If a " system " cannot do this, I move on........

There is always 2 sonic theaters in competition IN YOUR PERCEPTIVE CONCRETE FIELD when you listen recorded music...

The first sonic theater so to speak is related to your room acoustic treatment but also controls or lack of ...

The second sonic theater is the "living" original theater created by sound recording engineer microphones choices and locations and trade-off and by the mix engineer after him ...

What you listen to, unbeknownst to most, is the addition/competition between these 2 sonic theaters...

What many people cannot "hear" or experience or guess, is that save for a "perfect" ideally optimized totally controlled room for some speakers, we listen always to a MIX of these 2 competing acoustic theaters...

 

 

 

The goal is not ONLY to listen ultimately to the original lived recording event which anyway cannot give you anything other than the specific takes of the recording engineer, not the musical original event itself; the audiophile goal is ALSO to give in relation to your specific hearing abilities with a specific speakers pair in YOUR room, an "optimal" musical satisfaction and not ONLY the deceptive acoustical illusion to listen to the main event ...

Then the integratation of all acoustic characteristics and cues are not ONLY acoustic means of reproduction of the space locations of the original theater event but also recreation of the "timbre" experience coming not only from digital acoustic recorded cues of the original lived theater but also from the acoustic cues of your room indeed...

A small room can never acoustically disapear like a great listening vast concert hall could do it...( For example the positive or negative effects of reverberation time)

Then in a small room we deal with 2 different acoustical cues: some written by analog or digital processing from the recording microphones and  files or cd and some from the pressure zones from our specfic dynamical acoustic room field ...We adapt one with the other by adapting the Speakers/room /specific ears to our sapecific liking controls at will, with Helmoltz mechanical method mainly in my case....

 

No room sound the same, and a small controlled room would SEEMS to disapear, but it will never disapear MOST OF THE TIMES, because there is a RECREATION in our room of the recorded event from a translation of a digital/analog/ chain mediated by our acoustic room settings never a REPRODUCTION.... Even if the space of our room could mimic the space of the original recording choices in some case, the "timbre" perception COULD not and could never be the same exact "timbre" that is to say the specific timbre playing during the lived event before or after the recording engineer choices... The reason is simple the violin playing timbre i listen to in my house is not only listened to from a good recorded cd but from a not so optimally controlled room....This violin timbre is then RECREATED not REPRODUCED in our room...It differ....

 

 

OPTIMIZING the perception of the first sonic theater with acoustic controls implemented in the second sonic theater is the key.....

 

 

 

Corollary: there exist no perfect room, and if a more perfect room than mine exist like in a vast theater, there is no perfect place, and if the perfect place exist, it exist for specific ears with some trade-off ...And if the concert is recorded there exist no perfect recording anyway...And our room may sometimes positively compensate for the inevitable trade-off in the recording process or impede it greatly...

 

Then to answer the OP...

If your system cannot do this, keep it for a while, and study acoustic and psycho-acoustic before judging your system potential....Move on from audio magazine upgrade reading to acoustic articles studying...It worked for me....

And remember that the playing notes "timbre" we listen to, be it recorded or not, is a sum of informations coming from the resonant body of the musical instrument itself , and coming from the musician body strucking it with a dynamical gesture and pression , and ALSO the addition of informations coming from the environmental acoustic cues of the room/theater/ or/and near objects through the playing instrument changing his timbre itself for each specific locations and each interactions with the surrounding objects on the scene... ( think about the echolocalization used by blind people who use this information consciously)...

Timbre is a way more complex phenomenon and a way more complex perception event than most people think...

 

Feel free to correct me...I am not a scientist at all.... Only someone whose hobby is music listening first and sound listening experiments in the last years all ending in a relative great success ...

 

«A violin never sound like a violin»- Groucho Marx 🤓

«You only repeat Heraclites here brother»-Harpo Marx

What I listen for, most of all, with every recording I listen to, is an engagenment between me, and the performers. Following the individual rhythms and musical lines, by the artists, is the number one factor I strive to hear. My system allows for this. My question is : how many of you actually listen for this, or even know what I am speaking of. My personal experience listening to so many high priced systems, has been very disappointing in using this criteria.

That’s for sure! Your auto-tune example is a good one. Human hearing is exceedingly fine-tuned. There is a character to real live sounds that is impossible to reproduce.

That said, there are better and worse ways of doing it. The better ways are all analog, tube, and minimalist. Don’t believe me, listen to a gramophone some time. Nowhere near modern audiophile standards of frequency response, signal to noise, dynamic range or volume, nevertheless uncannily engaging and real.

This is why things like auto-tune, tone controls and especially DSP are such an abomination. They mess with the relationships. A singer’s voice for example, the sound you hear is extraordinarily complex. It starts in the vocal cords but the whole respiratory system and chest resonates, the shape of mouth and position of tongue, every last detail has an influence on the total sound we hear.

This is what I strive for. One time recently a listener said, "She was smiling. You could tell she was smiling. You could hear it in her voice." I never was so happy or heard a better compliment.

Good post...

You explain well why i prefer the simplicity of mechanical equalization to electronical equalization...One is digital equalization for a microphone with pre-frabricated tone sets the other analog equalization with a real voice timbre bandwidth for ears/speakers/room, and the mechanical equalizer is part of my room/speakers...It is way more than just a useful tool then...It is a permanent addition...

 

We can ultimately hear a smiling mouth through a "timbre" event...But your system is probably more resolving than mine....😊 I dont pretend to hear that myself i only guess through my present system/room what you spoke about....( I will need a ZOTL amplifier in the years to come i guess)

Smiling speech expressions versus more weeping sound characters in speech are audible facts in psycho-acoustic....