I have tried a variety of gear over the years and have mostly kept the stuff that I enjoy listening to. My predominate criteria have been tone and dynamics, and I have been fortunate to acquire gear that is also quiet, smooth, and generally accurate-sounding compared to live music I listen to. I have no illusion that I am listening to anything but recorded music played back on a home system but the rich tonal quality and generally powerful dynamic response both go a long way toward my enjoyment. I pay almost no attention to measurements, audiophile-type analyses, or comparisons with idealized references.
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
I visited a friend recently who has an estimated $150,000 system. At first listen it sounded wonderful, airy, hyper detailed, with an excellent well delineated image, an audiophile's dream. Then we put on a jazz quartet album I am extremely familiar with, an excellent recording from the analog days. There was something wrong. On closing my eyes it stood out immediately. The cymbals were way out in front of everything. The drummer would have needed at least 10 foot arms to get to them. I had him put on a female vocalist I know and sure enough there was sibilance with her voice, same with violins. These are all signs that the systems frequency response is sloped upwards as the frequency rises resulting in more air and detail. This is a system that sounds right at low volumes except my friend listens with gusto. This is like someone who watches TV with the color controls all the way up.
I have always tried to recreate the live performance. Admittedly, this might not result in the most attractive sound. Most systems are seriously compromised in terms of bass power and output. Maybe this is a way of compensating.
There is no right or wrong. This is purely a matter of preference accuracy be damn. What would you rather, real or surreal?
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@erik_squires Have you named your Oscilloscope yet and which name you've chosen, boy's name, girls name or neutral? If you have chosen the name, are you looking for picking the last or second name? |
In reproduction audio, accurate sound means closer to the original music (real). The better sound is the more accurate sound. The real sound = accurate sound = better sound. There is no chance a surreal sound is the better sound. Surreal sound is always worse (dirty sound, confused sound image and sound-stage, sonically and musically). Surreal sounds can be momentarily better to people who don’t have much experience in real music or true natural sound audio. Since every audio systems (low-end, hi-end, all $million systems) sound un-natural (except my audio system). Your audio sounds un-natural and you may not know exactly what is real or surreal sound. Alex/Wavetouch |
The original recording is an acoustic perspective or take resulting from trade-off choices conveyed by the gear system to another acoustic perspective ,where they will be translated in our room for specific ears/head... Accuracy refer to measured numbers of specific factors of any kind .... Digital, electrical, acoustical or psycho-acoustical MEASURES but the end PERCEIVED EXPERIENCE is not about accuracy it is about the way a gear system convey an acoustical trade-off set of choices by the recording engineer and how it is translated through your speakers-room by ears and by your specific HRTF or head related transfer function to your speakers/room... And i need an explanation about YOUR speakers being the only possible one accurate in the world, in any room for any inner ears structure and any HRTF sorry , Why and How is it possible ? 😊
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