So Much "Harshness"

I do think today's higher resolution equipment plays a large role in the epidemic of harshness. I don't recall hearing this kind of harshness in systems years ago. Higher resolution is quite often obtained by boosting upper mid and high frequencies, this acerbates harshness in recordings.

I've also found rather mundane parts quality in a lot of equipment. Upgrading capacitors and resistors can result in even higher resolution and much greater refinement.

I find too many recordings are excessively bright, again a problem with boosting upper mid and high frequencies.

All of this resolution does require careful system matching, getting the highest resolution and refinement is a delicate balancing act, easily the most difficult thing I've encountered in audio.

hi newbee:

you are dead wrong. from 1966 to 1973 i had an analog stereo system consisting of the following components:

sracked quad esls
quad 15 watt monos
mcintosh c22
thorens 124 t/t, ortofon arm and cartridge

i listened to plenty of music. you are presumptuous to tell me what i did during the 60's, 70's 80's. you have no clue.

the complaints of harshness are probably greater during the last 10 years than during the years, 1960's through the 1980's.

ignorance and poor choice of components is not the reason for complaints of harshness. people are more educated now than they were 30 years ago. the problem is the componets in production available today, compared to what was available during the 60's, and 70's.

i believe the 60's and 70's , with a preponderance of tube amps and preamps were characterized by wwhat would be considered subtraction in the treble and a bump in the bass--hardly a recipe for harshness. today, many components are peaky in the treble.

Mr T, Sorry, I should have used the word 'components', not 'music'. And you are right! I haven't the slightest clue what you were doing then, or now for that matter.

But, if you are relying on your personal components, as described, for support for your statement, consider that the introduction of SS components occurred over a decade before the introduction of digital components and pretty much dominated the market until tube components were 'resurected' by Bill Johnson. There was some serious dreck in those years. And there was no shortage of speakers being brought to the market to 'match'. I can still remember my abandoning my Altec 19's, my Rogers LS3/5a, etc for some of the phase correct, full range, flat FR 'audiophile' darlings. All before I got my first CDP, the acquisition of which only enhanced my growing disenchantment with 'Audio' further.

Today I think that the average audiophile on a budget CAN put together an excellent system which exceeds in most all aspects that was available or possible at anytime prior to the introduction of CDP's (1983 as I recall).

FWIW

"Lower resolution"! You are about to be drummed out of the corp! Tar, feathers, rail and a couple of drummers please!

How about real resolution, not just an enhanced sense of resolution by the manipulating rise/fall times, increaed HF response, etc, which is so often peddled as 'high' resolution.

As a pratical matter I think a lot of the harshness of which folks complain is just the result of equipment designed to 'sound like' they have the ultimate resolution just by enhancing existing information. They become additive, certainly not neutral, and by doing so, especially when piggybacked with other similar components and speakers they become subtractive (harsh).

I always chuckle when I read in a review or some user indorsement for example, someone saying he was able to hear detail in a recording that he had never heard before. My typical initial reaction is that this occurred because he had never listened as closely before, or that his previous equipment was seriously defective, or, rarely perhaps, that he has seriously critical listening skills and not only hears these things but knows to what they can be attributed.

Recordings come in all kinds of formats, with inherrent problems, but to come up with a system that allowed you to hear all of them (recordings) without any sounding harsh you would lose what the good/great ones add to our hobby interest, if not the music itself.