Are you hearing the instruments or the music?
I find that as my system is warming up, it sounds pretty good. The instruments sound as I would expect instruments to sound. The imaging is great and the bass is distinct, clear, and powerful. I appreciate the accurate and extended dynamics. But over time, like an hour or so, I find myself not listening to instruments, but rather to music. I slip into it unconsciously. It would likely be faster with class AB amps.
This is the end goal of audio. Just being able to listen to music. Horns, planars, dynamics, tubes, transistors, etc. are all capable of accomplishing this, just in different flavors. For some, a JBL Bluetooth speaker gets them to their “music place” and so there is clearly a personal and idiosyncratic aspect to this. But it supports the notion that all a system has to do is get you there.
This is also how I know if a change makes a difference. Does it do no harm or does it add or detract from the sense of music? Going from Takatsukis to Western Electrics was more music, not as much instrument. Some might say analytical versus warm, but that’s not what’s important. And for some, analytical might be their music.
If your system delivers instruments well but does not carry you to music land, at least occasionally because some recordings are better at this than others, you might consider changing something.
If it plays music, it will carry me to music land. I was that way when I was a teenager with a cheap handheld transistor radio or clock radio, and I'm that way with a system costing tens of thousands of US dollars. Gear doesn't make my toes tap, music does. That being said, I do pay attention to how the music SOUNDS, especially when changing a piece of gear, but even a lousy system will not make music I enjoy unenjoyable. WE 300B's are amazing.... |
@larsman - I relate to everything you said minus tubes. |
I owned an album for 50 years... I never listen to it BEFORE optimizing my system few years ago... It does not cost money to optimize a system (at any price) only knowledge ... my actual speakers are Chinese low cost one and they are optimized... My Tannoy TOP design dual gold i owned for 40 years were never optimized Alas! I did not know how to optimize then as most people when i owned them... Guess which gave me the best experience ? The low cost Chinese design which is optimized, not the best design ( the Tannoy dual gold ) because i fail to install it correctly mechanically, electrically and acoustically... Most people dont know how to optimize a system/room... It takes me a lot of time to catch with this knowledge ... It cost nothing by the way ... Music is not sound but good sound help....
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What I appreciate most about high-end audio is the sensory quality of the performance, that is, do the drums pop, does the bass make you stomach vibrate, are the instruments and voices suspended at specific points in space (both lateral and vertical)? But, these are attributes of music, so you need music too. Which is most important? Well, which do you like the most. For my part, I pick music I like and play on my audio system, which does the sensory stuff too. But, I enjoy a good song even on a cheap system. It's not either or. |
@richardbrand I don’t go to orchestral concerts and listen to very little classical music. But it was nice having them accompany the Beatles on Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour just a bit ago. And the placement of many of those instruments is very distinctive. And it is truly amazing how they all fit into the room. |
I listen to music and my gears at the same time. The reason is that my Rig #1 and Rig #2 produce completely different sounds, partly due to the room / space they're in. Rig #1 delivers a spacious soundstage, airy highs, rich mids, and well-paced lows—ideal for classical music. Rig #2, on the other hand, produces a more intimate sound with slightly forward vocals and a 'cozy' soundstage, due to the more confined space. I usually use it for jazz and blues, as it feels like sitting at the "Pawn Shop" with the players right in front of me. |
As I understand it, the process of psychological accommodation plays a role in transforming the raw sound of an audio system into the experience of music. Our cognitive processes start with bottom-up processing (we detect pitch, loudness, timbre, rhythm, and intensity); that is, acoustic information. Soon, though, we fit these into pre-existing schemas, such as melodies, harmonies, rhythms, genre, emotional patterns, etc. We do what is sometimes called "top-down processing." We're guided by the schemas and start predicting (often subconsciously) what might come next. When these predictions are met, it contributes to a sense of coherence and pleasure — "musical experience." That's at least how I understand it -- a continuous interplay of bottom-up processing (detecting raw sound) and top-down processing (applying and accommodating schemas) leads from the "sound of a system" into a meaningful musical experience. My understanding, also, is that most decent systems can accomplish this as it is part of what the listener's brain does. |
+1 @hilde45 Very meaningful / tangible way to interpret how the sound is perceived and transformed into music. I believe you are building the system, integrating gears, room and setup to facilitate that process and achieve your end-game goal. For me, I want my humble systems to have accurate timbre, amble soundstage and reproduces music truthfully without any hint of digital glare and artificial sweetening. |
I want to be carried away emotionally by the music but as a guitar player, I find it very difficult not to focus upon guitar if it's present. And part of enjoying music is appreciating what each player is doing (with smaller groups, at least). I can go back and forth between focusing on one player or another and just taking in the entire performance without losing emotional.connection. If I focus on sonics, it's usually because something is distracting/fatiguing. I relate to what @larsman posted. |
@bdp24 I mentioned vocals....."voices". |
@bdp24 I've always considered the human voice to be a musical instrument and thought others did as well. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-human-instrument/ https://everydaysinger.com/musical-debate-singing-instrument/ https://www.storyarts.org/articles/voice.html
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@mapman + 1 - You mean they're not mutually exclusive? ;-) |
This is one of the interesting threads that has attracted me to this place. Please correct me if I am misunderstanding you, but I see them as attempting to explore what it is we like about listening to music - the visceral experience of it. I was trying to get at the same thing from a different angle with a thread I started recently on warm up. Others that I would put in the same category are those on the sound of vinyl and altered states of consciousness. I think I’ve already quoted Frank Zappa, who said something along the lines of “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” It’s still a worthy exercise, even though no one has quite nailed it yet.
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Another way to say it is that instruments are in the cognitive domain but music is in the affective domain. If you start dancing, that would be the psychomotor domain. https://academicaffairs.sonoma.edu/sites/academicaffairs/files/blooms_all_domains.pdf |
I still don't get how these modes of listening have to be so discrete. I integrate multi modes into a single bushel of enjoyment. I still don't understand why listening to the 'sound' is considered inferior to listening to the music. Integrating the two has absolutely been my goal since the very beginning. Listening solely to the music means I'm ignoring the sound, listening solely to the sound means I'm ignoring the music. I get the criticism of solely listening to the sound, love of music is or should be the fundamental reason for this entire pursuit. On the other hand, why should I ignore the sound, I"m an audiophile which means I'm very immersed in sound, I specifically voiced my system to pleasure my senses, and I'm supposed to ignore this! Nope, I'm pleasured both by the music and the sound, this just heavenly, exactly what I've been reaching for over the decades. |
Timbre, as defined by that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia: "In music, timbre, also known as tone color or tone quality, is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musical instruments. It also enables listeners to distinguish different instruments in the same category. In simple terms, timbre is what makes a particular musical instrument or human voice have a different sound from another, even when they play or sing the same note." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre) Our response to an instrument's timbre can be both a cognitive and an affective phenomenon. If the timbre of a clarinet results in your perceiving it is a clarinet, it is cognitive because you know it is a clarinet. If you revel in the sounds the clarinet is making, I would say it is affective because of the way it makes you feel. I don't believe it is either/or. In the case of the former, you are hearing the instrument. In the latter, you are hearing the music. |
