resolution and imaging

Sns...seems like your endeavers into tweaking equipment with capacitor voicing has paid dividends. I too have become a beleiver in capacitor performance making a impact on lower THD leading to sonic improvement. The most significant gains have been in transparency,3d holographics,and tonal realism. I realise only good quality and designed equipment will deliver the greatest improvements....but these gains are very real.

Wavetrader, exactly my findings.

Newbee said...."Now I'm sure that if I was on the podium I would hear it differently." Interesting....In the recording were hearing what the mic gathers....so the info must be there...I would think. Now the issue is can the electronics and speakers reproduce it.

Above all I want to hear *depth*. I want to hear that the brass and woodwind are all the way back there, behind the massed strings. I don't want brass and woodwind sounding as if they were on the same plane as the strings. Now, if there were some nice separation, and the French horns were over to one side, and the oboes were just left of centre, etc. etc., that would be great too, but I can get by with the aural simulacrum of how an orchestra is arrayed on a stage, front to back. (And yes, the timpani should be waaaay back there...)

Wavetrader, Consider that what you hear depends on your proximity to the instrument(s) making the sound. What a mic picks up is also mostly (but not identically to your ears) dependent on proximity. If you were on the podium you would much more easily hear width, depth, height and 'highlighted soloists' would no longer sound highlighted, for pianist and violinists at least are more often than not very near the podium. This also applies to the presence of 'imaging' on chamber music in a chamber vs a symphony hall.

A lot of recordings are, IMHO, recorded and mixed, with the 'podium effect'. The problem, if that is what it is, is that most of us never get to stand on the podium so it is a sound with which we are not familar, and is the reason that so many folks feel a well developed sense of imaging is artificial and unnecessary.

I think there is also a downside to great imaging for just this reason. When you are listening to the 'podium effect', as a result of the recording methodology and your equipment/set up, the performance (in your subconscious) often gets second billing to the sound of specificity.

Recall those many requests for recordings in forums from folks who want the recordings with the best sound (SACD's or vinyl for example) without any emphasis on the importance on performance. Often I get a guilty conscience when I find myself pulling a Reference Recording off the shelf primarily because they are great recordings, not because they are the best performances I have, and only occasionally do they contain both excellent performances and sonics (try Copland's 3rd Symphony et al - WOW!).

Once you have fixed your attention on the 'podium effect' it becomes hard to ignore its presence, or for that matter its absence, all to the detriment of the music/performance.

If I could go back in time, I think I could have been very happy with the Omni speaker experience if I had kept an open mind. Now it is too late for that, for me.