Your Preference: Resolution or Fullness?

Charyo? Your post also suggests you favor fullness.

I think we all know that the question is simplistically worded and that most audiophiles seek, or claim to seek, a balance between resolution and fullness. The point I was trying to make is that so many people claim to value fullness, but when purchasing time comes, they purchase components based on perceived resolution.

But, not to avoid the question, badly-worded as it may be, I would have to say yes, between the evils of (excessive) fullness and (annoying) resolution, I would choose fullness.

Chayro,
I'd say we're hearing from those people who don't favor the ultra detail/resolution sound and for the very same reasons you've stated. Many listeners do seem to pursue the hyper detail approach but just haven't posted here (yet). The pro fullness camp has shown up.
Charles,

A lot of what you are looking for comes from your preamp IMO. The preamp has to send a signal through your speakers that is quite, filters noise to provide a blacker background. It has to provide the soundstage depth and width, it then has to have dimension, clarity, detail, tone and the right space. Then balance top to bottom presentation so that it all blends seamlessly. The right preamp will let you system sound good with whatever speaker you choose. The speaker then becomes more of a fine tuning of the front end of you system and your room.

Happy Listening.

I think this is the very first time, ever, that I disagree with, or don't understand a comment by Almarg, whose posts are always a model of clarity and sanity. When I read the subject line, imaging and soundstaging were probably the last things I thought of. I also don't understand why many feel that if one has resolution it has to also mean lack of fullness.

While resolution certainly affects soundstaging, I have heard many speakers that have good tonal resolution but poor spatial resolution. I value tonal resolution above all else (except micro-dynamics which is first in my book), and while I love a good soundstage as much as anyone else, I need my system to have good tonal resolution even when I am sitting nowhere near the sweet spot, which is how I do much of my listening.

I think part of the problem, like in the "what is neutrality" discussions, is that fullness is thought of as something that one adds to the sound via choice or tuning of components, and that resolution is the absence of fullness. Music has a lot of natural fullness and is something that should be considered a positive result of good resolution. Good resolution reveals the natural and very rich harmonic information in the sound of musical instruments and that is where natural fullness comes from. You can't have too much resolution. Systems that sound thin and thread bare (as many do) often sound that way because there is harmonic information that is missing, so one gets the impression of high resolution because what is there is highlighted due to the absence of other information in the balance. My Stax F-81's are a case in point. These electrostats have little bass to speak of, yet have the most naturally full midrange and highs that I have ever heard; they have great tonal (harmonic) resolution. Conversely, I have heard speakers that have very full bass and still sound thin and threadbare through the midrange which is where most of the music is.