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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
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ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
1,052 posts
 
Maybe it's Not so much different ideas of what systems should sound like, but different ideas of what music should sound like.

It's live music or bust, for me, but evidently many folks just don't require any such thing.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 

I think it boils down to speakers. The Benchmark DAC sounds perfect on neutral accurate speakers. Lots of really rich harmonic detail far more than other syrupy gear that tends just to sound like warm mush and where masking from all that warmth hides real instrumental harmonics and timbre.

My speakers have been used for three decades to produce a large portion of the music available - sought after for accuracy in conveying the mix or master at all volumes. They match well with Benchmark clean neutral sound.

The opposite of the above would be Marantz paired with say Dynaudio speakers or drivers. These are both dark sounding brands - prized for being warm, smooth and musical.



dbb
198 posts
 
I’m with the third camp that rejects the distinction of two camps. There is no pure real sound of music because the venue is always a factor. The exact same performance could sound "musical" in one hall or venue or like crap in another. The same live performance might sound great (musical) in one seat and bad in another. If amplification is used in the original performance more variables are introduced. Again, there is no one real.
markmendenhall
225 posts
 
Simply put, if the nature of the sound produced by your system doesn’t cause a positive emotional response, it really doesn’t matter what camp you are in.  My system allows me an emotional connection with the music, if it didn’t I’d make changes till it did.  I guess that is my definition of ‘musical’.  
ps
757 posts
 
@markmendenhall 
"Simply put, if the nature of the sound produced by your system doesn’t cause a positive emotional response, it really doesn’t matter what camp you are in.  My system allows me an emotional connection with the music, if it didn’t I’d make changes till it did.  I guess that is my definition of ‘musical’.  "

Indeed, sir!   I've heard a lot of live music which sounded terrible because the acoustics of the location were terrible.  I've heard a lot of live music which sounded glorious because the acoustics of the venue were at least decent.

With regard to my home audio system, let me say that I'm in the happy camp.
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