Silky and soft highs: product of coloration?

This is probably the toughest thing to get right in a system-- silky treble without loss of detail, and treble bite (on brass & strings) without aggressiveness. Source, preamp, amp, speakers all make or break. I think one giveaway that it's not right is if a silky, pretty treble is accompanied by weak dynamics lower in the frequency range. In my tube system at least, I've found that steps taken to improve control & dynamics usually extend and refine treble. Since the amp has the key roll in dictating system dynamics, perhaps this is where your friend is coming from with his observation about its importance.

Atmasphere, in your opinion as a manufacturer, just how rare & expensive are those amps that have realistic treble extension & detail, but don't add artifacts of grain and edge? Is the "club" of amps that have such a favorable characteristic really as small & exclusive a group as Chris suggests?

Live performances in acoustically uncontrolled settings rarely provides a good reference point for comparison to well-miked studio recordings. High School bands performing in echoing gyms & mall atriums can sound excruciating-- even close up-- apart from the bad playing... Many listening positions in even good concert halls receive lots of reflected sound.

Nethepill, That's reassuring & refreshing. Something is certainly wrong should an audio system make euphonic the treble sound of breaking glass or fingernails on a chalk board or a five year old playing violin.

This thread got me thinking about (HP's?) recent Part 1 review of the Scaena line-array speakers in TAS. Now I've heard these speakers under show conditions together with the Memory Player. Among their very impressive qualities is a silky, mellifluous, utterly grainless treble, set against a jet-black background, apparently achieved without sacrificing detail and attack. Yet the treble of this speaker seemed to take the brunt of HP's skepticism as being "possibly" unrealistic (his reservations about fully committing himself on this point perhaps intended as a cliff-hanger to be resolved in P2.) I'm still wondering myself whether treble like this, while appealing, is entirely realistic. But my general sense is that more typically, very expensive end-high systems err further on the side of stridency and aggression. When modifying equipment I've found that bleeding-edge improvements to power circuits in both SS and tube devices almost always results in a smoother treble, shedding grain that I wasn't aware of until it was gone. Not really a matter of flavors & tastes, and as Chris says, very expensive to achieve commercially.