Speakers with fullness and weight?

Thank you, guys, for your endorsement of my post. Hearing many, many live events and playing for myself in my own soundroom, the differences between what musters for "accurate" audio equipment and the sound of real music show a marked contrast! The words Charles used, "remarkably full, vibrant and display a warmth and richness to their tone" are perfect and I have used some of them myself. But as a 3 decade veteran I have observed, hundreds of times, audiophiles smiling and raving about hearing the action of a a sax or clarinet, chairs creak, and fingers sliding on strings. "Wow!!!!!!!! Never heard that!!!!!" But very rarely have I heard folks "ooohhh and aaahhh" over full, rich, natural, "real music" type of sound. Show that type of sound at a show and you don't get the attention of show attendees.

The bulk of the hobbyists are gear-heads, not music addicts. I think in the beginning many of them must have started for the music, but at some point a large percentage fell more in love with the system and impressing themselves and others. The equipment reflects this, the bright, highly distorted cables that sell so well reflect this, the ringing drivers in the upper mids and highs reflect this.

I love the sanity of this thread, it shows there are some guys who want to just listen to something that has the tonality of music. I've actually been criticized by industry folk for focusing on tonality! Sure, there are other very important things to pay attention to (dynamics being very high on my list), but if you can't get tonality / tonal balance right, what good is the product?

Finally, addressing the gear-head nature of the bulk of consumers and magazines, when was the last time you saw an audio magazine focusing on a particular artist, doing an article on them, talking about their vision for their own sound, or talking about the sound of different branded but same style instruments compared to each other? Sure, the magazines are about gear, but if everyone is supposedly so fixated on the sound of real music in real space, wouldn't they be interested in such articles? Fact is, we don't see them because they would mostly go unread as readers flip right to the latest speaker that supposedly reinvents the laws of physics (by using a 50 year old aluminum alloy for its "high tech" construction).

As music lovers we are in the minority of this hobby and we therefore need to be very leery of what folks we don't know say about the sound of the equipment they are reviewing or endorsing on forums. Remember, their priorities are likely very different than yours. I listen for myself, and "buy to try" instead of going by hearsay. Starting with things studios use and have used is likely a higher percentage shot if you are after something that sounds like real music. ATC, mentioned above, is an example.

I'm not so sure that speakers that are known for detail are necessarily bad at fullness and weight. I do think that in many case, inefficient speakers that require a lot of power and current for good balance top to bottom and that are also often accordingly smaller than desirable for fullness and weightin a particular size room are chosen in that smaller is often more practical. Fullness and weight suffer accordingly, but its more because of the gear selected together not being up to the task of delivering fullness and weight more so than an inherent deficiency in the speakers. Magazines do little to educate about what might work best in what ways together or in different size rooms, so the buyer finds out the hard way, if they even really care. If they don't, so what? As long as they enjoy listening to the music. No reason why it cannot still be enjoyable, even if not up to the audiophile standards of truly sounding "lifelike" in terms of fullness and weight.

Thank you Omsed, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. The reason I claimed thin speakers were neutral was because of the shear number of hifi speakers out there that sound thin. My mistaken assumption was that the majority of them would be accurate from a tonal standpoint, and I was thinking that I needed something a little colored, or "inaccurate". I absolutely know that real music is supposed to have the power and richness that I'm searching for.

Midfinder92,
The irony is that the thin and lean sound(analytical) touted as accuracy and neutral is as you discovered, inaccurate. Your ears/ brain were not fooled. When components sound natural and realistic you'll immediately recognize it based on your description earlier of the sound of drums and guitar.
Charles,

Midflder, this is really the trap in high end audio, the reviewers and loud posters can convince many that something which is not exactly right is indeed right and that you are just not "refined" or "educated" or "experienced" enough to recognize it! Don't let anyone convince you of that....you know what it is about live music that turns you on. And if a speaker does not remind you of that, but instead grates on you and tires you, don't let anyone tell you that it is right. Charles is dead on: you brain won't be fooled!

This could be an extremely long discussion with many related points. For instance, how did audio evolve this way? I offered up one answer, "apparent" detail is easy to hear. So it is an easy yardstick to use, to show off with, to impress others with.

Here's another partial answer to how this evolved. Most speakers do not have dynamics that in any way come even partly close to the dynamics of live music. So the brain and spirit are not satisfied. Dynamics is one of the most emotional traits of music. So,what is tempting to do when the dynamics of cymbals and high hats don't jump out like in real life? The answer for many has been to turn up the tweeter. Problem is, this solution does not satisfy what the brain is looking for as it is only louder, not more dynamic.

I don't know what your price range is, or if you are looking for used or new. So, it's hard to make suggestions. But for power and dynamics, I could suggest hearing some of the Tannoys. New or used. Even some 80's Tannoys. There's a reason why folks keep them for decades. It would also be fun to get your impression of the really great JBL 1400 array, an extremely natural speaker that has jump, satisfying dynamics, and that richness you are looking for.

This richness thing is itself a bit complex. Part of it is tonal balance for sure. But when I play my instrument here and then my stereo with various speakers I realize that part of the impression of richness of the real instrument is not just tonal balance. The richness, for speakers that portray it, also comes from the ability to convey more of the harmonic structure. The sound of an instrument is not just the exact note....instruments would all sound the same in that case, and they would be boring. The sound of the actual instrument is made up of a huge number of harmonics. Speakers that can portray more of those harmonics sound "richer", and this is not just richness in terms of lower midrange and upper bass. It is a feeling of richness that is from delivering more of the instruments harmonics.

This line of thought comes from many, many instances of observation in listening to systems after listening to live music, and going back and forth between live music here and then my system, only seconds apart. Moreover, playing along with the system really shows this clearly....the stark difference between the instrument and the speakers really stands out.

So, all in all a complex subject delved into by a simple, but very observant original post. I loved the original post because it is a very accurate observation that is talked about very little in this industry.

One more quick observation: this trait of so many high end speakers which cannot portray richness and power is why so few end up in studios. There, the contrast between live and playback would be glaring. High end audio folk often show so much elitism here, saying that the home speakers are so much better than what studios use, as if high end studios are dumb or do not know the sound of music. Wrong, many are very aware of high end audio and they shake their heads in awe as to what passes for great sound. It's certainly not about price, just look up the price of the big ATC speakers that so many studios are using. Actually, I should add ATC to the list along with JBL and Tannoy for you to go listen to but they won't be so easy to find.

You are on the right track: you know what you are looking for in sound.