that the echo (aka "room ambience" here...) just happened
to be exactly identical to what it would have been had the original
been recorded in a "live" (acoustically!) setting. Actually all the
record companies seemed to treat ANY reverberation in their "recording
studios" as an EVIL intruder...plastering walls, etc. with tons of
padding. I always use the Waring's Pennsylvanians Victor recording
of "Freshie" as my example; for whatever reason, it was recorded in an
acoustically live setting which provided considerable reverberation.
As a result, the recording has an "almost stereo" sound to it...!

Keep in mind that our human ears/mind system EXPECTS to hear echo...
in fact, uses it to assist in figuring out "where the bear is!" If
our prehistoric ancestors could correctly establish that fact...they
had the bear for dinner. If they couldn't, the bear had THEM...! So,
evolution (don't tell Dubya I mentioned this, eh...?!) weeded out
those less skilled at "echolocation" in favour of those with that
vital talent. This means that the echo-less sound which the Victor
Talking Machine Company strove to provide had/has an unnatural sound
to it...and on that rare side with echo present, we hear a sound that
"makes sense" to our brains...!

However, artificially-created "fake echo" often has a sound which
our brains can't make any sense of...one that sonically places
sources where they could NOT have possibly been. Still, in most
cases, BAD echo is preferable to NO echo (an impossible condition
in real [human] life...!)...which is why, in my youth-hood, there
existed an accessory meant for (totally "mono") automobile radios...
which used a spring to simulate echo. In fact, c.1960 Popular
Electronics featured an article which explained how to build
such a device using a screen-door spring (wonder if that has ever
been placed on the Web...?!).

In a "best case scenario" (apparently what happened on the decribed
reissue...?!) the artificial echo/reverb has both delay time and
level similar to the real thing. In a "worst case..." one or both
are so far from reality that our brains refuse to be fooled again...!

Steven C. Barr