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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
carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
483 posts
 

Well I’m glad that I finally made it back to my thread, as the original poster, I can tell that @flash56 @mahgister @cleeds all require a course on reading comprehension. First of all, only delusional individuals believe that they know the artist or mastering engineer’s intent. As I have repeated a million times here and elsewhere, there is no such thing as “The Absolute Sound” as the term is used in the audiophile world. The best one can hope a home audio system can achieve is being accurate to the source material at the output of the source component.

Second, no one ever claimed that you can asses a home system in absolute terms through audio recordings on YouTube or otherwise. The principle here is, if your brains have the capacity to comprehend it, is that the audio recordings allows one to make “relative” comparisons of the resultant sound of the recorded home audio systems.

@mahgister I didn’t reply to you earlier to let you off the hook since in a way I feel sorry for you and your situation, of being enamored with DSP filters that you have not even experienced for yourself and I will leave it at that. I have been playing with studio spatializers for years, from the original Roland units with the joysticks to the Desper Mastering Digital Spatializer, and my favorite the Quantec Room Simulator. The BAACH system has taken advantage of the higher processing power of today’s DSP’s but this isn’t ground breaking work.

@flash56 Not only have I been in the world’s best high-end mastering studios but I actually own more capable mastering processing equipment than even those fine establishments have on hand. And here is the kicker, I know how to use the equipment better than anyone I have ever met; you know why, because most of the studio professionals do not posses my understanding of the science and engineering behind the fundamentals. They have adapted to use the equipment but ask them about the principles and science behind it? Any time you want to talk shop let’s do it and let’s see how far into the weeds you can go, that will be the real car wreck with bloods and guts. Have you ever heard the saying, “know your audience’? When I say that some of my designs are over your head I mean it literally, look up, as some of my designs are orbiting above you on the Space Station.

lanx0003
1,979 posts
 

So, we have a diversity of opinions here. When debating an issue like this, a common strategy is to either appeal to authority (an expert says so) or appeal to peers (everyone says so). In this case, we don’t have an expert present, nor does everyone necessarily agree — so the debate continues.

In my opinion, I am open to listening as long as the recording is of high quality, capable of capturing spatial cues, and retains the original fidelity, as I mentioned before. Room interaction can be softened by placing the microphone close to the speakers — a technique used by many acoustic professionals, reviewers (including Stereophile, Erin using Klippel), and speaker designers (including Andrew Jones) to simulate measurements in an anechoic chamber.

However, my main point is not about the recording. My main concern is with the OP’s claim regarding a conflict or trade-off between musicality and resolution. These are not mutually exclusive. For example, a common method to enhance the smoothness of sound is to add even-order harmonic overtones to the original signal. If too much is added, even if phase coherent, the overtones may smear details and mask transients. In contrast, subtle but sufficient harmonic overtones can sweeten the sound without these adverse effects. Other methods to enhance sound quality without compromising resolution have already been discussed here, so I won’t repeat them.

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
483 posts
 

@kennyc You also seem to require reading comprehension course. In what world does “striking a balance” equal “maximum” anything? I guess reading the words doesn’t always get decoded correctly in some people’s brains.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,057 posts
 

I am interested by acoustics concepts and hearing theory not by DSP in itself and you confuse my interest for Choueiri explanations and understanding  with technology competition.. It seems you read what you want to read ...

 

I dont enter pissing contest by the way...

I piss in my own way...

I wish you the best and i believe your are good in your job this does not means that audio is centered around your gear understanding and that Choueiri is a marketer compared to you ...

i dont need to buy a device to read about acoustics be it Choueiri articles or others...

Choueiri is an acoustician you are not ....

 

@mahgister I didn’t reply to you earlier to let you off the hook since in a way I feel sorry for you and your situation, of being enamored with DSP filters that you have not even experienced for yourself and I will leave it at that. I have been playing with studio spatializers for years, from the original Roland units with the joysticks to the Desper Mastering Digital Spatializer, and my favorite the Quantec Room Simulator. The BAACH system has taken advantage of the high processing power of today’s DSP’s but this isn’t ground breaking work.

 

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
483 posts
 

A big takeaway for me from this thread is how many people struggle with simple reading comprehension and read what they want to read into someone else’s writing instead of reading and taking a moment to think about what was just stated.

Everything is interpreted by some in the most extreme ways. I like posting audio recordings of my systems because they speak for themselves. 

While I was away  I experienced a great analogy. I am working on a project and I was putting a report together and while putting some pictures I took I noticed something in one of the pictures that I was not aware of. Although I was the one who took the picture and obviously I was there physically, I had not acknowledged a certain aspect of what I was reviewing. Audio recordings of one’s systems serve in the same way, many times I notice certain things that escaped me in the moment in the listening chair. Why is it so easy for people to see the power and extreme usefulness of pictures, videos and visual artifacts but these same people fail to find the usefulness and power of audio recordings, specially when our entire hobby is based on the premise of the accuracy of audio recordings? Some people are so limited in vision and understanding that the words “YouTube” blinds them from looking any further. These are simply audio recordings that just happen to be embedded in videos but many dense individuals simply cannot get passed that.

When you listen to your favorite album do you ever ask yourself if that is how it sounded in the studio or in the arena? Probably not but you record your system and share it and that sound cannot possibly be representative of what it sounded like in the room. I guess some of us have a higher capacity for knowledge and understanding than others. It is very frustrating to get others to see and understand what should be obvious.

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