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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
audio-b-dog's avatar
audio-b-dog
894 posts
 

As Joseph Campbell said, the brain is just another organ. It doesn't control who we are. I have long ago realized that I am controlled by far more than my brain. Joseph Campbell calls it the "heart," so for our purposes I will also. When I "evaluate" equipment, I listen to my heart, and I usually know within a minute what I like and don't like. Years ago I listen to an expensive Dynaudio speaker, and I knew immediately it was too cold for me. When I heard Sonus Faber speakers, I said, "This porridge" is just right. 

Now, where does the head come in? There is an element of seduction in audio and music. Sometimes we're seduced by things that warm the cockles of our hearts only to find out later that somethng like a seductive midrange hid a tzzy treble and bloated bass. That happened to me with the ARC LS22 Preamp. I fell in love with its very bloomy midrange. Only to find out later about the bass and treble. So, I guess I'm saying listen to your heart first, then do a deeper dive into specs or just listening harder to all aspects of the music. 

stuartk
4,083 posts
 

@audio-b-dog 

I think we’ve all had the experience of being initially seduced by a particular aspect of a piece of gear only to find after more extended listening that other, less appealing aspects emerge. 

If I’m fixated on correcting/improving a specific characteristic of my system’s presentation and audition something that that provides said improvement but also affects the system negatively in some other way, my strong desire  to find a solution may cause me to inadvertently magnify the pros and gloss over the cons. Most of the time I’m able to catch myself but sometimes not. For me, it's important to put in sufficient listening time, utilizing a range of material, and preferably, in comparison to another component, before arriving at any conclusions.

 

mihorn
911 posts
 
stuartk  I think we’ve all had the experience of being initially seduced by a particular aspect of a piece of gear only to find after more extended listening that other, less appealing aspects emerge. 

For me, it's important to put in sufficient listening time, utilizing a range of material, and preferably, in comparison to another component, before arriving at any conclusions.

Aural memory is fragile. And 2 sounds comparison is harder if they are timely separated. So, I record the sounds with a cam or cellphone. Repeat listening before and after recordings makes easy to find which is better. Alex/Wavetouch audio

jrareform's avatar
jrareform
206 posts
 

@carlos269 I respectfully disagree with your thoughts on amplifiers etc.  An amplifier will almost always measure the exact same from a frequency response perspective.  And if distortion/harmonic peaks are kept under let's say -80 for discussion purposes (although seemingly -60 db seems to be the point at which most people can differentiate quality), there will be zero measurable difference between the two components that should be audible.  That being said, the sonic differences between the amplifiers I own cannot be chalked up purely to response and the measurements at least how we currently measure gear.  If you're saying there's a digital way to make a solid state amp sound like a tube amp or a tube amp to sound like a solid state amp, I'm here to tell you that that's just plain false.  Even within solid state designs there are sonic qualities that cannot be simply adjusted for with digital controls, such as EQ etc.  As someone who has tried multiple amplifier configurations in a treated acoustic space with high end gear, amplifiers absolutely do not all sound the same with digital correction

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
15,061 posts
 

Aural memory is fragile

 

Aural memory is resilient.Especially when it was trained professionally or by our personal musical history.

 

What is not robust is aural memory for arbitrary sounds, music you dont know or you hear in another set of acoustical environment than your own...

For music you know by heart in your own set of acoustics parameters ( in the system/ room of the  owner's) aural memory is robust...

The only one who contest that are ASR ideologues for their site marketing..

 

Another thing aural memory is stored in the unconscious deep layers of the  body and manifested as feelings...

When i tuned my room this body/ memory guides me...Not my short term aural memory for arbitrary sounds..

Auditory Reserve and the Legacy of Auditory Experience

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4279143/

«We further theorize that the Auditory Reserve is an emergent property of the auditory system, such that it reflects both the flexibility and durability of the networks comprising the auditory system.

By calling it a reserve, we are implying that the Auditory Reserve reflects neural resources that are accumulated over time and moreover that these resources may not be utilized only when needed.»

 

Rapid formation of robust auditory memories: insights from noise

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20510864/

«Before a natural sound can be recognized, an auditory signature of its source must be learned through experience. Here we used random waveforms to probe the formation of new memories for arbitrary complex sounds. A behavioral measure was designed, based on the detection of repetitions embedded in noises up to 4 s long. Unbeknownst to listeners, some noise samples reoccurred randomly throughout an experimental block. Results showed that repeated exposure induced learning for otherwise totally unpredictable and meaningless sounds. The learning was unsupervised and resilient to interference from other task-relevant noises. When memories were formed, they emerged rapidly, performance became abruptly near-perfect, and multiple noises were remembered for several weeks. The acoustic transformations to which recall was tolerant suggest that the learned features were local in time. We propose that rapid sensory plasticity could explain how the auditory brain creates useful memories from the ever-changing, but sometimes repeating, acoustical world.»

 

 

Age and familiarity effects on musical memory

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0305969

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