RE: Gould's CBC recordings

[Bengt Christensson <Bengt.Christensson@axis.com>]

	>I'm afraid I disagree with Ingvar. To me, the whole purpose of CDs
and 
	>LPs and other recording media is to give the listener the illusion
that 
	>he or she is in the room or hall where the recording took place.
Anything 
	>that destroys that illusion is to be avoided. 

If we want illusion, (and I agree with Bruce), then new recording techniques
need to address the big sound-messer-up-ers of the recording room ->
microphones -> speakers -> listening room interaction. I have had the
privilege to listen to a Canton speaker in Germany that had an adaptive
digital processor attached to it that could correct frequency and phase
responses pretty accurately. The effect was amazing, on the "right" CDs and
LPs, that is. Recordings that had added "extras" in terms of echoes etc
sounded synthetically bigger-than-life or just confusing. Although this was
a standard stereo setup (which _cannot_ reproduce a 1:1 illusion), the
effect was impressive.

I talked to one of the engineers who was involved in the programming, and he
had ideas about equipping every person in the room with an infrared
identifier to let the system adaptively change the sound according to where
you were. This would allow you to "walk/dance around" in the listening room.
This technique though, requires that much more information about the
recording room is provided to the system than is the case today, such as
transfer functions, location of microphones, etc.  They also estimated that
the pure computer power needed wouldn't be available until at least 3 years
from now.
Next steps would probably involve holographic images of the performers... (I
whish more people took the time to go to live concerts :-)) 

These engineers saw the that next big challenge in recording techniques was
to define new standard that would provide more recording room information,
that a high-powered digital system could make good use of. The so-called
surround systems (DTS, Digital Dolby, etc) of today are doing some of this,
but at a level of sophistication that makes this technique more suitable for
action movies than a string quartet.

Anyway, for a technology enthusiast as myself, I find these ideas very
intriguing.

I believe that recording techniques will need to take this kind of equipment
more and more into account, and get back to the basics of recording the
"naked" sound and to build sound stages that are "compatible" with higher
fidelity sound systems. Too many of today's' recordings try to make up for
deficiencies in the playback chain.

One idea I have is to have a web site that allowed you to type in your room
- speaker characteristics, recording room parameters, provide the CD data
and, in return, you will get a number crunched version back to burn. Let's
hope the prices on digital processors will go down...

/Bengt Christensson
Axis Comminations, Inc.
Mountain View, CA