Should We Prioritize Detail In Our Assessment Of Audio Quality?

millercarbon, I agree with your assessment that imaging is a prioritizing factor. I disagree however with the your comment stating that digital sources don't in general have more detail. Personally, I have heard digitally remastered recordings where noises, coughs , etc.. are heard from the gallery. Those coughs are not noticeable within the original analogue sources. This doesn't make detail bad, mind you, because there are other aspects to the nature of digital versus analogue that in most circumstances makes digital preferable. I'd venture to say that very few analogue rereleases are free from digital remastering and details within those recordings are considerable versus there analogue originals. 

I'm listening through Quad ESL's and they can be a little forward and revealing. Hearing detail isn't an objection of mine, otherwise I wouldn't own Quads. But I generally think about revealing details as being extraneous. Imaging however is central to lifelike sound, IMO.

In the glory days of LP we used to speak well of those components that provided low level information. That was the air, the imaging, the detail. For classical music especially I want the detail for the music can be especially complicated. An orchestra of 100; a chorus of 100. I’ve been listening recently to the new Pappano Aida. Yes in a concert hall you will hear more detail in row C than in row P.

But it was Harry Pearson who suggested that detail on a record is more important on records than in person for with the record you have no visual clues.

Today you can find it all: detail, imaging, soundstage, fulness and body in the sound. And you can find it at a reasonable price. Which is to say that detail does not have to come at the price of giving up other desirable qualities. 

i don’t feel a complete, enlightened, well rounded discussion about sound quality of hifi gear would focus heavily (much less exclusively) on the notion of presented 'detail' in the music ... relative noobs tend to go for that, but if they stick with it and learn what’s important over time, experience real music, they start to include many other sonic qualities in their criteria for what's good music and sound

+1 MC on deffinition of detail. Perseptions differ.

+1 jjss49. i still have much to learn regarding criterion. 

There is much that is left out in what some consider detail. For each note an articulate attact is a start, the harmonic overtones provide the finish. There is so much detail in the latter that is overlooked. 

This is an article from Stereophile many years ago that changed how I looked at equipment. The summation of detail doesn’t always give you the same musical performance. Its about music and performance for me not about sound. Some equipment heightens or highlights details in distracting ways that makes them seem better initially. My trick when I’m evaluating equipment is to not directly listen, I see if it subconsciously draws me into the performance. Well reproduced music will do that, I can’t ignore it. If it can’t draw me, or I’m distracted by a specific detail then its just a wall of sound.

https://www.stereophile.com/reference/23/index.html