1. Home
  2. amps-preamps
  3. 196294-301

Striking a balance between musicality and resolution

As my years and experience in this hobby continue to grow I notice a divergence between those seeking extreme resolution and detail from their music reproduction systems and those in search of maximum musicality.

In theory, high-end audio systems should provide more than garden variety stereo systems. In my view that means more detail and information should be heard from a high-end music reproduction system than one hears from ordinary HiFi stereo systems set ups. BUT is there such thing as too much resolution and detail in a stereo system’s sound presentation?

Some people feel that a less detailed presentation that is easier for your brain to process has better flow and provides more enjoyable listening.

So there is the dichotomy. Should one pay more to hear less? Can a frequency response performance that is curtailed at both frequency extremes be desired and praised?

Those that seek a “more musical” presentation usually point to their belief that that is how they hear live un-amplified acoustic music in the real world. In nature, high frequencies attenuate and decay with distance from the source and sound waves get absorbed, diffracted, reflected, and diffused by the environmental factors and landscapes; so they are not wrong in stating that in the real world the sound of music is less detailed and extended. The issue is that when we listen to our music reproduction systems at home we are not listening to live un-amplified music in a concert venue, but rather professionally produced audio recordings typically recorded with close-microphones techniques.

So the question is, do we want our systems to reproduce the sound on the commercial audio recordings accurately or does one want hear the sound the way one thinks that it should sound?

Lucky for me, I have enough systems at home that I have been able to design, set up, and tune them for different targeted resultant sound, sound presentation, and sound qualities. For instance, my OKTAN6 ultimate horn system is a dissecting microscope, my Pinnacle horn system aims at extreme musicality, and my WAAR reference system is a chameleon, which can be adjusted to sound exactly how you want it to sound in real-time.

My “test-bed” system takes on the sound character and sound qualities of the components in use and it is excellent for evaluating what new components have to offer or bring to the table in terms of sound qualities. But with the Acapella TW-1S ION plasma super-tweeters extending the high frequencies, the TBI Emperor subwoofers extending the low frequencies, and the highly detailed & nuanced Digital Audio Denmark AX24 DSD dac streaming HQPLAYER as the source, the “Test Bed” system is a highly resolving system.

As with everything else in life, is there a happy medium or compromise that gives you the best of those worlds? I believe that there is and that great music reproduction systems can be tuned to strike a balance between musicality and resolution. If one listens to the evolution of my OKTAN6 ultimate horn system for instance you can hear that the fine tuning is driving the sound in that direction.

So during last night’s listening session I adjusted the sound of my “Test Bed” system to a more musical sound presentation. The “Test Bed” system is always in flux so it allows me to experiment, explore, tweak, tune, and have fun with it.

Here is an audio recording from last night’s listening session that captures the revised sound presentation and conveys the sound qualities that exemplify a more organic sound versus a more delineated & resolved sound presentation:
 

The Way It Goes

 

carlos269
toddalin's avatar
toddalin
661 posts
 

@cleeds 

You’ve missed the point.

When I say "Direct Transfer" I am referring to YouTube putting the music directly to their site rather than listening to a recording of it it played back on someone’s stereo trying to reproduce it..., which is all most people ever listen to and then complain that it doesn’t sound natural/real/whatever.  It should sound like the "Direct Transfer" whatever that sounds like.  For example, if the Direct Transfer is thin on bass, and has a midrange peak on your playback system, the subject equipment’s recording should be similarly thin with a similar peak, etc.  Like I said, you really want to use a good sound system for playback, but it need not be the system being demoed in the video.

Sure when YouTube directly transfers the music to their site, they subject it to compression whatnot.

BUT, when you submit a video, it is subject to the same whatnot, so should still sound the same.  If it doesn’t, it’s because it has been changed somewhere along the way, via the room or the equipment (including the recording equipment), and any change is a distortion.

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,737 posts
 

Some of us do have reference recordings made chasing original acoustic events in reverberant space witness real time. A time honored path where the first distortion is microphone choice, quickly followed by placement.  For more removed recordings, I think @lalitk nailed it.

For those seeking insight into an original event w fewer choices but an insane level of insight into what your room and system can do get a ZOOm audios 6 recorder and hire a cello player to visit your listening room. :0

BTW the comment about modern microphones was idiocy…See Royer or AEA or better yet buy and use them…..

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
467 posts
 

@richardbrand I stated that musicality and resolution are inversely proportional. Do you believe that they are directionally proportional? I stated that musicality is a function of resolution and that there are maxima and minima points along their relationship.

You seem to imply that only classical music has a datum. Doesn’t jazz or big band music not also share similar references? The questions is whether aural memory is the only source of that reference or do you have something less ambiguous and fleeting?

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
467 posts
 

@iovi66 Do you stream audio from a streaming service? Do you as an “Audiophile” type put any credence on the streamed music from Tidal or Qobuz? Do you realize that prior to uploading to YouTube the native audio recordings are 24 bit-192KHz recordings of similar qualities as the ones streamed from streaming services? If you can host the native raw WAV audiophile you can share it without uploading to YouTube. Have you ever compared the sound of WAV files of an audio recordings to the uploaded to YouTube version of that same audio recording? What difference in sound quality can you discern? You should go to a local studio if you get a chance and try to compare audio a different bit depth, sample rates, and bit rates so that you can judge for yourself what modern audio CODEC’s are capable of.

iovi66
23 posts
 

hey bud, don't consider myself an "audiophile"....just a person who appreciates quality music reproduction in my home audio system...not an engineer, not technical, although i did work several years in retail and for a high end major manufacturer in middletown CT...so sorry, but not interested in discourse on specifics of anything except what i hear when i listen....so all your discerning points and knowledge while probably erudite and meaningful, are irrelevant to me and with all due respect i don't care to argue any points except one....evaluating any audio experience in any other way than in a specific room, with its inherent acoustic situation, power, cables and components, and most importantly the ability of the listener to discern the differences, which are always unfortunately subject to the human emotional state at the time that varies day to day, is problematic at best when comparing experiences....but please, without driving the car on the road, u have no idea what it drives like, no matter what your computer simulation experiences are...hopefully u get my analogy, if not, sorry, don't want to argue with u, sure you're a nice guy, but no conclusion other than a real listening experience over at least a few different times and experiences can ever result in any meaningful comparative conclusions, so possibly u will have some humility in your somewhat foregone conclusions..again, opinions vary, but after 50 plus years of listening to numerous incarnations of audio and audio for video systems i can't conclude anything else...we have so many armchair quarterbacks online these days pontificating on their so called theories they want to advance that sometimes my hackles get up and i feel obligated to respond....again, u seem knowledgeable and are probably a nice guy, but i'm not going to engage in any ongoing discussions of the specific questions u ask....why?...because i just don't care, i'm only interested in my enjoyment of music when i crank it up, and have no desire any more to listen to equipment and cable differences unless i'm changing ONE variable in my system and need to evaluate the perceived differences...this is all interesting and nice to contemplate, but it all is only discernible in a specific system in a specific room at a specific time and anyone trying to make overall conclusions of anything besides that is problematic at best.....so don't call people out to prove something that is basically subjective and unproveable....that was my only real problem with your thesis here.....everyone has their own threshold of enjoyment and satisfaction, and while there is no right or wrong as if someone enjoys their background music all in one system who am i to tell them different, maybe u could take a leaf out of that book, no offense intended....hope u enjoy your music... going to listen to a few tunes now on my ridiculous investment that practically bankrupted me due to this "audiophilia nervosa" sickness that i seem to suffer from....hope u enjoy the same

More to discover