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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
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,057 posts
 

Interesting!

But everyone here speak about their gear, recorded their system and think "good sound"  is born from the gear pieces synergy or optimization   instead of the room optimization or lack of optimization...Room acoustic is way more complex than GIK panels and potentially way more extraordinary for enhancing the sound experience...

Myself i focused on the couple system/room experimenting in the past with my room acoustic optimization to improve my low cost  system...

None of the system/room i heard here impress me, they are good thats all,  and they are better than the  gear system i used in my acoustic room few years ago and this is so  because they are no room acoustic  control and it is easy to hear it  in your videos...Sorry...

Nowadays DSP is so advanced it can help a lot too (Choueiri filters)  if i could i will use them someday, i will not anyway begin again  with  a mechanical distributed  grid of tuned Helmholtz resonators...Too hard work to do...Fun the first time though...Choueiri filters used in an acoustically relatively well controlled room will do the job without distortions at all unlike my grid of resonators so good they were..

 

No gear design, dac,amp,speakers, crossover, even Choueiri filters, cannot replace minimal acoustic control of a room designed in function of specific system and specific ears... Small room acoustics is not the same as Great Hall room acoustics, the same principles but applied differently because size of enclosure and one pair of ears in one case and a collective in the other pose very different acoustic problem...

This is ABC of audio ...

Acoustics and psycho-acoustics  rules audio engineering not the reverse...

 

 

flash56
52 posts
 

I have to say that this is the most bizarre thread that I think that I have ever read. I can only compare it to a bloody car accident. You really don't want to look at it but you can't look away. Many of the posters have legitimate responses that I agree with. But having spent 30 years as an audio engineer/sound designer for a major PBS facility. I won't go into detail of the plethora of factors that make some of these assumptions absolutely ridiculous to the point of being humorous. The fact that you have the audacity to believe that you can possibly have a clue as to what I wanted something to sound like or rather I was actually successful in achieving that goal. Or that you can determine what is the closet approximation of what it actually ended up sounding like, in the environment that it was mixed and/or mastered, is disillusion to the point of grandeur. I could elaborate for ten pages of why that is absolutely absurd. But, I don't have the time nor would you listen. You have developed a system for measuring accuracy out of your own ignorance of what exactly exists in the real world, or the resources, compromises, and conditions under which they occur. I could expand on any one of these points for pages. The idea that you can record a sound system, post it on Youtube, and have it reflect the actual performance of said system is a joke without a punchline. Live in your make believe world if it makes you happy. But you have no clue as to what factors come into play in the real professional audio world from which your recordings are manufactured. Once again I could elaborate for hours. And just as a side point. Because of my profession,  I have had the opportunity and pleasure developing relationships with many of the  musicians that I had the pleasure of working with. Who currently post there latest material onto sites such as Qobuz, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.. AndI have been fortunate enough to request, and have delivered copies of the digital uncompressed wav/AIFF files that were sent to these streaming platforms. I have played them off of the internal drive of the same streamer and synced them with the files that were being streamed. Both were going through the same external DAC. The audio path was exactly the same path. The only difference was one was streaming FLAC and the other was streaming copies of the original files uncompressed files. I only mention this because that question was ask of somebody somewhere in this endless thread. I won't even get into my conclusions of the two. Simply because of the fact that I couldn't just look away and ignore this complete line of speculative bullshit. And had to stare at the blood and guts, until I actually gave in to the need to make this response. Actually makes me feel as trivial and as pointless as this thread is.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,057 posts
 

Great post!

To evaluate any system we must be in the room...

Acoustics and psycho-acoustics  matter ...

From the live event, to the  perspective trade-off recording and mixing choices, to our specific controlled or uncontrolled speakers/room, to our ears/ brain biases and acoustic parameters, we have many acoustic "translation" and trade-off ...No absolute truth...

 

 

The fact that you have the audacity to believe that you can possibly have a clue as to what I wanted something to sound like or rather I was actually successful in achieving that goal. Or that you can determine what is the closet approximation of what it actually ended up sounding like, in the environment that it was mixed and/or mastered, is disillusion to the point of grandeur. I could elaborate for ten pages of why that is absolutely absurd. But, I don’t have the time nor would you listen. You have developed a system for measuring accuracy out of your own ignorance of what exactly exists in the real world, or the resources, compromises, and conditions under which they occur. I could expand on any one of these points for pages. The idea that you can record a sound system, post it on Youtube, and have it reflect the actual performance of said system is a joke without a punchline.

cleeds
6,601 posts
 

mahgister

To evaluate any system we must be in the room...

That seems so obviously true that it shouldn't even be necessary to actually state it.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,057 posts
 

There is many things in audio which are evident but need to be said again...

Audio ecological realm  is brainwashed by marketing vocabulary, audio science is more complex than mere engineering...

There exist physical acoustics, and psycho-acoustics. There is engineering and on the other side hearing theory and their relation.

This is complex.

Subjectivist and objectivist, the two groups simplify it and negate the other groups  right to exist in some way ...

it is why i trust acousticians over anyone else...

Acousticians dont participate much in audiophiles thread... They know better...smiley

Many people dont even know that hearing is not a settled scientific problem once for all ...

This is why acoustics is a so interesting and deep matter ...

People look at their gear like at an idol not so much to their room or their ears...

That seems so obviously true that it shouldn’t even be necessary to actually state it.

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