What is your listening bias

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,

Great topic, excellent replies everyone....Timbre and pacing start it for me but all of the above is important and I agree, live is live and all we can do is reprduce what is on the record....the end result can be pretty amazing and darn satisfying....Well, time to shovel more snow....cheers everyone

Nice thread Detlof. I wish we would talk about music more.

Garfish and Detlof agreed. Imperfect as reproduction is: if your "drawn into" it as Detlof says, or if the reproduction makes you want to "get up and dance", as Garfish says, well, I think you have succeeded. It doesn't much matter what we call it or how we label it at that point.

"Talking about jazz is like dancing about potatoes"

Who said that?

I am having a brain cramp. But isn't it true in a way? Charles Mingus? or was it Potter Stewart?

Sincerely, I remain

When I listen to the music I first pay attention on the musician's performance and/or it has to be the music I love and listen to every day. That's where I can compromise to the recording quality. Genesis(P.Gabriel) is the clear example to it. There are almost no album that is recorded descent, but I love that music.

Then I really appreciate it more if it's well recorded and reproduced.
From my system I expect no fatigue during the long-time listening.
I do first the scientific research before building or upgrading. I am interested in what parts have been used in the component that I want to get.