Scott wrote:
IME with minimalist recordings or how shall I put it, recordings that
were done using the basic principles of stereo recording and playback
as originally designed by Blumlein himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair
You most definitely will get closer to the sound as heard from the
designated listening position of the original acoustic event the more
you kill the acoustic signature of the playback room. this is how
stereo was designed to work. *Most* playback room colorations work to
destroy the illusion intended to be created by stereo recording and
playback.
With that said there are inherent limitations to stereo recording and
playback and certain colorations can enhance and help compensate for
those inherent limitations. That can include some diffused playback
room reflections in very small doses. As well as other euphonic
colorations from the recording and playback gear itself.
The idea that one can make any kind of reasonable attempt to mimic
the sound field of a live performance of an orchestra with over 100
instruments in a concert hall that is several hundred times larger
than the listening room with an acoustic signature that is so far out
of reach by merely firing some of the speaker output at the walls of
the playback room is absurd. It will never be anything close. some
folks may like that kind of gross coloration but it will never ever
be more accurate than a proper stereo set up in a near dead acoustic
playback room. And since that is what the OP is interested in...
So Mr. Scott, please relate to me the ideal playback system. Outdoors with
two channel? 5 channel? Ambisonics? Loudspeaker binaural?
If none of those, then you are faced with the same problem that I am, coming
as close to the live sound as possible within your playback room. No, you
can't get around the fact that the time between reflections will superimpose
the size of your playback room upon that of the recorded space, but you
cannot solve that by making the sound come from just the speaker locations
either. That just makes it worse.
How is your system set up?
Gary Eickmeier