Transparency and the two types of speakers
Over my many years in this hobby, I have bounced back and forth between two broad types of sound from speakers. The first type has a great deal of transparency, by which I mean they are very revealing of what comes before them (equipment, recording quality). This is not everyone's definition of transparency, but it's mine, at least for this topic. I used Quad 57's for many years and have owned Thiels and speakers from Green Mountain, all of which possess this quality. Clarity and focus and detail generally go along with this form of transparency. I'm drawn to these qualiities, and I certainly appreciate them when I evaluate components and cables.
I'm also drawn to a different type of speaker, one that creates beautiful sound but is not as transparent to what comes before it. In the past few years, this would include speakers from ProAc and Harbeth. It would also include the Dynaudio Focus 140's I put in my system yesterday, which was the catalyst for starting this thread. The Dynaudios had been in my video system since I got them, replacing the GMA Europas, which I inserted into the main music system in place of my Harbeths. I was aware that the Dynaudios sounded warmer and less focused in the video system than the Euopas had (and boy, they took forever to break in), but this difference was nonetheless quite striking when I put the Dyn's in the music system yesterday. These Dynaudios do not sound like what I recall of the higher-end Dynaudio speakers of the past few years, which have always impressed me as being exceptionally neutral and possessing a fair bit of the transparency I talked about above. The 140s are instead very warm and everything sounds seductively beautiful (in a convincing, musical way) through them. But they have less of the focus, clarity and transparency. I love listening to them and expect they'll stay in the system for a while until I start craving transparency again, which I surely will.
Before you start telling me which speakers I should try in order to get the best of both worlds, let me say that my primary interest in starting this topic was not to ask for advice but to have a conversation about this tradeoff with like-minded audiophiles: is it just me, or is this a tradeoff that others of you are aware of and struggle with?
It's a bit of a review cliche to say, "If I were an ordinary audiophle and music lover, I would opt for [such and such], but as a reviewer, I need a component that is more revealing of associated equipment and... blah blah." But that is the dilemma. I want the former sometimes and the later other times.
By the way, the speakers I am currently using that I mentioned above are not commensurate with the rest of my system in terms of price level and probably quality, and I know this. Right now, I prefer to play with small, relatively inexpensive over-achievers (with a sub) while I figure out where to go next.
