What did you do this weekend
- Thread starter Alrainbow
- Start date
Kingrex
Active member
How does the tape sound???
Just superb music. Didn't know beforehand, both musicians are professors of music at local colleges. May be seeing them again!
AJ Soundfield
Well-known member
Good and bad. Because of it's inherent "enhancement", there was more distortion and some kind of "rumble" that gave a "fullness" to the sound.
If you are sitting away (mid-far field) from the musicians like the audience (the mics must be placed nearfield of the instruments), that low frequency spectrum sounds more natural, because of a) the room loading and b) the HF losses due to air/reflected absortion vs distance. So the tape has a sort of auto EQ that is perceptually pleasing. But as you move up the spectrum, you lose detail. The sublty of the instruments is lost, especially the cello as the bow moves across the strings. It's more of a homogenous mush.
The digital OTOH sound more "lean"/"sterile", again, due to the nearfield placement of the mics and lack of LF boost/distortion to "warm" the sound. The mid>HF sounds far more defined, you can hear every subtle variation of the strings, etc.
So there's good/bad with either. Btw, the reason why the mics must be near, is that they don't "hear" the way 2 ears/brain do.