The Best Midrange in the World Right Now

Paquito D'Rivera's "La Bella Cubana" from his album, Portraits of Cuba, Chesky JD145. With this recording even most of the 'full-range' speakers I've listened to flattened out before Roger Rosenberg's baritone sax hit bottom

Thats a Bass Viol not a Barotone Sax that hits about 36 Hz. I never heard a baritone Sax hit that low, just my two cents.

Try Massive Attack "Angel" Or Dave Grusin "Homage to Duke" for some extreme LF.

I have to agree with you that Bob Katz (Chesky) is beautifully recorded/mastered.

I think it is important to distinguish between midrange accuracy (i.e. tonal authenticity--do instruments and voices sound the way they do in real life) and transparency (i.e. articulation and detail--how much information is reproduced within the middle ranges). In my experience, it is very difficult to find a speaker that does BOTH of these things very well. The British/BBC approach scores high marks for authenticity but sacrifices transparency. Many, many other speakers provide transparency but fail to deliver authenticity. The Harbeth's, with the Radial driver, move the British sound closer to the ideal in that they are fairly transparent. The Quads are the only speaker, in my experience, to do both. In trying to find an attractive pair of speakers that are successful in BOTH areas, easy to place and could be had for under 8K I was ultimately unsuccessful. The speakers I ended up with get me very, very close to the ideal but sacrifice a little transparency for accuracy. To me this makes the most sense since a lifelike portrayal of instrumental tone and timbre is critical to fooling your brain into believing what is heard is real music. The last measure of detail, while also important for this purpose, can be lived without. Others will reverse these priorities I'm sure.

Dodgealum

At least to my ears, the entire industry has increasinly reversed the priorities you mention.

This is why most most systems sound bad and we continue our neurotic quest.

Nice post.

Tvad,

Perhaps, but I think you will find there is a difference in the audio experience for folks who are trying to replicate what (they believe) is in the pits and grooves, which is really the only true goal for an 'audiophile', and those folks who want to replicate the sound of live music, as they have experienced it, as best they can in their room. They know it can't be done for a lot of reasons but at least they have a real reference.

Now if your goal is to replicate the sound in the pits and grooves how will you ever know when you have succeeded? Were you at the studio? Do you know what equipment was used? Do you know what the recording engineer did at the mixing board. It seems to me that while this may be a worthwhile hobby its sort of like chasing a very elusive goal. Some of the things that equipment designers do to impress you with the speed of their products involves things such as the rise and decay times.

Great speed, great 'detail', impact, more apparent transparency. Great 'sounding' devises. But, IMHO, what is sacraficed in that type of design is selecting the rise and decay times that are not consonant with the rise and decay times of live music in real space. I think for those folks like Dodgealum (and myself) giving up a bit of what is called detail or transparency in exchange for sound which reminds us of what we hear live is no sacrafice whatso ever!

Personally, I think the pursuit of 'accuracy' and 'transparency' is a pursuit which audio manufacturers eagerly indorse and encourage, especially to those who have no frame of reference from which to judge.

FWIW.