Two Type of sound and listener preference are there more?

Many good insightful comments here.
Prof, my experience of listening to live acoustical instruments is the same impression that you describe. So full, rich and vivid/colorful, very warm when heard in person and up close . just immensely emotionally engaging.

Many audio components seem to sacrifice this character for higher frequency energy and presumably increased detail and accuracy (ends up too thin/lean sounding, stripped of the beautiful natural tone/harmonics) . IMO, Oh well, Wolf wisely summed it up , just try to achieve what sounds right to you. +1.
Charles

03-10-2018 2:45pm
@seaheis" They trust their ears less and gain valuable insights from measurements and white papers."

I am on the detail side and I recently bought a Benchmark AHB2 amp and DAC3L so you got that assumption correct. However, I trust my ears and that is why I don't do the colored sound stuff.

BYW - those 2 Benchmark units are outstanding.

Hi, you trusting your ears means that you are not a hardcore objectivist. There are very few far right objectivists on this forum. They tend to hang out on Reddit and AV Science forums and will sometimes attack folks who use their subjective ears to make comparisons that are not done using volume matched ABX testing.

Some folks love the Benchmark gear and some folks like it at first, but then ultimately find it fatiguing. I find Benchmark amps and DACs to be colored towards the detailed/analytical side...harmonics seem missing to me...so IMO that makes them less musical. Having said that, if I had a room and speakers that created too warm or even a dark sound presentation, Benchmark gear would likely create a wonderful synergy to balance things out. 
 

  

 

Here is the Doctor's perspective.

We tune for resolution with musicality, This is too say there is a way of creating detail and alive dynamics and still retain a sembalance of listenaiblity.

The high resolution school is the ability to hear a cymbol crash and for a drum to go twack and pressurize a room so it sounds real and believable. 

If a speaker can't play loud without compression it could be considered a problem if you are trying to reproduce music accurately.

The arguement as put forth is not to make a system which only sounds good on certain recordings, but doesn't make all recordings sound good even bad ones. You have to choose and tune your components very carefully.

We came up with this analogy years ago we call it the Coffe drinkers guide to Audiology.

First start off with a high end coffee bean lets say from Sumatra and clean, cold water, and an appropriate coffe maker one that can extract the best possible flavor, here comes the analogy:

On one extreme is the guy who drinks hot black no cream, no sugar, this listener craves the maximium clarity and realisim he would be on one side of the scale,

In the middle a would be the guy who likes his coffee  with a little cream or milk just to  take the edge off, lets say he is -1

Lets say next you add a touch of sugar, just a pinch, you may now be -2

and as you start to add more milk to le6e say 1/3 the coffe you keep moving away -3 and more sugar -4.

till you are the opposite part of the scale where you can't taste the coffee at all but have created something that is delightful to your palate. 

So if you understand what we tune for we strive for neutral with just the edge taken off as close to a neutral reference.

So in this reality camp speakers that have excellent dynamic range, are tonally accurate, and have great speed and clarity and can image well would be very desirable.

If you are in the more musical camp, imaging  may not necessarily be as inportant than by having a very smooth sound, dyanmic range may also not be as important as perhaps this listener plays very softly or plays music like small ensembles. 

Hope that adds a bit more fuel.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Some folks love the Benchmark gear and some folks like it at first, but then ultimately find it fatiguing. I find Benchmark amps and DACs to be colored towards the detailed/analytical side...harmonics seem missing to me.

Here is part of the review on avmentor.net:

The overall impression is that the system is able to pass into the listening room both the harmonic richness and the tonal balance of the recording. The Benchmark pair offered near-flawless attack/release times and sounded full and impressively present even in small details, a behavior that reinforces the sense of precision and carries the listener a step closer to the live performance.

kijanki, it comes down to taste and compared to what?? IMO, the only losers are those that don’t audition enough gear.

Here is a comparison of the AHB2 to the Schiit Vidar by the audiophool.

The tonal balance of the AHB2 tends towards lean. It’s not bright. From the mids on up, the balance is excellent. The bass volume is like the D-sonic class D amp recently reviewed, lower in level compared to Vidar. This helps add a sense of clarity. I am unsure whether VIdar or AHB2 is clearer sounding at this point as the AHB2 seems to simplifies music (and simplification sometimes lends itself to a clearer sound). Will try out more tracks; but currently as it stands, I’d give the AHB2 the benefit of the doubt and a slight nod in clarity.

Where the AHB2 totally falls apart is in the plankton, layering, texture, microdynamics, soundstage, and immediacy department. Upon a switch back to the AHB2 for the Vidar, my 9 year old son was like "that other one (Vidar) was WAY better!" The difference to me was immediately apparent (like in two seconds) on the initial and first switch to the Vidar.

The stage and the music along with it just got sucked in to 2D plane, much like a how an NOS DAC would do it. But worse, because not just that, musical information that was abundant with the Vidar, the guitar and vocal textures, smack of lips, breaths, mix overlays, ambient information, reverb, etc. suddenly dropped away. It was pretty dramatic of a change. Don’t get me wrong, Vidar is competent but hardly the bee’s knees (which I still consider the Hegel H2 or Pioneer M22 to be). TBH, I’m not going to pull the H2 out to compare because it would be a waste of time.

Last edited: Sep 24, 2017
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