transparency vs. detailed

"what about a transparent amp with a transparent speaker?" As
long as you can see your CD player and your remote, you should be okay.

Sorry, Mbbolda. Ketchup is right. These generalizations are too broad and
subjective to be helpful. Especially with a term like transparency, you have to
develop your own frame of reference. Different people are more or less
sensitive to different kinds of distortion and will hear transparency differently.
In general, detail and transparency are good, and more of both is better--if
you can get it without more distortion.

"most people seem to think that a detailed amp with a detailed speaker will not work"

I'm not sure that's true. I'd say that most people look for as much of this attribute as they can get, as long as there are no tradeoffs involved. Of course, there are almost always tradeoffs involved... Many people like as detailed a sound as they can get as long as the sound remains 'musical' to them and doesn't get overly analytical. This doesn't always mean combining components that are on opposite ends of the tonal spectrum.

The term transparent means the sound is clear.
Kinda like a dirty window after you clean it with Windex. The term detail means the sound is broke down where you can hear every instrument.

It is Saturday evening here in Montclair, NJ and its nasty outside (wet, damp and cold) I have a lot of spare time so I thought I would take a stab at defining some terms used all the time by audiophiles. Below is my usage of the terms. What is your personal understanding of the terms used for system characterization.

Transparency: Ability to hear deeply into the music. Hear instrument at the rear of the sound stage, etc. Ease of following musical threads and lines of each instrument

Detail: Ability to easily detect subtle nuances, inner information (vibratto, sound of lips, finger on strings, etc)

Neutrality: Perceived flat frequency response, no part of the spectrum is exaggerated relative to the other

Dynamic: Transient response

Dynamic Range: Perceived swing in loudness level from the quietest passages to loudest

Articulate: Well defined leading edge of transient

Robustness: Tonal balance in the midrange and upper bass which contributes to a “full” tonal balance in the midrange.

Musicality: When all the parameters above are combined to produce a subjectivly pleasing listening experience

Gmorris

that was well put.