I have found that as my gear improved, the SQ of well recorded/mixed/mastered source material improved and I found myself enjoying genres of music that had previously left me cold. Jazz and classical, to be specific. However, I also found that (for me) poorly recorded/mixed/mastered source material of any genre sound worse and I don't like it as well as I did when my system was less resolving. A double edged sword I guess.
How does sound influence your appreciation?
Since I’ve gotten my system to a very good place, I find myself liking the performance of almost everything I hear. Now in classical music, there are sometimes dozens of performances of the same piece, each performance having its own unique take. I now seem to like every interpretation I hear regardless of differences, due to the great sound. I’m losing my discernment because the sound is so much a part of the equation. This is more true of orchestral music than other types
How about you?
33 responses Add your response
Perhaps my system isn’t yet good enough to afford such experiences but on the other hand, listening to familiar music that I don’t particularly care for on systems far better than mine has not changed my responses. I don’t enjoy such music any better when it’s presented in better SQ. What engages me in music are melodies, chord changes, rhythms, timbres, and all the expressive means available to skilled improvisers within the genres I enjoy. Sonics are not going to change any of the above. Better SQ may enhance my listening pleasure of what I already enjoy but so far, I haven’t found it enables me to enjoy music I haven’t previously enjoyed.This doesn’t mean I discount SQ. I try to seek out the best possible sounding cds and upgrade gear when I can. I simply don’t experience the transformative capacity you've described.
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It depends on the system, to me. Many systems are oriented towards scraping and exposing the most minute details. These will present the venue and mastering and can mask the music... drawing emphasis to the system. I used to have one of these. To me this restricted my appreciation to the very finest recordings and as close to my core preferences in music. Alternatively very musical natural systems present the venue and mastering in proportion to how they would be in real life, if you were there. In this case, the system I have now, will draw me in to all sorts of music that I would never like normally. Another major parameters that draws me in is the rhythm and pace... here music with a very good beat will really suck me in... I’m thinking of pop and some other genre I normally do not like. |
I have often wondered does my kit dictate the music I listen to? I recently purchased a pair of Kef Reference Ones and could not stop listening to Rock and Roll, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd. . I also own a set of Soundlab A3s. With these I listen to more singer song writer, easy listening type and jazz. I definitely agree, when the music sounds better it is easier to get into new genres and enjoy more music. |
+1 Yep …. me too. For like reasons, I generally choose my live concert event attendance influenced on the venue acoustics . To fully appreciate live performances by somebody like Diana Krall, Chris Botti, Celtic Woman dictates a stepped up good acoustics venue . Sure…I splurged on rare occasion for first section floor seats in a 22000 seat arena for mega star rock groups (Eagles, Fleetwood Mac ).. Crap acoustics be damned . I can only imagine how stellar the latter could sound in a smaller “proper” venue . |
@rvpiano I don’t think your system is homogenizing everything. So it’s just a phase you are going thru since you have good synergy between components, room and your ears. Enjoy it. You’re going to get your discernment back. Nothing to worry about. |
My system is now at the point it is very revealing of the recording so I gravitate towards the best recordings when listening to Classical. With Qobuz I can survey many recordings of the same work until I find the best recorded version. Unless it is really a weird interpretation I am not as critical of the performance . If it doesn’t sound good I can’t listen to it. |
When my systems were less resolving and/or had specific issues I needed to tightly control my choices of which recordings to listen to. With ever increasing resolving capabilities I find myself most enjoying letting Roon auto play from my huge library of streams and rips. Having to consciously curate my listening session is a now a huge imposition or distraction from the sheer enjoyment of listening. Funny how I can now appreciate even the tunes I don't especially care for! |
This is complex for me and depends upon my mood. Let me start with stating that there are some excellent performances of iconic music that are so poorly engineered in both analog and digital, where early digital engineering exacerbated the sound quality issues, that I can not listen past the issues into the performance. So with recordings in this group I can affirm sound quality impacts my ability to enjoy the performance and musical composition. From that point it depends on my mood my objective for my listening session. At times, I want a critical listening session, not only to enjoy the performance and composition, but also to revel in the engineering quality of the recording and my system. My focus is on reproduction of timbre, dynamics, staging, and imaging. So, in these instances I also can affirm sound quality matters. Most often, greater than 90% of the time, I am just trying to relax, using music as the tranquilizer. In there sessions I find myself engulfed in the performance and composition, reveling in the conductor’s interpretation, musicianship, interplay between the musicians, and swings in mood and energy that a composition leads you through. I am lucky that have my system established to a point that permits me to travel this path into the musical performance as well as taking the aforementioned critical listen path depending on my mood. During these sessions into the performance for relaxation, sound quality matters not. Maybe, for me, it’s a form of audiophile/music lover dissociative identity disorder. |
An audio system /room can be an obstacle to what we listen or help the perception... My system/room dont bother me now, as in the times i was unsatisfied because of my ignorance level... I listen music 5 hours per day minimum... I never think : what if i could upgrade... Before, when i was passive consumers with no experiments, no studies, no increase day by day S.Q. with each experiments, more than 10 years ago, i bought and sold and dream an impossible dream : I want a 100,000 bucks system minimum .. I was a brainwashed passive consumers...Only dreams were possible i thought... As you see we change with studying and experimenting ...I did it after retirement 24 hours a day for few years to understand acoustic in my system/room... My system/room gave now the minimal acoustical balanced satisfaction if i take into account all factors at play.. My taste in music had no relation to sound but as said the OP :
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That’s interesting. I can’t say that sound quality has had much to do with my preference for the way music is played by the musicians. The closest match to that I can think of is that it seems my ear is more forgiving of musicianship when I’m hearing it live than when recorded. I used to play in a youth symphony, and while playing, I thought our orchestra sounded very beautiful. Hearing a recording of it was very embarrassing. |
@rvpiano Your title stated as a question was “How does sound affect your application?” which many responded to directly. However, based on your response to @audphile1, you were really questioning is whether the high quality sound from your system has impacted your ability to discern the between the artistic musicality of different performances. This was posed as a statement IMHO. Regardless, I now understand your question. I agree with @audphile1. I also point to the response from @ghdprentice, and his accurate descriptions of analytical vs. natural systems. IMHO GHP is on point in that overly analytical systems tend to make me focus on sound, giving me a wow moment, which fades to fatigue. They do not let me focus on the performance. Natural sounding systems, that are also highly detailed, let me focus on the musicality of the performance and composition. As I stated in my first response, I have the ability to, and I am lucky to have developed a system that permits me to go into a critical listening mode to revel in the quality of the recording and equipment engineering and enter into a relaxation listening mode where I revel in the musicality of the performance. Too many audiophiles simply focus on the critical listening mode. I also once was at a point where I only focused on sound. It’s an audiophile trap. So it is good your system is at the point that everything sounds good. It must be a natural sounding system. My recommendation is to try to concentrate on musical appreciation and the artistic qualities of the performance…the conductor’s interpretation, the organic and dynamic flows and differences therein alternative interpretations, and the emotion flowing from the musicians rather than the sound. I do not know how to get you back and as stated by AP1, I am sure it’s a phase that will resolve since you are obviously a music lover since you posed this question and miss this ability to do so. Do
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I’ll give you a recent example, which not coincidentally involves two performances of the same orchestral piece. When auditioning audio components (except vinyl!) I have always used Benjamin Britten’s "A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra" conducted by Britten and recorded in 1963 by Decca (London). I don’t use it for vinyl because I cannot afford the prices being asked for it on vinyl, even second-hand! In my opinion it is a great test, because it was originally an analogue recording, goes through every orchestral section individually, has extensive percussion and builds to a complex climax with different cross-rhythms and themes played full volume. Britten pulls it off at a cracking pace while keeping precision timing. There are 91 recordings of this work listed on Presto Classical, and Britten’s is the top pick and carries the "Recommended" appellation. Only 8 are recommended, of these three are the same performance with different compilations! One other is a mono Mercury recoding, and one features Australia’s own, Dame Edna. Say no more! Britten, who wrote the work and surely is an authority on how it should sound, plays it faster than any other version I have ever heard. Is it so difficult that other conductors or orchestra can’t keep up? Second listed, but not "Recommended", is a recent performance by Sir Simon Rattle, also with the London Symphony Orchestra, recorded live and on Super Audio Compact Disk or high-resolution download. Appropriately enough, given his surname, Sir Simon started as a percussionist, so I anticipated similar precision to the Britten recording. When the SACD arrived, I played it on my partner’s rather modest system with KEF LS50 front speakers and B&W rears. I was pretty disappointed - this was not going to replace my 1963 version. When I took it to my place however, with a system about 20x the price, and without having to worry too much about neighbours, the transformation was staggering. To use an old cliche, the better system could dig into the detail. Now the percussion was there in the climax, and not completely obliterated by the rest of the orchestra. Sure, the balance was different from Britten’s, but the better sound elevated both recordings to about the same ’enjoyability’ level. |
A while back I posted that I love my system now that it's dialed in. It took my last speaker purchase to get to the point where practically everything sounds great, save for the poorly recorded stuff. It's gotten to the point where I no longer listen analytically but for pleasure and that accounts for the amount of time I do spend listening being less than I used to. Yes, I don't listen as much anymore but when I do, I do it for the pleasure of it and not to figure out how to improve my system. It's a gift I don't take for granted or question. Nothing is homogenized or sounds the same. That's impossible, unless it's a low fi set up. If it did, I'd be out looking for something better. That everything sounds pretty good to great means I finally figured out or stumbled onto the system that best communicates to me. It took a lot of years with the usual ups and downs, detours and clawbacks to realize one can't build one's system by committee. Trust your ears and stop doubting what you hear. If it sounds great across a lot of different genres, then you pretty much nailed it. Give yourself a pat on the back and don't look back. All the best, |
A significant and underappreciated factor is psychoacoustics. We listen to different types of music depending on the mood we are in (knowingly or unknowingly). We approach music differently as well: sometimes anything sounds just great, sometimes we find something to nitpick with anything we play. That is all regardless of system/SQ. The different sound impressions have more to do with my state of mind than the gear. I have also trained myself to instantaneously switch from analytical listening to appreciation listening. I like to write music "reviews", particularly of newly released music, where it helps to quickly switch between those two modes. At one point I listen to the frequency of syncopated beats in relationship to long line elements and measure break, mode changes and chords employed, then just listen how the ensemble washes over me. With classical (mainly baroque music for me), I listen for trills starting at top or bottom, what kind of trills/ornaments, intensity of messa di voce, and type of bowing used (I am an amateur viola d'amorist), and then just listen for the how it all comes together. Continue enjoying your music! |
A significant and underappreciated factor is psychoacoustics. We listen to different types of music depending on the mood we are in (knowingly or unknowingly). We approach music differently as well: sometimes anything sounds just great, sometimes we find something to nitpick with anything we play. That is all regardless of system/SQ. The different sound impressions have more to do with my state of mind than the gear. I have also trained myself to instantaneously switch from analytical listening to appreciation listening. I like to write music "reviews", particularly of newly released music, where it helps to quickly switch between those two modes. At one point I listen to the frequency of syncopated beats in relationship to long line elements and measure break, mode changes and chords employed, then just listen how the ensemble washes over me. With classical (mainly baroque music for me), I listen for trills starting at top or bottom, what kind of trills/ornaments, intensity of messa di voce, and type of bowing used (I am an amateur viola d'amorist), and then just listen for the how it all comes together. Continue enjoying your music! |
Weren’t people answering your question(s)? |
How can any audiophile not discern, appreciate sound quality of their systems. I doubt its possible for us to listen without at least some part of our minds appreciating the sound quality vs just listening in music appreciation mode.
I'd suggest the pure music appreciation mode could be easier to enter with lesser systems as critical listening may bring about dissatisfaction, to avoid that unhappy state of mind we force ourselves into music appreciation mode. Devoid this mind trick we'd quit the entire pursuit.
As my system has improved I'm no longer critical of my sound, rather I'm admiring it. And yes, I do often enter pure musical enjoyment mode, but then along comes something I've not heard previously, ever increasing levels of resolution means the presentation has changed in some way, this stimulus results in my mind going into critical listening mode, but rather than being dissatisfied with sound quality, I'm admiring sound quality.
@rvpiano admits to this very thing, he's admiring the sound rather than the performance. Thing is why should this be bothersome, isn't this in fact the holy grail for what we audiophiles seek. |
i concur with your post. I never needed a good system to appreciate the music i love. But a bad system/room is a problem to solve if we want to explore complex choral music or big orchestra as in symphonies. Anyway a piano sound horrible in bad system/room. An organ is nowhere near what it is: a beast... And human voices ask for a good system/room for the voices timbre and nuances... I dreamed about a high-fi system of great qualities all my life. I succeeded only few years ago without big money investment ( thanks to basic knowledge especially acoustics ).
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@oberoniaomnia *G* That was actually worth repeating... ;) I'm addicted to variety of music, predominately the current currencies' of many 'flavors'....obviously with my penchant of poking things at y'all at large... I listen in a space that is certainly nor Albert Hall, except for the holes in it with a Different collection of items that suite my budget; But do what I attempt rationally well with the flexibility I think best to accomplish enough inputs and speaker lines out..... The speakers are a bit of a misshapen line array, floor to flown. Add or subtract at will, some bi-amping may be involved... Think a different take on the Wall of Sound. Certainly not one of Legos' but the sound allows to discern or just enjoy. And no neighbors to disturb. 👍 |
