It's up to me to interpret but I'd have to agree with you or I'm mis-interpreting (deliberately re-interpreting?) it?!?
At this point, I'm not even sure what YOU think it means. Perhaps you should clarify your precise thoughts so that I can respond accurately.
"Perceived quality"? Isn't that what we get from "hot mastering", "bass boosting", "speaker break-in" and letting people know that they have more expensive cabling?
Perception has everything to do with loudspeakers, which are devices that have to operate within the complex auditory system of humans. It would not be correct to refer to something as measured quality alone - as plenty of things that can be measured are not very audible. For example: lossy audio compression. You can throw out lots of information, and have a signal that does not measure all that well(try compressing an impulse response), but can be pretty much transparent to most people on most music material. So, the actual performance/signal characteristics are designed with the objective of how it will be perceived by the human auditory system; and measured behaviors can directly dictate this by cross correlation with perceptual research.
I thought we were discussing accurate reproduction of the source sound. Bouncing the entire orchestra, and the echoes already made in the recording hall, off your roof, floor, and walls will not make it sound more like it originally did.
You are introducing *new* echoes.
This was already covered. The 'echo' audibility is very small, when it is shorter in time by a substantial degree, compared to the recorded echo/delay/reverb. And this is only relevant to very limited scope, and certain reflections. The primary 1st reflections on the side walls, for example, if kept within the proper time window, are not detected as echoes, only as phantom images, that serve to widen the sound stage and enhance timbre resolution in the recording. The rear signal, also, can be beneficial most of the time, the only real exception being on completely dry recordings(not all that common, but they are around), but you can apply absorption for those recordings if it is important to you. Also, no one is talking about an echoey room. My listening room, which is about 15' wide, 13.5' deep, and 7.5' high, has on the order of 250-400 square feet of acoustical treatment products depending on the application, that are very careful positioned/set up for specific purposes. I do vary the amount often, for specific applications.
A stereo recording of a classical piece in ambient environment will simply sound far more realistic/convincing in the specific situations I have described earlier; this is a function of how human auditory perception functions. No limited dispersion/low reflection point application is going to be as convincing in terms of spatial or timbre characteristics.
Maybe you like them (perceived quality). Certainly if I took a recording of an orchestra made in an anechoic chamber, and then played it in the orchestral pit in a concert hall, it might sound "better" because of the acoustics of the concert hall. It would not, however, sound more accurate to the source material.
The way commercial recordings are now done: there is NOTHING accurate about them. Here is an interesting thing: I have 1st rate monopolar speaker system that I use on my computer. It has resonance levels in both the drivers and cabinet systems, that is far below what is standard even in the high end speaker sector - and the linearity is near perfect (+/- 0.6dB up to 16kHz). It is a fully active digital system - and it has virtually unlimited dynamic ability for practical purposes - using over 1000 RMS per stereo channel of amplification. The surrounding environment is treated to the same degree as you would expect in a pro studio monitoring system - but the speakers by every measurable aspect to perception, are much better than you will normally find in a pro studio. So, here we have a very accurate speaker system in terms of your definition. So it should sound more accurate? But yet, it can't come close to reproducing the spatial details of a classical music recording, and the timbre of the instruments does not sound quite real, either. But I play a high quality classical recording over an omnipolar system of high quality and set up to my specifications and it will sound very similar to a real event - in terms of space and timbre. Perhaps it does not sound
THE original event - but it sounds almost exactly like
A event. So one can make their choice: an 'accurate' play back, that has a constrained space with not-so-real sounding timbre, or a 'less accurate' playback that has immense perceived space and realistic timbre. I don't either way is particularly accurate. I think to get accuracy, entire new standards have to be defined for recording and playback. Look up Tom Hollman and his 10.1 surround format which defines specific recording standards and playback standards to
accurately reproduce large or small scale performances in every sense.
So which are we discussing? Hearing what is recorded or improving the experience at the cost of accuracy?
But the only accuracy which you refer to is the accuracy of the recorded signal, not the accuracy of the recording to the original performance that was recorded, or the accuracy of reproducing it from a perceptual stand point in order to attempt to restore elements lost in the original recording process such as spatial properties.
Also, as I have mentioned, reflections are impossible for most of us to avoid. Given that: control of those reflections is very important, quality of off-axis sound is very important, and those reflections can create the perception of quality.
Yes.
-Chris