Why isn’t more detail always better?

As the aging gentleman said as he abruptly exited the room ... "Depends"

The term "detail" would imply "information", So what could be wrong with more information?  It depends/Depends.

When we made the transition into HDTV, those prominent primetime news anchors looked ..uh .. 30 years older.  Didn't help their ratings.  Or, make our TV dinners more palettable while watching.

Those "details" also contain spacial information which plays a major role in focus, staging, and "air" in the presentation. 

Sometimes the "details" are just right, but the room is getting in the way of an, otherwise, magnificent presentation. 

Or, sometimes the "details" sound perfect to our ears at moderate levels, but when dynamic passages are presented and other parts of the music just can't keep up, and those ":details" become prominent, and overwhelming.

Like the time when we run into an old high school flame 30 years after graduation wearing short shorts.  More information is not always better.

@asvjerry Glad you asked.

The nearfield setup lets you peer deeply into the recording.

Like most people I am not using the Ohms for nearfield listening though I have tried that and it works quite well.

The detail the larger Ohms deliver in general depends a lot on what you feed them. They are currently very well fed off the same amp as the KEFs and there is nothing lacking.

If I had to choose only one speaker would still be my big Ohm F5s. Second choice would probably be somewhat larger KEFs. Blades would likely be the ultimate. But I am not really interested in any new big heavy gear these days. I’ve had success downsizing yet improving the sound in general by doing my homework and leveraging smaller and more cost effective products that take advantage of technical innovations.

Note that I do use a sub with the little ls50 metas and that combo set up well is hard to beat in smaller rooms at least and at listening levels considered safe for long term exposure.

I also have a pair of Italian crafted Sonus Faber floor standers that I got a very good deal on locally on the house. Those are lovely in all ways also but of course are way different.

@asvjerry also to help clarify.

The Ohms are still the speakers that I want to listen to the most for pure musical enjoyment. Nothing new there…..it’s for all the same reasons as always. Ohms put the performers in your room best. If I must choose I prefer having the orchestra squeezed into my room like a mini concert venue.

Nearfield listening is for immersing yourself in the recording. It’s more about the recording itself and less about pure musical enjoyment.

Two totally different listening experiences. Both enjoyable in different ways.

Both benefit from more detail, dynamics, etc. All those good things that make music interesting. I’m getting more of that now than ever with some recent enhancements upstream.

It’s an interesting thing that I think you have to experience in order to appreciate.

I am fortunate that I get to enjoy the best of both worlds. YMMV

cheers!

@ghdprentice @lalitk @whart and others — great points & discussion!

I must say, this thread has proven people can discuss a subject at length without someone pissing in someone else’s post toasties. Kudos to all.

My two cents:

Low (volume) level detail can get lost in noise, so chasing hum and AC noise can pay detail dividends. This detail can include pretty much the whole spectrum of frequencies.

Most of us (myself included) tend to think of detail or lack of as occurring in the higher frequencies in the realm covered by tweeters.  Some mechanical aspects of tweeters impact detail like low mass (speed) and low distortion, but assuming quality tweeters, much of what we perceive as detail is driven by the amplitude (volume) from the tweeter. 

In my experience contributing to speaker design a LOOOONG time ago, we could increase the volume of the tweeter and it would enhance the level of detail we perceived.  Cymbals would shimmer, the attack at the beginning of a guitar note was addictively clean.  Life was good.  Things I had never heard were uncovered, like noticing the piano player was quietly singing along or tapping his toes to the beat.  Percussion at the back of the hall on classical recordings was “right there” instead of smeared across the back of the soundstage.

However…  we eventually noticed the downside to all this detail; fatigue.  Whereas before our listening sessions often lasted long into the night, now we had had enough after an hour or two.  On some recordings, in particular digital recordings, it felt like I needed to duck when a cymbal TING flew past my face.  All this detail was masking the glorious midrange we had worked so hard to achieve.  

Midrange is the meat and potatoes for those of us who love to get sucked into the involvement of great recordings where we look up and hours have passed in heady enjoyment. 

Mercifully, I’ve come to my point. All speaker manufacturers deal with this balancing act. Hotter tweeters produce more addictive detail, but at the risk of causing less musical and more fatiguing results. 

We as audiophiles can impact the balancing decisions made by our speakers designers with the equipment we choose, interconnects, room treatment, speaker placement, etc, but that’s a whole different set of subjects.