Lack in harmonic richness

Viridan,

Thanks - I was not aware of that - I thought panels often had some of the cleanest waterfall plots period. I'll dig into it further and see what I can find on it. I am not a panel fanatic as I find they lack dynamic range and bass extension but I have deep respect for the quality with which they often produce midrange. I appreciate your correction/comment.

I've experiemced the same results with some systems and it can be caused by several things i.e...room acoustics, speaker placement (null points), component(s) impedance mismatch, cable mismatch/not compensating for impedance differences, power cord design, speaker sensitivity and amp/speaker interface or the dreaded "Neutralitis" that is designed into some components and speakers. Live music is incredibly dynamic and full with lots of overtones and bloom...if ya aint hearing it, then your deaf or in a crappy venue. It is an art form with no gaurantee of synergy. One of the reasons I love MIT cables is because they eliminate the cable component/spkr interface mismatch problem...one less thing to worry about!

I certainly agree that audiophiles define alot of their terms differently, especially "bloom." "Neutrality" and "pace" also immediately come to mind. Viridian, you are certainly correct when stating that when electronic instruments (and sometimes even acoustic ones) are amplified, they are shorn of harmonics. Also, the volume in many clubs (or symphonic pops concerts, for that matter) is very often turned up far too high, much as it is in most movie theaters nowadays. Once the volume goes past a certain point, it simply becomes noise, and the intelligibility of the music is lost. I think a big part of why most popular music recordings sound so bad today is that far too many "sound engineers" have lost the art. They have become accustomed to this grossly overamplified sound, especially the younger ones, and many of them have never really heard what live, unamplified music can sound like in a good venue, and wouldn't believe that such a thing could even be possible. Unfortunatley, this contributes to the acceptance of MP3 sound among the youth, who also don't know any better. OK, I'm getting way off topic again, sorry.

Chris, all I want to share is that you and I have the same digital front end and my system has beautiful/natural timbres and harmonics so I know its not your front end. My hunch either your preamp or amps and I have never heard either pieces, so its just hunch.