Top two most important sound qualities

You need only one: a sense of realism. As in 'suspension of disbelief'.

For this to happen everything else needs to fall into place. Without correct tonality no realism. No clarity, no realism. Limited dynamics, no realism. Etcetera. To get there you will need electronics that are completely neutral and speakers that are 'hand in glove' with the listening space. And of course you will also need a recording that already captured this realism at the recording event. Good luck!

True. And not to criticize or disagree, but to me, choosing "realism" is almost like cheating lol. Isn't it almost like choosing "perfection" or "the ideal sound" as a single sound quality? Maybe not. I've always been aiming for realism for my sound because it is necessarily a composite of getting so many essential sound qualities to a very refined state.

Great thread! I was going to start one that was a top 5 so I’ll list my top 5 things that I want to achieve with my system. From least to most although they no doubt all fit together 

1- great center image 

2-clean sound with superb clarity and detail with no grating highs 

3- wide soundstage with as much depth as my room will do  

4- great tone and midrange magic

5- speakers disappear so it’s just me and the music 

 

 

 

'Realism' would never work for me as there's no way I can fool myself into thinking my living room is the venue for a Metallica concert. If I'm enjoying the sound, it's all good and I don't worry about all these characteristics. 

@gladmo

Thanks for that. Those were my 2 points when at my low point in hi-end audio.

Currently. . . . how to describe? I like a system which lets me connect to the emotional and musical content of the song. Auditioning, I put in a song and don’t really listen for anything. It plays tunes, nothing stands out, and I don’t think about the system. The 2 things I aim for are:

 

1) Top to bottom even.

- Flat frequency response.

- The more full range the better. No sound below 70Hz is not "even".

- No integration problems between drivers.

- Meaning well designed crossover (better yet none)

- No change in sound quality between drivers.

- Potential problems like: Metal tweeter and poly woofer / Ribbon tweeter vs. cone midrange.

- No change in tone going from low volumes to high volumes.

- Harmonically correct. This again relates to even sound with higher level harmonic in balance with the fundamental. Resulting in instruments and vocals sound like themselves.

 

2) Immediacy - means the music’s is "there" and you can feel what the musicians are trying to convey. What they are thinking when they play. Achieved by, IMHO- minimal crossover components, clean power, not trying to fix one problem component with another, and minimal system components in general. This encompasses:

- Transparency.

- Clarity.

- PRAT.

- Soundstaging.

- Dynamics / lack of compression.

- Black background.

 

It’s all about choosing where to compromise and no system can do it all. The more differences between songs the better. Also better spatially means the system is dong something more right.

 

Looking at this list, I come up with something like Quads or single driver speaker run with a chip amp or SET? Maybe horn speakers or omni like MBL / Ohm / 3D mutli speakwr systems.