May 2026

The Ultimate Goal Of High-Fidelity Audio
Getting closer to the live music performance.
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  We are getting ever closer to the goal of ultimate fidelity; where a recording and the live sound are so close to one another that they are functionally identical. However, I experienced a couple of live events recently, and that demonstrated how far we still have to go.

I know of at least five members of the UK audio industry who attended the 2026 Teenage Cancer Trust (you can donate here: teenagecancertrust.org) concerts staged at the Royal Albert Hall. Those who think 'RAH' and assume 'classical music'... these were gigs by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Mogwai. They were handing out ear defenders at the door (I brought my own). Regardless, even with enough ear defence that my hearing remained resolutely undamaged, the visceral experience of standing in front of one of these post-rock and shoegazy bands playing at mind-numbingly powerful levels is something that's almost impossible to replicate in the home.

Good ear defence notwithstanding, Mogwai made my teeth go deaf for a few days. That is not a live, unamplified event; it's a live event with all the amplifiers. Think of that scene from Oppenheimer, but with sound instead of a nuclear bomb. While no one would want that kind of piledriver sound regularly, it remains elusive in the home.

At the other end of the scale, I saw a friend's son, Alexander Ashman-Hogan, play live and unamplified a few months ago. Just him and his guitar, in a small venue. Small enough that it didn't even need sound reinforcement (it was the back room of a pub), and... well, we're still a long way from the real thing. Yes, we get ever closer, but if we are taking that path up the mountain, we've barely made it to base camp.

Strangely, what many cite as the main reason for choosing a good audio system is one of the least important in a live environment; soundstaging. In audio systems, we often strive for pin-point, holographic placement of instruments within a three-dimensional space. When done properly, the speakers disappear; close your eyes and you are transported to the space where the recording took place. Except that, in that space, you don't tend to be too fussed about placement of instruments within a soundstage. In both live events described above, there was little or no imaging information to be had, but I knew instinctively that I was at a live event. Even sound reinforcement doesn't detract from that sense of a live performance.

I don't think our love of imaging is 'barking up the wrong tree', but I think maybe the secret to getting a little closer to the live event lies elsewhere. It seems as if dynamic range and temporal information might hold the key just as much as staging and detail do.

Alan Sircom, Editor hi-fi+

Subscribe To Hi-Fi+
Click here to subscribe to hi-fi+ magazine.