Abstract
To improve the experience of listening to reproduced audio, it is beneficial to determine the differences between listening to a live performance and a recording. An experiment was performed in which three live performances (a jazz duet, a jazz-rock quintet, and a brass quintet) were captured and simultaneously replayed over a nine-channel with-height surround sound system. Experienced and inexperienced listeners moved freely between the live performance and the reproduction and described the difference in listening experience. In subsequent group discussions, the experienced listeners produced twenty-nine categories using some terms that are not commonly found in the current spatial audio literature. The inexperienced listeners produced five categories that overlapped with the experienced group terms but that were not as detailed.