Fidelity vs. Musicality...........Is there a tug of War?

@mahgister,
No argument from me in regard to the influence of the listening room acoustics. But one has to assemble an audio system to place in the room.

I am sure that you know the basic ....Your post speak well for yourself...


But assembling a good system at low cost is relatively easy nowadays , thanks to great engineering progress in audio...

Embedding rightfully a good system, mechanically, electrically and acoustically, is less, way less easy than picking a good system to begin with....It was for me at least....

That is my only point.....And my post goes in the opposite direction of most audio thread where the  solution is and always will be upgrading gear....

Then sometimes basic evidence are forgotten....

Just listened to Classic Rock on my Car rig...

High Fidelity?.........not really.......
Musical...................EXTREMELY.

@mahgister I usually enjoy and mostly agree with your posts except this:

Timbre perceptive experience cannot be reduced to a mathematical additive bunch of frequencies and harmonics only ... Acoustic of small room play a great role more than the new hype electronical gear

Timbre is in fact exactly that, it's the fundamental frequency (pitch) with its associated harmonics that allow you to recognise what instrument it is. The effect of the room will determine how you perceive that timbre.

I do definitely agree with you about the room however. You may have noticed that I often join in a thread about acoustics and hold that the room has a huge influence on the resultant sound to the point where I have stated that a mediocre system in a properly treated room (beyond just a rug and curtains) will provide far greater enjoyment and reward than just throwing together a bunch of mega-expensive 'best in class A'  🙂












 

Dear lemonhaze it is a misunderstanding...


If you read my post i specifically said that timbre cannot be reduced to fundamental frequency and harmonics ONLY...A  relatively low cost dac cannot replace room acoustic for  example...And most of the times even the costlier dac cannot...


All acoustic science and psycho-acoustic science cannot be reduced to Fourier transform...There is more in "timbre" concept than meet the eye....

If it was  not the case there will be no definition of "timbre" in 5 points at least like for example in this wikipedia definition:

Many commentators have attempted to decompose timbre into component attributes. For example, J. F. Schouten (1968, 42) describes the "elusive attributes of timbre" as "determined by at least five major acoustic parameters", which Robert Erickson finds, "scaled to the concerns of much contemporary music":[4]

1. Range between tonal and noiselike character
2. Spectral envelope
3. Time envelope in terms of rise, duration, and decay (ADSR, which stands for "attack, decay, sustain, release")
4. Changes both of spectral envelope (formant-glide) and fundamental frequency (micro-intonation)
5. Prefix, or onset of a sound, quite dissimilar to the ensuing lasting vibration

@ mahgister, yes a misunderstanding. All good.

The timbre of a sound is formed in it's entirety and does not depend on the room but is influenced by the room. By that I mean any instrument could play a note in an anechoic chamber or out in an open field and it's timbre will be heard.

In the wikipedia definition there is no mention of the acoustic propagation. As I see it the decay mentioned in regard to ADSR (point 3) is the natural decay of the instrument and not the decay behaviour of the acoustic environment which affects your perception of that instrument's timbre.

This link:  https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/fidelity-vs-musicality-is-there-a-tug-of-war?lastpage=true&am... where they claim ' the duration of a sound also affects how we perceive its pitch, loudness and timbre'
The sentence in parenthesis seems to support my understanding of timbre.