Silky and soft highs: product of coloration?

03-30-08: Dazzdax said:
"Jaybo, you mean the other way around? Grainy violins that turn silky smooth through amplifier? Either way, violins in real life do have a certain graininess and texture but also bloom and airiness, which are altogether difficult to reproduce."

If recorded at close range, violins SHOULD sound grainy. A crummy, inaccurate amp might make them sound "silky" but a truly great amp will make them sound like violins at close range.

Really great amps, like Jeff Rowland Design Group's, don't alter the sound to soften it. Softening is NOT a characteristic of a fine amp.

The recording engineer will more often than not soften the string sound by setting the mics far enough away so that they sound silky. The character of violin sound tends to soften as you move away.

Dave

A great system (not only the amp) can deliver highs with delicacy and richness with well recorded performances. The system is only as good as it's weakest link, so if your sources suck then no amp or preamp can rescue the signal.

Lack of glare, congestion and harshness are hallmarks of a fine system. Put a marginal speaker cable into an otherwise excellent system and you'll hear the glare and congestion.

If you hear delicate details, like fingers on strings, vocal overtones, natural sibilants and no harshness or glare, then you've got a high performance system. If the details are absent or rolled off, then you've got a system that trying to euphonically compensate by softening the highs artificially.

Listen for details and delicacy. Can you hear a bass note's fundemental separately from it's overtones. Can you hear "air" around the bass strings and the woody sound of the bass's body. With nylon-string guitar can you hear the ends of the fingers on the strings and can you tell if the player is using a lot of nail or a little?

Dave

Dave

I play with professional orchestras occasionally as a sub and I'll say that MOST instruments sound edgy up close. Classical instruments are meant to be heard from the middle of the orchesta section of the auditorium, not 10-feet away. From the listeners' perspectives they'll generally sound "silky" and smooth.

OTOH, very few studio recordings sound natural. Trumpeters use the proximity effect of the mics to make their solos sound warmer, engineers add reverb and select mics with euphonic sounds for each instrument. I often record myself on trumpet to hear what's actually going on in front of the horn. Without proximity effect, reverb or EQ, it's very "raw". I love that sound, but it's not what you get in most recordings.

Dave

I'm with Reb, the weakest link in the chain defines the whole chain.

Also, some speakers are VERY amplifier dependent. The bass on some speakers (like DALI and Vienna Acoustic) can sound totally unacceptable with an amp that can't control the woofers, but with a good match they're magic sounding.

Also, just because an amp is very high quality doesn't mean it'll work equally well with all speakers. There needs to be a synergistic match all the way up and down the line, but particularly between the speakers and amp.

Dave

04-05-08: Sogood51 said:
"Reb1208, and Dcstep

Do you guys have $25,000-$50,000 amplifiers?...(" best of the megabuck power amps").....if not, and it looks like, you do not?"

Huh, why would you think that? I've got a $7000 amp that I bought used for considerably less. I'll probably buy the Jeff Rowland intergrated when it comes out, or either a Capri per with 501 mono-blocks.

I can't understand why someone would pay that kind of money for an amp. My violins and trumpets are all sounding mighty fine as is?

BTW, I played trumpet in an orchestra this week (three performances) including a wonderful viola concerto. The soloist was a dynamite young student artist. Alas, I was sitting twenty-feet in back of her, but, once again, my understanding of how strings really sound was reinforced and confirmed.

Dave

04-07-08: Atmasphere said:
"IME it is very useful to bring a musician into your listening room and have them play. If you can, record them playing. **Then** compare that to what your stereo sounds like! Then it is possible to create an idea of how your system really performs..."

I agree in general, BUT this must be done very carefully. First, you must realize that the recording chain is every bit as sensitive as the playback chain. Also realize that almost all mics add coloration.

Ok, so you've got the most incredible recording chain possible and a virtuoso comes to your house and stands between your speakers and plays as you record, but don't amplify. When you play back the image can't possibly match the point-source of the actual instrument. So, it's best to play the feed through the speakers so that you'll hear the same perspective on playback, unfortunately that adds the coloration of the playback system to what you hear.

IME it's best to let the musician play without going through the speakers and then focus almost entirely on timbre on playback. This is still tough because of mic proximity effects and the coloration of the recording chain, particularly the mics. Placement of the mics is tough also.

So, this is MUCH easier said than done.

Hearing live acoustic instruments often, from a variety of perspectives is as good or better, IMHO. The real vs. Memorex thing can be pulled off, but it's not casually done.

Dave