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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
toddalin's avatar
toddalin
670 posts
 

@lanx0003 

You are looking at the results of several years of literally dozens of modifications using both an RTA and my ear to get these to sound as they do.  I’ve been to T.H.E Show and other places and these compete with the best of what is out there, probably better if it were to be played in MY ROOM with no eq or room correction or fancy stuff backing it up. 

No Lpad is necessary because everything is matched through included resistors, (they were used in prior iterations).  BION, a resistor placed BEFORE a second order or higher network will affect the volume level, but not the crossover slope.  I have demonstrated this on another site.  R1 and R3 work to remove "Q" from the drivers and the values are extremely important.  R7 takes the Heil up to 8 ohms. And mine are the only Heils in the world with my modifications.

Even the capacitors, both pass-through and conjugate, are chosen for their sound. 

I have NEVER heard a pair of speakers that can image like these and anyone in Orange County, (So Cal) is welcome to come by for a listen.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,428 posts
 

When you have access to the digital files, either locally stored or streamed, you are in the same position as the mastering engineer.

@carlos269 This statement is false unless you have access to the master file prior to added DSP. If not, then you are not in the same position as the mastering engineer. If a digital release, he is the one who uses DSP to limit, compress (both used mostly with the understanding it will be played in a car), add EQ and of course apply normalization. 

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.

YT is a terrible place to do any sort of assessment at all. The recording system can be quite varied (smartphones are bad at that as they have limiting and compression, and their tiny little mics are no good at capturing bass), where the microphones are placed is a big deal and YT itself has a compression algorithm. The biggest variable is the room itself.  

YT videos of people's sound systems are an unfortunate waste of memory.

 I like posting audio recordings of my systems because they speak for themselves. 

Actually, they don't. 

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.

That's the definition of the Absolute Sound I've always used. 

 

 

 

 

 

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
483 posts
 

@atmasphere You stated that you know your way around studios. If you know about mastering, you know that the mastering engineer works typically of the 2-buss mix that the mixing engineer has assembled and compiled. The mastering engineer finishes the mastering and that is what is stamped and replicated for the commercial release. The commercial release is the 2-buss mix that the savvy end user get from Tidal, in my case, or Quobuz or the vinyl LP, or now a days even cassette tape or reel-to-reel commercial tape.For instance, those of us that use HQPLAYER get the stream from Tidal, Quobuz, or from our local library and apply our own filters, modulators, convolution, EQ, mixing, upsampling, or transcoding. How is that different than what the mastering engineer does? You don’t need access to the individual raw tracks. The mastering engineer typically does not reverb back to the mix because the mixing engineer has already compiled the requested balance between tracks and mixed the recording down to the 2-bus before handing it over the mastering engineer for final tour ups and polishing. take a look at Bob Katz set up in front of his sofa, all 2-buss.

Ralph I have to hand it to you, although every interaction you have with me is not a good outcome for you, you keep coming. You care to tell all the HQPLAYER users out here that we are not improving the source material to our liking?

carlos269's avatar
carlos269 OP
483 posts
 

@kevemaher Back when I was starting out in the audiophile world I also chased a flat in-room frequency response, first with Behringer 8024, 2496 and later with some SigTech units. I can tell you that there is not much to like about a flat frequency  response and you should know this as someone with a physics degree and background. As I approached flatness it became obvious to me. The reason is because of the Fletcher-Munson effect. Our hearing is not linear in sensitivity when it comes to frequencies, the sensitivity is a function of sound pressure level.

Static EQ, whether in the time domain or in convolution is also not good either as it is applied without discrimination. The only filtering that is useful is dynamic filtering. 

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,428 posts
 

@carlos269 I don't see how any of our interaction has been bad for me. You might think so but we are all entitled to our opinions. 

Your description about mastering isn't entirely accurate. For example if a producer is savvy and wants the best version of the LP release, he will send the LP mastering engineer a digital file that has no DSP except for perhaps normalization. OTOH if the mastering engineer is savvy he might request that from the producers so he can turn out a better product.

I've had both happen; anytime we mastered an LP we requested the least amount of DSP to get the best sound possible. 

(My LP mastering system was a Scully lathe with Westerex 3D cutter head, driven by modified Westerex 1700 series mastering electronics. I had to rebuild the lathe and refurbish the electronics; I had to get in pretty deep.) 

So the commercial release may or may not be that which you see on streaming services, and if it is from the actual commercial release it may not be the same as that which was used for the creation of the LP. That depends a lot on where they got the source file. Sometimes you see high resolution files that are actually just 16 bit but reprocessed to look like something more. Its a bit of the Wild West although it has been settling down in recent years.

The LP can be different in that there may be less or no EQ and less limiting and compression, because there is no expectation the end result will be played in a car. IOW that might be the best sounding version, but usually isn't something you can stream.  

Now what you do with the file when you get home is up to you. There are plenty of people that miss the tone controls that were everywhere decades ago. So regarding your question about HQPLAYER, my answer is, using the text of your question, you're not improving the source material but you may be liking what you did to it. There is a distinction but its unimportant since the end goal is to enjoy the hobby in whatever way you see fit. 

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