What is your listening bias


Quite frankly, I've stolen this idea from TAS. The question entails:
1. What points are important for you, when listening to reproduced music. ( soundstage, proper rendering of mids, highs, lows, transparency, dynamics )
2. Where are you prepared to compromise and where not.
3. In the building up of your system, how much a role has the mnestic imprint of live music played a role.
4. In how far are you prepared to voice your system and shape its sound to reach your goal.
5. Do you give more weight to the fact, that your system has been built up according to the precepts of scientific reason, or do you rather trust your own ears and aural predelictions?
For me, I've always attemted to recreate the sound of indidividual instruments as closely as at all possible, be it as a solo instument or playing tutti. For me a violin should sound like one, an oboe like an oboe, brass like brass etc and I've been willing to sacrifice a bit of soundstage to that end. I also like voices to sound as natural as possible. If neccessary I'll shape the sound of every recording to meet my tastes and expectations. Dynamics are also very important and the proper rendition of transients, especially in the p to ppp section. So transparency is equally important. So far, I've found the old shady dogs and early mercuries to come closest to what I expect from a good recording.
detlof
Clueless-- you're assessment of PRaT fits for me too, ie I know what it is when I hear it, but don't know if I could define it. It certainly is an emotional component of much of the music I listen too, and when it's "there", it makes me want to get up and dance-- slow or fast. You're right too in that it has to be an inherent part of the music (recording). Occasionally as I've attempted up-grades, I've temporarily "lost it" and of course panicked. It's a characteristic of some music that I value highly, and so have become very sensitive about it. Cheers. Craig
1. tonal balance
2. clean / undistorted / no edginess or nasties
3. dynamics & PRaT
4. stage & image (my initial attribute where compromise becomes acceptable)
5. All this from a subjective viewpoint
Clueless, do you sit on the case of Becks beer while listening and is the foundation of the music better, when the bottles in it are full or vice versa? Do you take the Vodka from the ice, or use shredded Bose speakers to get the right temp?

In another vein: You are so right in what you tell us about the reproduced dynamics in string quartets and also sadly enough, in the lack of bloom compared to what you can hear in concert, the same goes of course for solo violin, or solo cello. All the same, I'm content, when I get drawn into the music when listening at home. As for spacing, I find practically every recording handles space in a different fashion and I only know of one recording, which seems to get it more or less right in the fashion, one is used to from concerts and that is the Juillard rendering of the Debussy/Ravel Quartets on RCA SD. But then Emi does not do too bad a job generally with the Alban Berg people, where even most CD renderings are listenable. Last night however a Hyperion CD of Shostakovitch's 5. and 6th Stringquartet seemed unnaturally bloated with an edgy first violin and if you shaped that away, the sparkle in the cello went as well.

Basically, sadly and sad for the fact, not because I could not put it as well as you did, I have to agree with ALL you said in your excellent post. I find every thought exactly to the point, only I would exchange Becks for Radeberger or Pilsner Urquell. Sorry about my sometimes clumsy use of the lingo. I'm neither Yank nor Brits and out of colloquial practice. Cheers,
Garfish, my apologies and thanks for your great response! I thought "mnestic" could be used in English, obviously not. What I had in mind, was sort of the imprint of the sum of our experiecnces of live musical events in our "aural" memory. I for myself, seem to work very much that way, trying to shape and voice my stereo, according to what I feel is how instruments or voices should sound. Besides that, I know very well what PRAT is, everytime it is not there. If it is present however, I have no inclincation to think of it, nor of the daily frustration of ye olde system, 'cause I'm drawn into the music and just plain happy! Come to think of it, why are so many so called audiophile recordings so damned boring and have no PRAT ? I suppose, it is not only the sum of the system and the software used, it is also the performance itself, which either captivates you or it doesn't!Cheers,