before responding it needs to be pointed out that music is valid in any form or format....one man's noise is many times another man's pleasure. as you travel down the road of the pursuit of the ultimate music reproduction experience you do go thru a few stages and even diverging paths. lableing one path 'hifi' and another 'music' becomes in many ways a matter of taste and preference.
now that i have hopefully stated the politically correct obvious qualifier.....here is my view on what "too Hi-Fi" means.
"too Hi-Fi" means that the sonic performance is more about the various components of what adds up to music reproduction as opposed to a clear view to the musical event and the emotional pull and level of involvement that 'clear view' might entail.
"Hi-Fi" can be a positive term applied to any gear that presents a good amount of musical information; more information typically being better than less. more bass, deeper bass extention, more mid-range detail, extended high frequencies, big bass slam....these are all potentially good things.
OTOH if those individual sonic attributes do not come together as involving music that get you close to the musical event then we label that as "too Hi-Fi".
some might label all solid state amplification, or anything other than horns with single drivers, or maybe even all digital music as "too Hi-Fi"...and for them it just might be. it does become a matter of one's sonic biases as much as anything objective.
for me personally; any time i am drawn to a particular aspect of the sound; as opposed to the musical message....then the system is approaching that "too Hi-Fi" threshold. i have heard modest systems with marginal resolution that were extremely musical and involving....OTOH i have heard many very expensive systems with lots of resolution that were borderline unlistenable and "too HiFi" (including my own at certain times).
now that i have hopefully stated the politically correct obvious qualifier.....here is my view on what "too Hi-Fi" means.
"too Hi-Fi" means that the sonic performance is more about the various components of what adds up to music reproduction as opposed to a clear view to the musical event and the emotional pull and level of involvement that 'clear view' might entail.
"Hi-Fi" can be a positive term applied to any gear that presents a good amount of musical information; more information typically being better than less. more bass, deeper bass extention, more mid-range detail, extended high frequencies, big bass slam....these are all potentially good things.
OTOH if those individual sonic attributes do not come together as involving music that get you close to the musical event then we label that as "too Hi-Fi".
some might label all solid state amplification, or anything other than horns with single drivers, or maybe even all digital music as "too Hi-Fi"...and for them it just might be. it does become a matter of one's sonic biases as much as anything objective.
for me personally; any time i am drawn to a particular aspect of the sound; as opposed to the musical message....then the system is approaching that "too Hi-Fi" threshold. i have heard modest systems with marginal resolution that were extremely musical and involving....OTOH i have heard many very expensive systems with lots of resolution that were borderline unlistenable and "too HiFi" (including my own at certain times).