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

Perhaps metallic was not the right word to use to express my sense of the falseness of the sound. Metallic edge in the same sense I would use to describe the taste of a diet soda. But it does sound appropriate when literally describing a cymbal hit! Harshness might be better and it might have been better to use the term to describe the overall treble presentation. "Cymbals that make you squint" is even better! This was the case when I demoed a pair of B&W 702 s2s. Curiously enough, the B&W 705 OG version, doesn't give me that impression.

For me cymbals attack and decay, piano and vibraphones are important index qualities of the timbre soundfield...

Cymbals are the hardest thing to get right in my experience even more than violin ...😁

Their attack , rise, and decay ratio reveal how our system is able to restitute timbre in the time domain for the ears ...We can recognize piano timbre as acceptably good at some time in our optimizing process  but if the cymbals are not right , the system is not optimal yet ...

Die Valkure over the weekend clarified things for me. The tenor's crescendos were painful to unprotected ears. Ditto for the orchestra. At preferred settings, my ESL system doesn't do that - and I don't want it too, either.

Smoothness is my lodestone. YMMV

Immersiveness is my lodestone... But i like smoothness for sure but timbre rendition cannot always be smooth ......

@brev

Curious that you would use the word impact.

Maybe that’s not the best word. I just noticed that the effect of my father’s photos was indeed pleasing to the eye, but not the end-all in realism. The real scene seemed more colorful, but it wasn’t actually. It was, however more dynamic and bright, which is something that has to be dealt with through artful use of curves based on perceptual standards and taste. My dad’s approach was to use a particular established standard and a good one, but not the only good one. It was natural in a certain ways at the expense of seeming less natural in others. He appreciated more vibrant, punchy work done by other photographers but that wasn't what he preferred to create.

I once had the sun shining onto a calendar in my office in such a way that it just happened to be lighting up the sky in the picture and the higher mountains that had sunlight on them when the picture was taken. The lower hills in the foreground that were not in direct sunlight were not getting lit by sunlight in the office. The effect was excellent. It got me thinking about aligning projected light with print photos.