Two Type of sound and listener preference are there more?


In our thirty years of professional audio system design and setup, we keep on running into two distinctly different types of sound and listeners.

Type One: Detail, clarity, soundstage, the high resolution/accuracy camp. People who fall into this camp are trying to reproduce the absolute sound and use live music as their guide.

Type Two: Musicality camp, who favors tone and listenability over the high resolution camp. Dynamics, spl capabilty, soundstaging are less important. The ability for a system to sound real is less important than the overall sound reproduced "sounds good."

Are there more then this as two distincly different camps?

We favor the real is good and not real is not good philosophy.

Some people who talk about Musicaility complain when a sytem sounds bright with bright music.

In our viewpoint if for example you go to a Wedding with a Live band full of brass instruments like horns, trumpts etc it hurts your ears, shouldn’t you want your system to sound like a mirror of what is really there? Isn’t the idea to bring you back to the recording itself?

Please discuss, you can cite examples of products or systems but keep to the topic of sound and nothing else.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
128x128audiotroy
I agree with Ivan in that more money will often buy a closer approach (although still only an approach) to the "real". I also agree with Al that it has many more factors. Since I cannot afford a very close approach what's "real", I have certain sonic priorities that bring me closer to the feeling of sonic reality in reproduction.
For me, the priorities are 
1) Dynamic range
2)Coherence
3)Harmonic accuracy
4)Imaging/soundstaging.
Most of my favorite recordings are in live settings, but I'm definitely a Type 2 listener.  I'm also a big fan of tubes, which I perceive many Type 1 listeners look down upon because they claim they add coloration that distorts accuracy.

I would say camp 1 is the analytical crowd that is left brain dominate. These are your engineers, doctors, and tech professionals. They like their music colored to the analytical/detailed side. They believe that this sound signature is neutral. They enjoy Benchmark amps and DACs as well as passive preamps. They trust their ears less and gain valuable insights from measurements and white papers.

Camp 2 is the feelings/emotion dominated group (right brain subjectivist). They tend to like a warmer presentation and gravitate towards valves and vinyl. They judge their gear by how it makes them feel. They are sometimes scorned by camp 1 hardcore objectivists for creating sound reproduction that is different than what the artist intended. You can find camp 2 members in the ZU Audio room at shows.