I applaud your dedication to great sound and hope it's working out well for you.
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:
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@newton_john Thank you, but there is no hoping involved. I have posted audio recordings of three of my systems and they are what they are, there is nowhere to hide. This is what frightens most audiophiles who have made a sizable investment or who have made the effort…..to put the sound of their systems out here for others to hear, judge, scrutinize and get honest feedback. Who goes and listens to anyone else’s systems and tells the host that their system sounds lousy and underwhelming? Every guest offers their host a stellar review, at least in person, it is common courtesy. It takes courage to put it out there and showcase what you have achieved and accomplished. And that is why everyone runs to the forums to tell everyone else how great the new component they bought sounds, show beautiful pictures, and expressed how wonderful their systems sounds because it is easy to put it in words and writing about it, but when you ask the proud audiophiles to share some audio recordings of their wonderful systems to showcase what they have accomplished they will give you a ton of excuses why they cannot or will not. The audio recordings are what they are and there is nowhere to hide. |
You probably never had a nearfield listening room to compare with regular one... I had one and the other... Nearfield listening minimize some aspects of reflections but never eliminate them... It is something i experienced personally ... It is something very well known... Acoustics and psycho-acoustics concepts rules audio engineering and even physics in sound experience...
A myth in audio an enduring one is the fact that some think that the gear pieces design alone determine S.Q. It is totally false, acoustics and psycho-acoustics determine what we hear... «The "near field" is a property of the ROOM, not the speaker. This graph and explanation come from the book "Architectural Acoustics"»: https://digistar.cl/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=547
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@mahgister I believe that I used the word “greatly” when qualifying what I wrote about how near-field listening impacts the room effects. Psychoacoustics combines physics and psychology and although a strong element of the listening experience, physics still has the dominant hand at determining how sound propagates and interacts with the environment around the source of the sound. Out of curiosity, how much of the room do you hear in the audio recordings of my systems? I think that the author of that article is referring to to listing within the near-field and has label the near-field distance I was referring to to as the critical area. What you want is to maximize direct sound. Reverberation is a key component of recording, as a matter of fact it is typically added to create a sense of space or room to studio recordings, but it should not be something you la Gould look for the room to add, it should come from the recordings. Don’t confuse ambience information with reverb. |
Unlike many on here, classical and symphonic music are not my go to genres, but I believe that musical genres are irrelevant to this discussion as musicality and resolution are agnostic to the type of music being reproduced by an audio system in a home environment. My wife and I share a love of 80’s new wave and post punk music. This past weekend, after I had tuned my Test Bed system to what I believe is a nice balance between musicality and resolution, I recorded a couple of audio recordings of two of our favorite bands from that time period, please pardon the swaying but it was actually from the involuntary movement of my foot tapping to the music, as you can tell, I clearly liked what I was hearing:
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