2. speakers
  3. 1221383247

The focus and air lie

There always have been some kind of fashion in the way a system sounds and since a few years it seems that more and more people are looking for details, air and pinpoint focus / soundstaging.
There's a lot of components, accessories and speakers designed to fill full that demand... Halcro, dCS, Esoteric, Nordost, BW, GamuT are some examples.

This sound does NOT exist in real life, when you're at a concert the sound is full not airy, the soundstage exist of course but it's definitely not as focused as many of the systems you can hear in the hifi shops, it just fill the room.

To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.
It's evident for someone accustomed to unamplified concert that a lot of systems are lean and far from sounding real.

Those systems are also very picky about recordings : good recordings will be ok but everything else will be more difficult...
That's a shame because a hifi system should be able to trasmit music soul even on bad recording.
In 2008 this is a very rare quality.

So why does this happened ?

Did audiophiles stopped to listen unamplified music and lost contact with the real thing ?

Is it easier for shops to sell components that sounds so "detailled and impressive" during their 30mins or 1 hour demo ?
ndeslions

Showing 2 responses by trelja

trelja
3,223 posts
 
HiFi and high-end audio have NEVER, EVER, EVER come close to the sound of live music, and don't seem to be necessarily any closer now.

The point made about soundstaging is particularly relevant; hyperdetail as well. Real, live music has neither of these. Conversely, live music has dynamics and flow that are not produced accurately by ANY high-end audio system I have ever been around.

In my opinion, when it comes to loudspeakers, those that possess the necessary dynamics and instaneous swings in volume, for example, horns, tend to sound far more agressive, brash, and threadbare than real life, while those that can reproduce the proper timber, liquidity, relaxed nature, voluptuousness, or flow such as electrostatics (which often overshoot the mark) are woefully inadequate when it comes to dynamics and being able to reproduce both the suddenness and power of the real thing. Typical cone/dome speakers fall somewhere in the middle of those two, determined mostly by their crossovers and/or their drive units.

Bottom line, perfection does not exist today when it comes to audio. And, it doesn't seem imminent on the horizon, either. So, in the effort to get as close to whatever idea of such exists in our minds, we chase after that which we believe lines up best with that - be it soundstaging, clarity/resolution, timbre, immediacy, liquidity, fullness, dynamics, etc. Sure it's incorrect, and sometimes wildly so, but it's the best we can do for now.
trelja
3,223 posts
 
I also agree with Mrtennis' point about music.

The MUSIC is in your head. As he says, even a clock radio will convey that, and the emotional connection to the piece. That's why although the vast majority of people have a deep relationship to music, they are happy enough with the stereo in their cars, those glorified boomboxes that are passed off as systems today, or going to a concert in a club or stadium where the sound is abysmal.

We are the lunatic fringe who demand to get as close as humanly possible through electronics because of our passion, stupidity, etc.
More to discover