No, now that I've gotten my system sounding amazingly close to the live experience, I'm pretty much amazed that it can replicate the character of real instruments so convincingly.
In fact, normally when I go to a live concert I'm disappointed in the sound. Usually the acoustics are poor, and if the band is amplified through a PA then the music is usually too loud, too distorted, has too much bass, and the vocals are hard. I did go to a live unamplified acoustic concert this weekend and the sound of the same instruments and vocals through my system compared very closely to what I heard there.
So when I sit back and listen to recordings on my reference system it captures the beauty and emotion of the performance quite well. There's no mini that I know of that can even come close to delivering realistic dynamics, soundstaging, and power/articulation at both frequency extremes.
About the best thing I can say about listening to a good mini is that it's generally non-offensive if you keep the volume to a reasonable level and you can usually follow the basic melody and even recognize some of the instruments. Probably having low or no expectations is the key to enjoying a mini. I mean heck, I can listen to a boom box or car radio and enjoy it, but it doesn't for a minute fool me into thinking I'm listening to anything close to what the real band sounded like. When I listen to the radio at work, I'm usually thinking, "man, this rig sucks." It's an old Marantz solid-state receiver with tiny Radio Shack speakers.
It's like a lot of home theater systems -- If you close your eyes and just listen to the sound (without peeking at the big screen) it doesn't sound nearly as good.
On the other hand, I did recently put together a vintage system that cost next to nothing using large Altec Lansing bookshelf speakers (size of AR 3As) and an Onkyo receiver that sounds quite impressive considering its age and price. And it even sounds better from the next room...
In fact, normally when I go to a live concert I'm disappointed in the sound. Usually the acoustics are poor, and if the band is amplified through a PA then the music is usually too loud, too distorted, has too much bass, and the vocals are hard. I did go to a live unamplified acoustic concert this weekend and the sound of the same instruments and vocals through my system compared very closely to what I heard there.
So when I sit back and listen to recordings on my reference system it captures the beauty and emotion of the performance quite well. There's no mini that I know of that can even come close to delivering realistic dynamics, soundstaging, and power/articulation at both frequency extremes.
About the best thing I can say about listening to a good mini is that it's generally non-offensive if you keep the volume to a reasonable level and you can usually follow the basic melody and even recognize some of the instruments. Probably having low or no expectations is the key to enjoying a mini. I mean heck, I can listen to a boom box or car radio and enjoy it, but it doesn't for a minute fool me into thinking I'm listening to anything close to what the real band sounded like. When I listen to the radio at work, I'm usually thinking, "man, this rig sucks." It's an old Marantz solid-state receiver with tiny Radio Shack speakers.
It's like a lot of home theater systems -- If you close your eyes and just listen to the sound (without peeking at the big screen) it doesn't sound nearly as good.
On the other hand, I did recently put together a vintage system that cost next to nothing using large Altec Lansing bookshelf speakers (size of AR 3As) and an Onkyo receiver that sounds quite impressive considering its age and price. And it even sounds better from the next room...