Besides, timbre and dynamic nuance is where the music is. Everything else is audiophile stuff that many confuse for components of music. Think that’s wrong? Look up any meaningful text, book, article, etc. on the subject of MUSIC and find the chapter on “sound staging”. Good luck.
In my experience the areas of timbre and dynamic nuance are precisely the areas where most “audiophile systems” fall short. The deviations from what is heard live are sometimes grotesque. Excessive and often harsh highs, overblown and discontinuous bass and sometimes a kind of hyper detail that simply does not occur in live music. That kind of sound can be impressive and even the most pleasing for some. So be it. I prefer to work at voicing my system so that, first and foremost, the end result moves the sound in the direction of what I hear live in the areas of timbre and dynamic nuance. It is, in fact, possible to get surprisingly close sometimes. Soundstaging? A distant third concern; if at all. It has little to do with music. So, no concerns about parking space 😉.
Going back to the first point of agreement, that reproduced music will never sound EXACTLY like the sound of live. True, but much can be done to voice a system so that, overall, it moves the reproduction of timbre closer, not further away, from the general sound of live. To me, that is a far better choice for reaching enjoyment. Why? Because more of the MUSIC is preserved.
Frogman is a musician and i bet a very good one...
I am not a musician...
Only an average audiophile wanting to create a good system.... All that frogman says is in the same way my own test criteria to tune and install the rightful controls of the working mechanical,electrical and acoustical dimensions of ANY audio system beginning with mine...
Forget all any other concept, when testing an audio system the basis is the natural playing subtle dynamic of tonal timbre of instruments...Nothing else....
Acoustic settings of a room are the most important of the 3 embeddings dimensions controls....The acoustic settings of the room must make possible the recreation of the tonal envelope of a playing instrument...If not the room acoustic is bad... Be it a concert hall or your audio room....
Experiencing the natural perception of timbre is the fundamental question in audio, in concert acoustic or small room acoustic...
If an audio system can did this right it will do the rest right, if not, nothing will be right even if it seems a relative improvement with a so called "upgrade" with a new hyped electronic design...
It takes me years to erase all the audiophile illusions pertaining to gear, upgrade, electronic design, warm,cold,imaging,soundstage etc....They are secondary concepts pertaining not to music but to some "artificial" and conditioned impressions of sound by the commercial market...
It is the perception of music that is the core of acoustic in audio not sound.... If we speak of sound we are no more in audio but in physics...
Is my system able to recreate natural timbre of piano playing in my room ? That is the question the first one and the last one....
Anything else is marketing vocabulary to distinguish different kind of electronic designs approach...BUT audiophile experience is mainly about musical acoustic not about electronic design progress only and mainly....
Give me now an average relatively good system i know how to make it sound at his optimal level.... No upgrade needed....
The chance that a relatively good average system working at his optimal level satisfy you or even surprize you is indeed very great... It is my experience...
«The walls of Jericho were destroyed by sound not by music, in the same way sound may destroy the ears»-Anonymus Smith
«Beware of the market»-Groucho Marx
