"Breathing" of the air

Been there,done that got the T-Shirt.Experienced the "breathing" with a REF 3 a Cary V12 and Innersound stats,now I am famaliar with the term"air around the instruments"
When I rotated the REF out of my system the air went with it.That's what I love about the REF it was the only pre I have owned that could do that.

I'll tend to agree with Shandorne on the idea that IMD is what destroys the "air". I think this "etch" in the 7-12K (pick your own numbers here) is mistaken by many to initially be detail but after prolonged exposure the enjoyment just isn't there. When the etch is removed (reducing imd??) suddenly the air appears and everything relaxes. Maybe rather than "Air" i'll chose the phrase "sense of space" I like a big sound that gives me a feel for the space involved. Some people call it 3D sound others holographic and i think they all relate back to the same type of sound. This isn't a simple frequency response thing which leads me to look at the IMD as a possible culprit.

dave

It is interesting that Shadorne mentions Air around 7 to 12khz. What about the Air content below 7 khz. There certainly is lot of air moved at low freqs- low, mid and high bass and even lower to mid mids.

Indeed. I may be misunderstanding Chris. "Air" is a technical term used in the recording industry. Each instrument has a band where you tend to get more "air" - a piano is around 10 to 12 KHZ (this is the sound of the strings after a note - or the sound a grand piano produces in a room when another instrument is played - the air vibrations cause the piano strings to "sing" like a harp only not as much).

Kodo on Naxos is an awesome sounding recording - very lifelike - drums are particularly good for air because you hear all the timbre of the drums - percussion has so much audible "air" because it excites the room and being percussive you don't get "masking" as you do with many instruments (of course it depends how the drums are setup too). Sheffield Labs drum track is another good one.

What I mean by "etched" is exactly how you think of it - imagine an "etching" where a picture is cut from wood with deep grooves...when "air" is correct it sounds light and delicate and related to the instruments and room reverberation....when "air" is heavy or "deeply etched" it means you have mechanical resonance or non-musically related sounds that go on much longer and mask the "air" on the recording. Highly damped speaker drivers will help you hear more air and lower IMD will help too - anything light weight or that has a tendency to resonate in the audible band will tend to mask or rob the natural "air" of the recording by imposing it's own signature (jitter does this)...two cents.

BTW - added "air" from manipulation of the recording by the playback system or harmonic resonance or reverb etc. can be pleasant too. So more "air" can also be used to describe equipment that adds its own signature to the recording.

Well, to chime in, I like Shadorne's two cents and Athmasphere's definition, because my idea of "air" is closely related to what I would call the "aura" around instruments being played, which is so evident in live music and rather difficult to reproduce properly at home, even with the "right" recordings.