I just wanted to respond to the well intended comments Stevem1960, who says, "...Opus88 describes the sound of horns...with emphasized upper mids on his Cortese. I would have thought this is how horns are *supposed* to sound.....It is feasible that you are actually hearing for the first time how these instruments *should* sound...and perhaps you are being unnerved by the experience ? " Unnerved ? Yes, that is true. How horns are supposed to sound ? You are partially correct. Horns are certainly capable of producing strident sounds when called for, however, I have been hearing blare at times in passages where I have never heard it in the same passages of these compositions performed live in symphony concerts. I also have heard these passages reproduced in my component system, prior to the introduction of the Cortese, WITHOUT the "supposed to sound" glare. I've heard horns and massed strings sound urgent, vibrant, assertive, ambient AND wonderfully musical and naturally flowing all at the same time. I was able to relax while simultaneously enjoying impressively dynamic and electrically alive transients, sometimes projected with a stunning sense of grandeur. I had that kind of musical reproduction in my sound system a number of years back, then lost it. I'm confident I will get it back again, and WITH the Cortese. A paradigm shift, in the usual sense, is not going to correct the issue I am dealing with, and I certainly will not tell myself that I need to change what my own ears are telling me. Maril555's point about trying to convince himself "...that what I was hearing is the way actual instruments should sound like...But at times it simply was 'too much'" is understood very well by me. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that all recorded music is made possible by the utilization of a vast array of electronic equipment---capacitors, resistors, wires, etc., not to mention the manipulations by sound engineers during that recording process. AFTER all that, our home or studio components take over the job. Under such circumstances, neutrality or "correct" sound possibly might be somewhat illusive. And finally, there's the listener's own subjective preferences in terms of how HE wants the illusion of live music presented to him in his living or sound room. I hope I may regain the kind of illusion that pleases me.
