Laid Back Speakers amps, players etc

Eweedhome, I should clarify that I do not regard a laid back presentation as a coloration, rather it is a lack of artificial coloration such that you can easily listen to it all day and night and you always want to play it some more.

Some speakers: Audiokinesis, Classic Audio Reproductions, Sound Lab, Quad, Ocellia, Tonian Labs, Coincident Technology, High Emotion Audio, Tannoy, JM Labs, Vandersteen, Audio Mechanica, Avalon, to name a few.

'Laid Back' to me refers to a lack of artificial brightness, a lack of added odd-ordered harmonics, IOW the system has no loudness artifacts and will play in an effortless and authoritative way without generating the desire to turn it down. Laid back is where your SO asks you to play more tunes rather than to turn it off.

Laid back is essential if you actually listen to your system and expect it to do what it should do for the thousands of dollars that you have invested: draw you in to the music.

Hmmmm, I equate 'laid back' with 'relaxed', 'easy', 'non-fatiguing'... so to have a meaningful conversation the difference in meaning attached to the phrase would have to be overcome first.

To me, 'laid back' has nothing to do with a lack of highs or speed. It has to do with a lack of artificially-generated loudness cues that the human ear perceives as brightness. How you would differentiate this from a tilted up tonal anomaly is that 'laid back' measures flat on the bench and the tonal anomaly does not.

Thus, 'laid back' is a lack of coloration of the odd-ordered harmonic type (you could listen to a laid back system, get the full range of frequencies, and not be oppressed by the volume, with no sense of having to turn it down). I often perceive transistor amplifiers as not being very 'laid back'; not very relaxed.

So- if this is not an acceptable meaning for this phrase, then we need to sort out what this thread is about, right?

I have never associated the term 'laid back' to have *anything* to do with perspective, i.e. the ability to reproduce the correct sound stage width and depth.

I would argue that all natural music is 'laid back' as it is absent of artificial loudness cues that cause listener fatigue.

So it appears to me that MrTennis has a very different meaning for the phrase! In fact it seems that there are at least three definitions being used interchangeably:

1) mine, I won't repeat it
2) a tonal coloration
3) a perspective distortion! -opposite of 'forward' as in: in-your-face presentation, a lack of depth.

So- how to proceed? Perhaps Argyro could comment, as it is he that started this thread? Or- can we agree to identify how the term is being used?

MrTennis, I don't agree that we should just settle for a coloration giving that nothing is perfect. IMO we should still try to get as close as we can to the ideal. Did I misinterpret your comment?

Mrtennis, I would be hesitant in this case to take the face value of the phrase for its actual meaning; if you think of someone who has a laid back demeanor I think you get a better idea of what I am talking about.

As to your question, we avoid coloration by avoiding synergistic effects. None of our gear is built to synergize with another piece, be it one of ours or someone else's. IOW there is no voicing of any kind. We don't have to worry about the effects of a transformer, so it comes down to the quality of the coupling caps, how many stages of gain (one), that sort of thing.

Being able to compare against master tapes helps.

Getting rid of negative feedback turned out to be a fairly easy way to get 'laid back' sound (in this case, my meaning for the term, see previous posts) without sacrificing bandwidth. That **does** mean that certain speakers just will not work with our stuff; turns out there's a set of rules about how to predict that- see

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html