I think the problem is people's idea of what the word "revealing" actually means. I know many folks who feel that revealing equipment/cables, are those that highlight the upper frequencies, and thereby seem to offer more resolution. This makes for entertaining HiFi, but not for natural music.
I prefer a more neutral sound, one that neither highlights the upper frequencies hoping to inspire a heightened sense of resolution, or one that highlights the lower frequencies hoping to inspire a heightened sense of musicality.
I like to call it naturally revealing. There is plenty of information there, but not artificially stimulated sound. |
Completely agree!
I think it can be achieved.
Choose your gear carefully, combine well and your system can be extremely revealing whilst remaining easy on the ear and a pleasure te listen to.
Bad recordings won't sound so bad anymore, much will be revealed of them in a way that makes the most out of it, not ruin it.
Agree that one component or cable in a system can ruin this balance.
It is always easy to blame the recording.
"Hey, didn't this used to be a bad recording?"
I have though many times in the past:) |
I think "revealing" is good up to a point. It's great when it's revealing a great recording but when it reveals all the naked shortcomings of a bad recording it may not be so good. Especially considering there are far fewer of the former and many more of the latter. |
when it reveals shortcomings of a bad recording, you have succeeded. You dont want to pollute your rig so it makes bad recordings sound acceptable. What you can do is try to make them sound better. My "bad' recordings all went away when I got a new killer preamp, upgraded cables and controlled my vibration and ground as well as finally did something with my room. My motown CDs do show the treble boost but that is on the recording. What you can do is get either a lesser cartridge or lesser cd player (cheaper, not too good at revealing all the flaws, for those 'bad' recordings). You still have a revealing system (better cartridge/cd player for the good recordings) and you haven't compromised your rig. For me, I could not rest until the bad recordings sounded awesome. There really are very few very poor recordings. Even what seems like compressed pop cd's from the 70s can sound better off a hard drive, resampled/clocked and then going through a really good system. You really want to be able to play everything-audiophile cd & vinyl as well as stream tidal and all of it make your jaw drop. Dont compromise...and in order to not compromise, you need to reveal. |
Another option is to use a speaker switch box and have warm, easy-to-listen-to speakers in the front corners and higher def speakers situated more forward into the room. If the recording is harsh, press the button that changes the speakers. Or do it manually. Or just use warm, easy-to-listen-to speakers.
I got sick of this too and switched to pro stuff, big JBLs which sound good more often than the audiophile speakers I have tried over the years. |
If the recording is harsh, you need to know if the performance was harsh. If it was, no problem. If it wasn't, you need to fix it, not cover it up. If she ain't pretty, wearing dark glasses won't make her prettier. |
Recordings are works of art that should be reproduced as accurately as possible fbofw.
Those old paintings by Michelangelo are showing their age. Someone should do something about that. 😏 |
I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player (and AVM player). Because I listen to redbook CD's and 705 of the CD's I listen to are jazz recordings from ca. 1955-1963 the recordings often have bad "digititus." The piano's ring, clarinet is harsh, transients are blurred --- just the nature of the recordings. With a revealing CD player, all this was palpably evident so much so that at least 1/2 those CD's were rendered unlistenable. Now, with a cheaper, more colored CD player (a new Creek) --- not nearly as revealing --- one that "rounds off" some of this digititus, these CD's are again listenable.
So... is revealing a particularly good thing for redbook CD playback? I think not. is "colored" always a bad thing? I'd say no. At least for CD playback. Thoughts?
Robsker What you are hearing in your playback system is high levels of distortion that appears to you as "revealing". People have come up with ingenious names for distortion & "revealing" is just one of them. You have some inexpensive component in your system & you also have high distortion loudspeakers that are making many of your CDs unlistenable. Once you replace the offending electronics & convert to a time-coherent speaker (which is minimum phase over most of the audio bandwidth. When I say most i mean something like 200Hz - 8 or 10KHz) all your CDs will become listenable once again. The bad recordings from the early era of Jazz will still be bad recordings but they will be listenable & you will enjoy the music from them. So, no "revealing" is not good because it signifies distortion/high levels of distortion. |
That would be an excellent argument for going back to boom boxes. |
Bombatwalla, excellent explanation. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks, |
"Once you replace the offending electronics & convert to a time-coherent speaker (which is minimum phase over most of the audio bandwidth. When I say most i mean something like 200Hz - 8 or 10KHz) all your CDs will become listenable once again. The bad recordings from the early era of Jazz will still be bad recordings but they will be listenable & you will enjoy the music from them."
I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad.
"So, no "revealing" is not good because it signifies distortion/high levels of distortion."
That sounds a little extreme. Some people pay a lot of money for components that reveal more of whats on the recording. I don't see how you could call that distortion at all. Are you sure that you're not confusing revealing with poor timbre? For example, if you have a system where a cymbal sounds like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor, that would be a problem because timbre is wrong. It has nothing to do with how revealing the system is. You could even argue that a harshness in the high frequencies is less revealing. (Assuming, of course, that the recording itself is not at fault.). In a case like this, more revealing would mean having a system that can properly reproduce timbre so a cymbal would sound more like a cymbal, than noise.
Another way to consider this issue, and I suspect this may be what you are referring to in your post, is that you can have a "mixed bag" of components. For example, maybe you have an amp that produces a high level of detail with little distortion, with a preamp that does not. You then have a situation where one well designed component, shows the flaws in another. |
I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad. Zd542, i might have to disagree with you here - i've found that once you setup a system which has minimal distortions (for a particular budget i.e. $), then, well-recorded CDs sound good. The ones that continue to sound bad are the ones that were badly recorded, are compressed & have other maladies. Are you sure that you're not confusing revealing with poor timbre? For example, if you have a system where a cymbal sounds like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor, that would be a problem because timbre is wrong. It has nothing to do with how revealing the system is. yes, I'm not mixing up timbre & revealing. In fact, what you wrote above in the quote is a distortion for sure. When you have distortion in your components (& the system in general) many things (& often even everything) is wrong including timbre, timing, soundstage & the ability to reveal the nuances of the music. Another way to consider this issue, and I suspect this may be what you are referring to in your post, is that you can have a "mixed bag" of components. For example, maybe you have an amp that produces a high level of detail with little distortion, with a preamp that does not. You then have a situation where one well designed component, shows the flaws in another. correct. that's what i'm saying. It's not wrong to have a "mixed bag" of components if what you mean by "mixed bag" is components from different manufacturers. Is that what you mean by "mixed bag" of components? I've found that there are several manuf within each $ budget that make the lowest distortion, most accurate component. The trick is to find that manuf & that component. If one goes about selecting one's components this way one is bound to end up with diff manuf for the various components but if each component is minimal distortion & accurate sounding then the system as a whole will maintain that attribute. I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player .... what in the world does this sentence mean?? Obviously I interpreted it one way (in my mind it meant "low distortion, accurate sounding") & my earlier 04/01/15 response was based on that while Zd542 interpreted it another way (& I'm sure that other members have interpreted it in still other ways). |
CORRECTION to the last para of my prev post - the way I interpreted the OP's definition of "revealing" was with reference to context of his entire post which, to me, indicated that certain portions of the frequency spectrum were accentuated/emphasized at the expense of others which made his old recordings CDs unlistenable. My 04/01/15 response was based on that interpretation of "revealing".
More often than not on Audiogon forums people have used "revealing" & "transparent" in derogatory terms to indicate that their play-back audio spectrum is tipped in favoring one region of the audio spectrum or the other.
In my mind I would like "revealing" & "transparent" to mean "low distortion & accurate sounding" but that''s not the way i read the posts most of the time - most of the time people are complaining that their component/system is "revealing", "transparent" & the OPs orig post is just one such example. |
Spot on Bombaywalla.
Most posts here, whether it be when someone speaks of a cables ability to unravel nuances, or a speakers penchant for accuracy, or in this case, a CDP that reveals, the feedback seems to bring a lot of baggage from other threads.
I love detail and the ability to hear all that's going on without the harshness or etch. Both are completely different arguments yet they are too often conflated and lead to some long and heated diatribes, with folk speaking past each other.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Bombaywalla, to me it also means "low distortion & accurate sounding". Many low-end systems sound muffled to me and that might be good in comparison to open sounding low-end systems projecting brightness harshness and distortion, but to me revealing is the objective. I had problem with many CDs sounding harsh or bright with new revealing DAC and amp. Changing speakers made sound even more revealing but pretty much all CDs sound good now.
Early CDs were digitized with jittery A/D converters. The only way to fix it is to digitize them again if original analog master tapes still exist. They will sound harsh but would you make your whole system less revealing just because of that? |
Thanks for the feedback Nonoise & Kijanki. good for me to note that I'm not the only one who feels this way...... :-) |
Is revealing always good?
I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player (and AVM player). Because I listen to redbook CD's and 705 of the CD's I listen to are jazz recordings from ca. 1955-1963 the recordings often have bad "digititus." The piano's ring, clarinet is harsh, transients are blurred --- just the nature of the recordings. With a revealing CD player, all this was palpably evident so much so that at least 1/2 those CD's were rendered unlistenable. Now, with a cheaper, more colored CD player (a new Creek) --- not nearly as revealing --- one that "rounds off" some of this digititus, these CD's are again listenable..... This para by the OP is written with a derogatory slant to maligning the "revealing" & "transparent" nature of the AVM CDP. (I have no idea whether the AVM CDP is actually revealing & transparent but will simply accept the OP's word that it is). So, I'll go back to my 04/01/15 post where I wrote that the OP has a high distortion component or components in his signal chain that have now been disclosed since installing the AVM CDP into the system. This/these components need to be identified & changed out or modified to reduce/eliminate the distortion. So... is revealing a particularly good thing for redbook CD playback? I think not. is "colored" always a bad thing? I'd say no. At least for CD playback. Thoughts?
Robsker The way the preceding para was written with a derogatory slant to 'revealing' & 'transparent', the conclusion that Robsker came to is self-fulfilling to a "no". I noted this negative slant in the OP's opening para hence wrote (in my 04/01/15 post) that revealing in this particular sense is not good as it speaks of distortion. In reality, you actually do want "revealing" & "Transparent" (as Kijanki also wrote) in a positive sense such that one's system is "low distortion & accurate". I've noted that the best systems are always accurate/low-distortion/revealing in a positive/good way. In such accurate/low-distortion/revealing systems, increasing the volume simply increases the SPL & distortion still remains minimal (of course to a point until the preamp &/or power amp have output signals that are close to their max). Such accurate/low-distortion/revealing systems are (what I call) a chameleon in that they had no sonic signature of their own but take on the sonic signature of the source material. Of course, there are very few systems that are 100% this way but the aim is to make one's system trend in this direction as much as one's pocket-book & listening room would allow. The pleasures from such a system are long-term as such a system will always convey the emotion of the music to engage the listener. Badly recorded CDs still sound bad but are very much listenable..... you do not want "colored" in digital playback as that is also a distortion; the only thing is that it is a distortion that is more euphonic/pleasing to the ear. One will be satisfied with such a sound for a short while but will yearn for more accurate sound very soon. There are several tube components of the 1970s, 1980s that had a certain "tube glow" to them. All very nice until you heard a more accurate system & realized how much better the sound could be. |
04-03-15: Cerrot
Bombatwalla, excellent explanation. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks, thanks Cerrot. (sorry I did not respond earlier). |
Bombaywalla,
Hello, I have to agree with your distinction between true transparency and revealing as compared to the hi-fi vernacular of those terms. When people complain of too much transparency, I have written before that this in reality makes no sense, you can never have too much true transparency. The problem is as you clearly pointed out is that the false tilted up high frequency information is confused with being a more revealing sound, wrong conclusion. In my opinion the more genuine revealing and transparency that you are able to achieve, the more natural and realistic your music will actually sound. You'll hear more nuance which is desirable. So, count me as another person who agrees with your well written explanation.
Charles, |
Thanks for your kind words, Charles1dad. |
"04-06-15: Bombaywalla
I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad.
Zd542, i might have to disagree with you here - i've found that once you setup a system which has minimal distortions (for a particular budget i.e. $), then, well-recorded CDs sound good. The ones that continue to sound bad are the ones that were badly recorded, are compressed & have other maladies."
I should have been more clear. You're right. If you get everything setup properly, the recording itself is what will hold you back. |
Cool Zd542, we are on the same page then. Thanks. |
