Guidocorona,
I am on pins and needles awaiting your opinion about whether the Merrill Element 118 had detail and resolution that blew away the Veritas, for example. Or even the Rowland 925 which you own or have heard? All this technical speculation is interesting, but the bottom line is the sound, which only you have heard.
You raised an interesting point about whether amps with extended or even excessive high freq (HF) are suitable for sostenuto (sustained) music or just for percussive music. A few wonderful pieces come to mind to discuss this. First, the prelude to act 1 to Wagner's Lohengrin, one of my top favorites that tearfully melts me. (For those not familiar, the famous melody of "here comes the bride" is from Lohengrin.) The violin section is divided into several high note parts to begin the piece. High harmonics on top of high fundamentals. They are played sostenuto at a soft piano dynamic level with a few soft crescendos. This music is truly celestial, so maximal resolution of HF is of utmost importance to appreciate the beauty of this piece. As a good pun, celestial qualities are associated with highs (HF) as well as the "high" altitude. I have not played this piece in any of my orchestras, and I have not seen the score (written sheet music), so I won't be surprised that when I do get to see the score, there will be lots of details revealed that even I have not yet perceived. That's why I say to people who like laid back rolled off HF sound, you sadly don't realize what you are missing. Second, Borodin, From the Steppes of Central Asia, which I have played in orchestras from when I was very young to more recently. It opens with high harmonics of HF in the violins at a soft pianissimo level. It starts with a high harmonic on the E string, then modulates to the high harmonic on the A string. The instant moment of that modulation is an awesome experience, greatly realized by full HF revelation. These HF harmonics serve as background to the midrange theme played by the flute, then English horn and later by the other wind instruments. As a violinist immersed in this music at close range, I was smitten by the brilliant revelation of these sounds. Its beauty is tremendously enhanced by the HF brilliance, and again anyone who prefers laid back sound is sadly missing out.
On a slightly more technical level, sostenuto (sustained) sound may sound smooth and continuous, but on a micro level, there are fine percussive elements in it. For example, violinists use sticky rosin on the bow to get traction of the horsehair to the string. To get a sustained sound, it is required to continuously and gently scrape the string, all very skillfully to avoid unpleasant harsh scratching and crunching. The gentle scrape produces plenty of HF which actually go way beyond 20 Khz. If you listen to any violinist at very close range, a large part of the total sound is that scraping noise. Also, wind instruments like the French horn produce sound via turbulence (a kind of percussion) of the air flow, and papers by James Boyk show a lot of HF up to 9000 Hz in the French horn when it is usually considered a mellow, midrange instrument. So my conclusion is that maximal revelation of HF (of course other lower freq as well) in electronics is essential for full appreciation of any music, whether percussive or sostenuto.
I am on pins and needles awaiting your opinion about whether the Merrill Element 118 had detail and resolution that blew away the Veritas, for example. Or even the Rowland 925 which you own or have heard? All this technical speculation is interesting, but the bottom line is the sound, which only you have heard.
You raised an interesting point about whether amps with extended or even excessive high freq (HF) are suitable for sostenuto (sustained) music or just for percussive music. A few wonderful pieces come to mind to discuss this. First, the prelude to act 1 to Wagner's Lohengrin, one of my top favorites that tearfully melts me. (For those not familiar, the famous melody of "here comes the bride" is from Lohengrin.) The violin section is divided into several high note parts to begin the piece. High harmonics on top of high fundamentals. They are played sostenuto at a soft piano dynamic level with a few soft crescendos. This music is truly celestial, so maximal resolution of HF is of utmost importance to appreciate the beauty of this piece. As a good pun, celestial qualities are associated with highs (HF) as well as the "high" altitude. I have not played this piece in any of my orchestras, and I have not seen the score (written sheet music), so I won't be surprised that when I do get to see the score, there will be lots of details revealed that even I have not yet perceived. That's why I say to people who like laid back rolled off HF sound, you sadly don't realize what you are missing. Second, Borodin, From the Steppes of Central Asia, which I have played in orchestras from when I was very young to more recently. It opens with high harmonics of HF in the violins at a soft pianissimo level. It starts with a high harmonic on the E string, then modulates to the high harmonic on the A string. The instant moment of that modulation is an awesome experience, greatly realized by full HF revelation. These HF harmonics serve as background to the midrange theme played by the flute, then English horn and later by the other wind instruments. As a violinist immersed in this music at close range, I was smitten by the brilliant revelation of these sounds. Its beauty is tremendously enhanced by the HF brilliance, and again anyone who prefers laid back sound is sadly missing out.
On a slightly more technical level, sostenuto (sustained) sound may sound smooth and continuous, but on a micro level, there are fine percussive elements in it. For example, violinists use sticky rosin on the bow to get traction of the horsehair to the string. To get a sustained sound, it is required to continuously and gently scrape the string, all very skillfully to avoid unpleasant harsh scratching and crunching. The gentle scrape produces plenty of HF which actually go way beyond 20 Khz. If you listen to any violinist at very close range, a large part of the total sound is that scraping noise. Also, wind instruments like the French horn produce sound via turbulence (a kind of percussion) of the air flow, and papers by James Boyk show a lot of HF up to 9000 Hz in the French horn when it is usually considered a mellow, midrange instrument. So my conclusion is that maximal revelation of HF (of course other lower freq as well) in electronics is essential for full appreciation of any music, whether percussive or sostenuto.