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What is this term 'analytical' ?

I see this routinely in reviews & comments and so do you:

It’s too analytical. It’s so analytical that it’s not musical. Etc.

What does this mean? You can actually hear stuff? You picture math problems on a chalkboard? A shrink’s couch?

Isn’t the entire point of this hobby to hear music clearly? But apparently: not too clearly?

128x128zufan
rja's avatar
rja
2,357 posts
 

"Analytical" is something I’ve been fighting ever since I got into this stupid hobby.

The arrival of "Digital" made things worse.

bjesien
1,252 posts
 

Some amp and speaker combinations are poor matches for me. I’ve had combinations where there was far to much control over the speaker. It took the rhythm out of the music and made it sound mechanical. There are those that prefer this type of system because I’ve heard their praise with the same setup.

There is something mysterious about sound and our brains that makes it like the saying- beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

cd318
2,636 posts
 

@rja 

"Analytical" is something I’ve been fighting ever since I got into this stupid hobby.

The arrival of "Digital" made things worse.

 

 

I felt the same way for a very long time. Always looking for a particular kind of elusive sound - warm, analogue, organic, seductive, human, lacking grain etc.

 

Nowadays, I have gained considerable respect for digital, especially for its temporal qualities.

However, it's nothing less than a tragedy that we have ended up with decades of recordings that have been dynamically ruined because of the so called loudness wars.

 

This is akin to putting a 55kph limiter on a Ferrari. Now even if most of their customers wanted such a thing, would Ferrari ever do it?

mapman's avatar
mapman
21,909 posts
 

I wouldn’t over analyze it. 😉

asctim
445 posts
 

There are a lot of good answers on here that match my idea of analytical sound. Specifically too much highs at the expense of midrange tonality, and a lack of sense of musical rhythm and pace. The rhythm and pace part may have something to do with the way a speaker interacts with the room. Here where I work we analyze bass burst tones that have been played through a hifi system and recorded at the listening position. These are 16th notes with 16th rests in between. At some frequencies the note can be off at the listening position by a 16th note! It's silent when the note is supposed to be playing, and the note is playing when it's supposed to be silent! That happens because early reflections that are out of phase cancel out the sound from the speaker, but when the speakers go silent the remaining reflections can then be heard. 

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