Guido,
thank you for your understanding reply.
I disagree entirely with your comment that hifi systems cannot change the timing and rhythmic flow of a piece of music. Let me be clear with you. Timing and rhythm is utilised by me with their most commonly envisaged meanings. I use them to describe the potential a listener will have to tap their feet to a tune. This is most likely to occur when there is cohesion and coherence between the musicians being displayed by the system.
Foir example the timing of the bass would be perceived as driving the tune along. In this way you get a clearer understanding of what the musicians were trying to achieve, and hence is nost likely to be very much more enjoyable to listen to.
Of course, in its entirety, the structure of each and every note played by each musicsian with reference to time would be the major factor, and this in itself is the summation of numerous other factors in sound reproduction.
We all know that you can slow the pace of music, in particular by making changes to your system which slow the base notes down (e.g by overextending the length of the note or prolonging its decay unnaturally. Just try adding a subwoofer out of sync with the rest of the system, yet receiving the same electrical messages as the rest of the system). Or by making your system so highly analytical e.g excessive use of silver cables, that the details seem to be resolved around each musician rather then encapturing all the performers together. This gives a segmented/disjointed feel to the piece. i.e unmusical. You find it difficult to understand the soul of the piece, and concentrate on the individuals instead of the group as a whole.
Just to complicate matters further, copper cables can add warmth to the tone of the music, provide a feeling of coherence in the overall picture between the musicians but at the same time can lead to a leaden quality to the tune. This again is non musical in my opinion. I am of course generalizing here but you get the idea.
In conclusion then, if you listen to a sony scd 1(unmodded),
you can enjoy the detail retrieval ambience etc, but are you truely feeling what the musicians have tried to achieve and parade to you,their musical genious if you will. You may delight in the detail, but what about the music. Indeed many may not even realize there was a purpose to the piece that should have made your feet tap. You then put the Marantz dv8400 in its place (unmodded). You play the same red book cd, and the piece this time seems to click togerther.The detail may not be as obvious, nor the individual instrumental ambience. But, you are no longer listen to the individual instrumentalists, but you see the piece as a whole. A whole which hangs together creating a flow and rhtyhm with purpose and emotion. Your heart is racing and the hair on the back of your neck raises and you are rocking in tune with the music. The notes produced by the musicians are timed start and stop in their release from your system in such a way that they are interacting with one another in the way they were meant to be as originally felt by the musicians. That is their TIMING and PACE are such that a RHYTHM develops.
doc luke
