Erik Jälevik wrote:
When reading this debate, however, it strikes me as quite curious that Per-Olof, whose list of favourite records includes almost exclusively electronic stuff, should argue at such length about the importance of "the speakers disappearing" and "hearing the live performance". In the case of your favourite artists, there wouldn't be any music without speakers in the first place! So I don't really understand how you can argue that it sounds more "natural" or more "live", electronic music is artificial by definition and doesn't exist as live music (unless it comes from a pair of speakers)...
Does your argument only concern acoustic music, music that can be played live on non-electronic instruments? If so, it probably makes some sense, but if not, it all seems a bit absurd to me. :)
Not at all :) All music portray some form of soundstage to the listener, even if it's not intentional. There is a sense of "direction" and "spatiality" in any type of music, e.g. from which direction is a certain sound coming from, where is the singer located, and so on. That's what I'm talking about, and no, that is not limited to acoustic music - not at all! Certain electronic music loves a good soundstage. Kraftwerk is one, Nine Inch Nails is definitely another, Tangerine Dream yet another.. Most of them actually :) Granted, with acoustic music, especially live performances, the differences may be much easier to hear, but when you're accustomed to a great soundstage, you just can't live without it. Everything after that sounds "flat" and "dull" - much like your average MP3 file would. (The most noticeable affect of MP3 compression is just that - it totally kills the soundstaging and the sense of depth / space in the recording) Once again, this is the main difference between an "alive" recording and a "dead" one :) Cheers, Peo