2. speakers
  3. 1240748267

"Frightening" or "Relaxing" sound quality?

What do I mean by that?
Not that I wish to start a new controversy --- knowing some of the usual contributors, it may not be entirely avoidable, so let’s see what gives.

Following some of the threads on the –ultimate- ‘phase-coherent’, 'time-coherent' or yet better, both, 1st order up to steep slopes, an so on, cross-over opinions, I have these notions. So let me explain.

One quite well known ‘maverick’ (done some picking on some other well known reviewer, posting it on his site...), somewhere he states: a good speaker must have the ability 'to frighten you' --- his words, and I can see/hear what he means, at least I think so.

Some other dealer in Wilson’s marvellous products (he's around my place), tells me he can only listen for about ½ hour than he is 'exhausted' --- i.e. too intense to do any longer listening…

Nobody is talking about ‘listening fatigue’ actually, it is more an emotional fatigue, as far as I get it.

Now me, I go to a life orchestra listening and emerge pretty well ‘up-lifted’, never had any fatigue (maybe my bottom, when it got a bit too lengthy) never mind emotional fatigue! Gimme Mahler, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, heavy (classical) metal, whow --- upliftment. Never occur to me run away, get uneasy, GET FRIGHTENED!

I clearly get ‘emotional fatigue’ listening to some types of speakers!
What were they?
I think they had one thing in common: They all where, in some way, VERY realistic, but they also had something else in common, --- they did not, as it seems, stick too well to a reasonably flat amplitude response… ah ha.

What this design regimen seems to produce during listening to keep on making you jump? Apparently always something rather unexpected in happening! Now we do also know what makes us (as humans) ‘jump’: it is some unexpected ‘something’ coming ‘out of the bush’ a snapping branch, some sort of VERY REAL sound, that does not quite go along with the general set of the acoustic environment.

Now take some ‘benign, dumb’ kind of speaker, it has so little in REALISTIC sound to offer, it just can’t frighten you. You (your instinct, subconscious) just don’t ‘buy’ into it.
Now take a VERY realistic sound-producer (the ones that can make you jump) and mess with the amplitude response, what you are getting is this on the edge of your seat reaction. The VERY opposite of what a lot of music has as its intention. (Not like AV ‘Apocalypse now’ kind of chopper going to attack you from any old angle, top, behind, etc.)

Lastly, has this something to do with why lots of folks perhaps shy away from these sort of designs?
I have listened to my share and I shy away, because as REAL everything seems to be in the reproduction, it keeps me in a state of inner tension, apprehension --- even listening to some Mozart Chamber music, as there is ALWAYS something very REAL, but somehow unsettling going on.

It might just explain why some of these designs don’t ‘cut the mustard’ and not survive in the long run. Unless, and open to opinion, that we are (most of us anyway) so messed up and transistor-radio-sound-corrupted that we seem ‘unworthy of these ‘superior’ audio-designs.
I honestly don’t think so, but you may have it otherwise, as they say YMMV.

I thought it is of value to bring this up, since it does not ever seem to be part of any of the more ‘technical’ discussions ---- the human ‘fright/flight’ element in ignoring proper FLAT amplitude response in favour of minimal insertion losses, or proper impedance compensation, notch filtering, et al, just so to obtain this form of stressful realism.

It might be also something to do with age, a much younger listener (in my experience) likes to be stirred up, and emotionally knocked all over the place ---- listening to Baroque music like bungee jumping?!
Maybe.
It be interesting to hear if it is just my form of ‘over-sensitiveness’ that brings forth this subject.
Best,
Axel
axelwahl
axelwahl OP
788 posts
 
Hi Mrtennis
I hear what you say, but maybe it misses a fine point here. We do get attracted to things that can be unsettling, or frightening ---- until it gets too much, or until we realise/notice what is happening to our emotion. Not such a cut and dried affair as you like to have it.
Your approach is totally RATIONAL, but humans are not only rational!
Ever noticed in the presence of a VERY attractive woman, you are attracted and uneasy all at once, even scared...
It is that sort of irrational response that some people like to ignore away --- but these responses are there with us never the less.

Greeting,
Axel
PS: I get he idea that you might like what Ayn rand in “Atlas shrugged” had to say. “The theme of Atlas Shrugged is the morality of rational self-interest”.
If it does not ring a bell, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Again, the deepest register of an organ for example, which is at 16 hz will cause the sensation of fear in you. It is first and foremost a physiological thing, the psychological reaction coming second. You will have the same sensation of unease listening to the first bars of "Also sprach Zarathustra" on a system capable of plunging to those depths. Most systems cannot and you need not be overly sensitive to feel uneasy here. Especially the composers of the romantic period, but in earlier as well as later times, tried through rhythmic and melodic means to trigger quite specific emotive responses in their audience by compository means which are taught in music theory to this day. Wagner is an absolute master in this, but also Schubert und Bruckner, even Bach in his great Passions. no matter what some seem to have to state here, *IF* you have the ear and gear for it and the necessary sensitivities, you will, when listening to your music through the years ,have experienced *ALL* emotive states, which you are capable of. A suden bout of fear, having your hair stand up, can certainly be one of them. I am thinking here especially of Sibelius and R. Strauss. This has nothing to do with my disliking certain passages of certain music, be it, that I don't like the interpretation or the recording process and then there are of course systems, where only politeness forbids to have me leave the premises precipitously with much mumbling and cursing.....
axelwahl OP
788 posts
 
Hi Detlof
I think I'm fully with you, and it is what I, or some other contributor, might have earlier on described as "goose bump" factor.
All composers mentioned (all of my own choice) only make real SENCE if that happens. That is just great!

Maybe all you guys have these marvellous transducers and systems --- should I be jealous?

The stuff I'm on about is somehow UNRELATED to the original intend of the music. You will be able to hear that difference, - I can.
In a life performance a real blast, rattle and shake is creating 'good' fear, a kind of aw, for lack of a better word.
But some highly resolving systems give you a kind of unnatural, unrelated, unease -- as if something is not RIGHT. People refer to something sounding RIGHT, so there is the opposite too.

Axel
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Axel I agree what you say about the so called "highly resolving systems". I won't mention names here, but amongst them is gear highly revered by audiophiles who've never seen a concert hall from the inside and have their pockets emptied by gear which has nothing to do with how music can and should sound. They are happy with what they've got and I respect that and would never tell or argue that there are systems at less than a tenth of their cost which are much closer to the real thing. There is for example one manufacturer, whose gear you could only afford if you have a couple of oil wells in your backyard, who in his literature prides himself that his designs are all realized without listening tests but are based on pure "science". How unscientific can you get! Listening to one of his setups for a longer stretch of time will cause you discomfort if you are used to live concerts. Strangely enough, the manufacturers I have in mind are mostly European. Seems Japanese and US SOTA High-Enders listen to what they put on the market. Some of them, like Ralph Karsten of Atma-Sphere are musicians of their own right.
axelwahl OP
788 posts
 
Thanks Detlof,
come to think about it, this phenomena is NOT just reserved to speakers alone.
I had even some tube pre-amp do this, differential design using 6H30 you might know.
No power amp ever, they can just get boring or annoying, but never with any class A designs. They just kill me in summer with their heat, giving me heat-exhaustion...

I had it with some interconnects RCA and XLR, some producing truly 'spooky' effects, which I could only explain with some weird phase shifting.
Never really with speaker cables either, closed-in yes, too much glare yes, but not this uneasy stuff.
I also had it with some CD player using a tube in the output, made in China...
As to speakers, as I also mentioned earlier, some VERY pricy items. Two or three in my own listening room and I couldn't wait to have them removed, gave me the willies.
It is this background that made me inquire, to see how other folks are faring in this regard.
Greetings,
Axel
More to discover