Laid Back Speakers amps, players etc

the phrase "laid back" contains two words, namely "laid" and "back". i believe the context for "laid" is position of the sound, i.e., where is it coming from ?

the word, "back", would indicate a rear of the stage presentation. thus laid back would mean tat the sound of instruments appears to be projected from the back of a hall, studio, or other venue.

now, consider a recording. where is the microphone placed in the recording venue in relationship to the performing musicians ? each recording offers a different presentation with respect to placing the musicians at some position in the room.

if a stereo system always gives the impression that the music is coming from the back of a recording venue, is this not coloration and wouldn't such a stereo system be considered laid back. if so, laid back is not a coloration. if instead, laid back is not a coloration, does this mean laid back means lack of coloration or neutrality ?

one can't have it both ways. and yes, laid back creates a tonal balance in which, instruments placed in the foreground seem to attenuate treble frequency to a greater extent than bass frequencies. after all, treble frequencies have a shorter wave length.

i hope i don't sound like a lawyer.

i agree with you, ralph, that one should strive to create components which are faithful to the timbre, harmonics and dynamics of instruments. however, the best efforts of designers do not produce perfection. a well trained listener will discern a consistent sonic characteristic, i.e., coloration when listening to most stereo systems.

thus, it seems reasonable to accept that all components are colored (imperfect) and strive to minimize imperfection.

ralph, how do you minimize coloration in your designs ?

Let's take a poll. Maybe we can find out what "musical" means too. ;)

Classe30: Not familiar with Nola. ML, Maggies, IRS and Genesis are the dipoles I've spent some time with.

Mrtennis, I would be hesitant in this case to take the face value of the phrase for its actual meaning; if you think of someone who has a laid back demeanor I think you get a better idea of what I am talking about.

As to your question, we avoid coloration by avoiding synergistic effects. None of our gear is built to synergize with another piece, be it one of ours or someone else's. IOW there is no voicing of any kind. We don't have to worry about the effects of a transformer, so it comes down to the quality of the coupling caps, how many stages of gain (one), that sort of thing.

Being able to compare against master tapes helps.

Getting rid of negative feedback turned out to be a fairly easy way to get 'laid back' sound (in this case, my meaning for the term, see previous posts) without sacrificing bandwidth. That **does** mean that certain speakers just will not work with our stuff; turns out there's a set of rules about how to predict that- see

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

Something I thought and wanted to share with you.

Could it be that a laid back speaker gives you the impression that you are where the event was performed while a forward speaker gives you the impression of the event being performed in your room?

In that case I think laid back is more correct, due to the ambience of the reconding...

i think laid back means a greater distance between listener and musicians than the distance between the microphone and musicians, while forward is the opposite of laid back. both are departures from the accurate reproduction of a recording.

thus, there are 3 possibilities, laid back, forward and neither laid back nor forward.