Crossover Capacitors for Accuton Tweeters - Solen -> ClarityCap -> Jupiter -> Duelund

Hello Raul,
I appreciate your last post and the clarification of your stance. I do not disagree with anything that you have just written. My only point was This topic/area is by default purely subjective. Each one of us will pursue what we think sounds right/best based on our respective perspectives.

Sweet and smooth is  not part of your music listening vocabulary and I can respect that as it is simply based on “Your” Live music listening experiences. Ironically sweet and smooth are characteristics I immediately notice in the presence of live musicians playing un-amplified instruments. As you note it's quite possible that these terms have different connotations to us individually. 

You and I are just an example of two music lovers with extensive exposure to live music who perceive things differently. I appreciate your contributions to this site.
Sincerely,
Charles

"enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS."  Friends, Raul has said a lot with that statement.  

Forgive me, but I've been down an epistemological rabbit hole for the last couple of years with respect to in home reproduction of music.    So I am going to challenge what might seem like an indisputable maxim.   Now mind you, I replaced my dearly beloved 300B Frankensteins with my equally beloved Atma-Sphere M-60's, precisely because the Franks, in my system and room, were driven to OBJECTIONABLE levels of distortion.  It would seem clear, would it not, that I would accept Raul's premise?  Sorry.  I have to ask, "What is wrong with enjoying distortions?"   If a 300B amp delivers an engaging listening experience with 3-4% 2nd harmonic distortion, so what?   What is wrong with that?  Does a 300B with all of its glorious midrange bloom deliver a typical live venue experience?  I would answer that question no, but clearly others would answer that with an emphatic yes!  I don't frequent the same venues as Charles, and those venues with which I have experience don't even deliver a consistent voice.  Charles isn't objectively wrong or right to prefer his Franks over other amps he has tried.  Cal3713 isn't objectively wrong or right to prefer the Duelunds over something else.   The have gotten what they sought from the choices they made.  That means they made good choices.

I'm not so sure that accurate reproduction of a live venue is even the desirable target.  I once heard Isaac Stern performing a work in a venue that was dead.  Somehow, he managed to emulate the death cry of a tortured cat with his violin.   I would not be interested in reproducing that performance in my listening room. 

We all listen critically to music for a reason, but I suspect we do not all listen to music for the same reason.  In fact, I as an individual listener don't always listen for the same reason.  Sometimes, I want Beethoven.  Sometimes I want Chopin or Schubert.  Sometimes, most of the time actually, I want Bach.  Why?  I won't take the time to provide the answer.  If you know the music, you understand my point. 

There is a place for first principle knowledge, and there is a place for experientially (or experimentally) gained knowledge, and there are different types of experiential knowledge.   Those who achieve their goals have usually done so by balancing the science and the esthetic elements. 

Sorry for the rant.  Too much intolerance of intellectual diversity has become the norm.  

Hi Bill,
I like your "rants" they’re grounded in logic and stimulate thought. Given the gist of Raul’s 2nd post I believe he’d agree with you. No room, system or component is without fault and we as listeners choose and live with our accepted/inevitable compromises. A couple of years ago I heard jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove perform at a local jazz club. My table was at the very front of the stage. I could have reached out and touched his horn. While playing some ballads with his fugelhorn the tone was  utterly full, warm and saturated with beautiful richness. Just sheer beauty. This is what I hear, I can’t speak for what others may hear. In my humble opinion many components strip away this very real warmth and harmonic richness in the chase for so called accuracy and detail.

A live vibraphone, tenor saxophone or cello for example are just undeniably rich and tull of color and richness in my live listening experiences. It seems in current High End audio these qualities are to be shunned and have taken on a negative connotation. This mindset doesn’t work for me. For me a good 300b amp doesn’t add color, it preserves it.
Charles

This thread took an interesting turn... always good to hear everyone's opinions.

Dear @brownsfan  : """  What is wrong with enjoying distortions? """

in reality are not the distortion it self but the kind of those distortions and its higher or lower levels.

Distortions levels is what defines/makes differences in the quality level performance of any room/audio system.

All room/audio systems have inherent distortion levels, so always exist trade-offs and in each one of us systems we already choosed our self " best " trade-offs that put us nearer to our targets. Nothing is perfect.

"""  those venues with which I have experience don't even deliver a consistent voice  ""

agree. Everything in a venue could change each one of us perceptions of what we are listening, even attended in the same seat position. Things are that the  people that attend to the venue  the same day as us is not not only exactly the same number/popullation but their seated distribution is not always the same and certainly not always people go with the same kind/fabric of clothes and all those has influence in what we listening there. But even musician/players are not seated exactly the same each session after sessions and many times they don't have the same day by day " mood "
. Even room temperature could be not the same and temperature has its own influence in the instruments voice.
Normally the venues has an overall "signature "  that depending on those and other surrounded characteristics shows some kind of little " deviations " from the overall venue signature.

How can we enjoy MUSIC and not DISTORTIONS?  well we can't avoid several kind of room/system distortions and the best we can approach is to put at minimum those distortions and to achieve that we have to be aware/identify those distortions and this is extremely difficult and as difficult too is to be sure from where is developed that distortion.

Nothing is easy in audio when we are looking for " heaven " and this is what makes audio so interesting other that ENJOY THE MUSIC.

R.