Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?

Is it real or is it Memorex?

This is an interesting thread so I will jump in.

The subjectivity and variables in recorded music is inherent in the entire creation process from the capture to the audio engineer’s bias to the equipment used to listen to it to the ears and brain of the listener. Take most recording of the 50’s and into the 60’s were mono then stereo was simulated by the audio engineer. Miles Davis “Kind of Blue” is an example, What was the audio engineer’s bias, do you like the mono or the stereo version or both? Now time travel ahead to Steely Dan’s Aja album, one of my favorites for the music and the audio engineering. To say that a live recording is more “Real” that “Surreal” may somehow start out at the capture point but then the number of fingers in the pie is extremely large from the capture to a person’s listening session. In the end it is all a degree of “surreal”

So, what is real? What is surreal? I like them both….. if I like them!

The more i read audio threads the more i realized people are unsatisfied in many cases and frustrated...

This had nothing to do with price tags or branded name choices very often...

Synergy between components at any price and embeddings of components at any price is necessary...

But it was almost impossible for me to figure out ways to do it with my components before studying general acoustics concepts and i dont speak about only specialized small room acoustic here but about acoustics in general, what is crosstalk or what is an Helmholtz resonators for example among other acoustics questions, or what define TIMBRE acoustically and how can i use that ?...What is listener envelopment ? What is the sound source width ? Etc...

People dont study acoustics and pick their experience with gear changing one after the other pieces...They became consumers slaves of marketing...They must read acoustics articles to understand their experience FIRST not the owner of gear manual...

Am i deaf if i claim to be happy with low cost components well embedded ?😊

Am i delusional?

Am i someone who claim happiness because i decided to live with a relatively bad sound pretending the opposite ? Delusional people exist by the way...

Why am i not envious of any system here and most if not all other system are costlier and better than mine in design especially compared my actual speakers choice?

No...

I am happy because i optimize my system till i reach this minimal acoustic threshold where details and musicality became ONE and did not impose on me mandatory "taste" choices...

There is no tastes choices forced upon us in well done acoustic environment , only factors under control... And without any mechanical and electrical embeddings controls no system can be optimal...

And there is also "necessary "tweaks" for me of my own i used without which my soundfield dont please me...

All that cost me NOTHING or peanuts but it must be experimented and learned, it takes time...

Or pick your choice and call me delusional...

I dont care listening my music...

Acoustics , synergy, and the rightfull embeddings controls rule in audio not the gear pieces and the price tag ...Sorry but i am not the one delusional...😊

 

Without experiments we cannot embed our system rightfully...

Anyway almost nobody will put a bundle of different straws of different volume and lenght behind their speakers in the porthole to increase bass depth and extension as i did knowing that any vented speakers is an Helmholtz resonators often badly designed in his ratio volume/ neck section and lenght ...Most people will upgrade this low cost speakers instead of experimenting and learning  to a very costlier one giving more bass... Me i did it at not cost and now instead of 85 hertz i enjoy 50 hertz on my 4 inches driver and 50 hertz very clear and punchy with even taste under is ENOUGH  for most music instrument save deep organ note ...And i also introduced other changes to decrease crosstalk mechanically to some degree with success it was possible because i listen near field and the small speakers are on my desk......

It look "nuts" yes... I even increase the tweeter directionality in my near listening field with success..

It look as some laughing ignorant will call "tin foil hat" system but i am not frustrasted with beautiful unsatisfying costly speakers with no acoustic optimization as many are  ... Thats my point...

We dont need money we need experimenting and learning in acoustics...And we need to control a bit the EMI and electrical noise floor ... Etc...

By the way there is no "surreal" concept of sound in any acoustics book...These distinction had no meaning for me at all they are gear focussed metaphor not grounded in acoustics ... It is a metaphor not an acoustic concept... Natural TIMBRE sound is an acoustic concept and experience well defined by at least 5 characteristics in acoustics with which we can play  and experiment...

 

@tvrgeek 

Very good. Several points. Euphonic can be clean as in low distortion levels. That says nothing about amplitude response which is generally where the euphonic comes from. As you pointed out most distortion comes in the form of loudspeakers. There are speakers which are uniquely better in this regard, true ribbons and ESLs. Rooms effect amplitude response, clarity and imaging. 

As you suggest where the eyes go goes the hearing, if it looks good it must sound better. Just the way we are wired. The more expensive the better the sound, expectation bias. False beliefs, again expectation bias. We are ruled by our minds whether we like it or not. Being aware of this is the first step in countering it. 

If your speakers are anyone of Thiels, Dunlavys, Vandersteens, etc.,  with first-order crossovers and time/phase aligned, then you cannot throw away accuracy. These speakers give an accurate reproduction of music. So, you have to throw away the speakers. If you are going to do such a thing, please contact me ahead of time, I have a dumpster near my house that will accept any one of the above speakers. But do please call me ahead of time (LOL).

The perennial question for audiophiles (assuming by "surreal" the OP meant something like "super-real"; I doubt any but the oddest of us would prefer our systems to sound "unreal," "bizarre," "freakish" or any of the other synonyms of "surreal," which originally designates visual art like that of Salvador Dali). No, you don't want reproduced music to be the acoustic equivalent of clocks melting over table tops! So: do you want your system to sound like "real instruments at a live (acoustic) concert"...or do you want MORE than that? This, I presume, is what the OP meant to ask.

Mahgister always brings us back to the fact that perception of sound is a complicated thing involving a lot more than the straightforwardly measurable (that is, the "undistorted"). If that were not true, we'd all like the same equipment—and the same music, too, probably. If measurable accuracy were the gold standard, everyone would prefer solid state to tubes; tubes add distortion. But we often like the "right" kinds of distortion; don't be misled by the seemingly pejorative character of the word. 

Having said that, I'll admit to being fond of various kinds of "distortion," despite the fact that I play cello and guitar, my wife plays piano, my daughter violin, and we all play here in our home in the same environment where I also listen to piano, violin and cello as recorded music on my system. Yes, getting timbre right is important. Yes, conveying the scale of the instrument, and its position in space in relation to other instruments in an ensemble—all that is important. But finally, a kind of "super-realism" is often desirable in reproduced sound. Perhaps it compensates somehow for the displacement effect created by the domestic space, which inevitably reminds the brain that it is not actually listening to live music.

Here's a possible analogy to make this point. I used to be a photographer, back in the pre-digital days. I've won awards at juried shows, had my photographs published, etc. I knew what I was doing with a camera. Now, however, I find that I rarely can resist using one or another post-production retouching program for my digital images. I can not only correct for an out-of-true horizon, or crop the image easily; I can actually enhance the color contrast in ways that make the image "pop." Whether you know it or not, most, if not all, published images have been manipulated in such ways. Is that "realistic," "true" to the "original"? Strictly speaking: No. But we often like it better. There's nothing wrong with that. A photograph of, say, an Alpine vista simply cannot capture all the features that make the "original experience" so compelling: the freshness of the air, the sense of grandeur that comes with the sheer physical scale, and so on. So tweaking the photo a bit may trick the brain into supplying some of that missing visceral excitement. The photo is a simulacrum, not a substitute. So with reproduced music.

Despite all this, I agree with tvrgeek about the relative importance of the different elements in the audio chain, no matter what final effect one is striving for: "In order:  Source ( fixed, stuck with it). Room (we can do [adjust] within limits). Speakers (pay to play [not sure what this means here]). Electronics (small differences, even ss to tube is small in relation). Tweaks (tiny tiny tiny)."

I've got two systems, both built over many years, both excellent (to my ears), both in acoustically sympathetic rooms. One is "more accurate": I've had PSB Synchrony Ones in there, which measure extremely well; then Von Schweikerts, which sounded a little "better"; now Magneplanar 1.6 QRs, which are the "best" yet. That's my second system. My favorite rig has speakers you've probably never heard of (Scientific Fidelity "Teslas"), which were very badly reviewed by Stereophile when they were made in the 1990s, which pretty much killed them on the market. So be it. They create a more compelling simulacrum of piano, violin, cello—to my ears, which hear these same real instruments in this same acoustic environment daily. They also are more exciting for jazz and rock: better imaging (more than "realistic"), more bass punch, etc. Are they more "accurate"? Draw your own conclusions....