So Much "Harshness"

"Why are complaints of harshness so common".....

Because so many of the folks that make these complaints are flying blind when it comes to component selection, system synergy, and system set up.

They base their selection on professional reviews, manufacturers puffery, recommendations of dealers and salesmen, and fantasies (thiers and others) of what is possible in thier budget and environment. Often they have no knowledge of creating system synergy with a specific end/goal in mind, little knowledge of what is possible, or not, and know little about proper set up. If you think otherwise, you're not reading a lot of questions posted here. And answers as well!

We live in a society where most so many casual hobbists just want an 'answer to fit' without doing any research and accepts the answer which sounds best to his mind, not his ear. He makes himself a mark.

Synergy, is often created when you join a less than perfect component with another with complementary features. Its the old a 'brightish CDP matched to a rounded/warm pre-amp/amp'. Not a brightish CDP matched to a high resolution SS pre-amp/amp and very 'neutral' high resolution speakers as well. But then you must allow for the fact that I don't believe in 'perfect sound reproduction' nor fairies, so its easy for me to say. It would not be so easy if I had to make a living in this hobby.

And FWIW, I agree with Tvad re digital v analog. I think Mr T wasn't listening much to music in the pre-digital days, and I agree with Mikelevange - harshness, whether from distortions or non linearities, has many many potential sources, which we all hear differently and or value differently.

FWIW - I just felt the urge to rant a bit..........:-)

Mr T, Sorry, I should have used the word 'components', not 'music'. And you are right! I haven't the slightest clue what you were doing then, or now for that matter.

But, if you are relying on your personal components, as described, for support for your statement, consider that the introduction of SS components occurred over a decade before the introduction of digital components and pretty much dominated the market until tube components were 'resurected' by Bill Johnson. There was some serious dreck in those years. And there was no shortage of speakers being brought to the market to 'match'. I can still remember my abandoning my Altec 19's, my Rogers LS3/5a, etc for some of the phase correct, full range, flat FR 'audiophile' darlings. All before I got my first CDP, the acquisition of which only enhanced my growing disenchantment with 'Audio' further.

Today I think that the average audiophile on a budget CAN put together an excellent system which exceeds in most all aspects that was available or possible at anytime prior to the introduction of CDP's (1983 as I recall).

FWIW

"Lower resolution"! You are about to be drummed out of the corp! Tar, feathers, rail and a couple of drummers please!

How about real resolution, not just an enhanced sense of resolution by the manipulating rise/fall times, increaed HF response, etc, which is so often peddled as 'high' resolution.

As a pratical matter I think a lot of the harshness of which folks complain is just the result of equipment designed to 'sound like' they have the ultimate resolution just by enhancing existing information. They become additive, certainly not neutral, and by doing so, especially when piggybacked with other similar components and speakers they become subtractive (harsh).

I always chuckle when I read in a review or some user indorsement for example, someone saying he was able to hear detail in a recording that he had never heard before. My typical initial reaction is that this occurred because he had never listened as closely before, or that his previous equipment was seriously defective, or, rarely perhaps, that he has seriously critical listening skills and not only hears these things but knows to what they can be attributed.

Recordings come in all kinds of formats, with inherrent problems, but to come up with a system that allowed you to hear all of them (recordings) without any sounding harsh you would lose what the good/great ones add to our hobby interest, if not the music itself.

At the risk of sounding like Mr T, when we are referring to harshness, what assumptions are we working on, i.e. the extent of the complaints that folks are making about the degree of the complainers experience of harshness?

For example, in my responses I assumed a gross complaint, one that was a harshness readily apparent and objectionable on casual listening by an average neophyte, as opposed to a minimal harshness (aka edge) observed after careful listening by an experienced audiophile with good listening skills. These are two different things, are they not?

Tvad, for example, or Learsfool, are positioned to benefit from all levels of real improvement to their systems, but would a possessor of very modest equipment, and listening skills, benefit substantially from using, universally, things the same things?

I'm referring to fundamental improvements. When many folks complain, for example, that his new speakers sound 'harsh' to him, folks don't seem to often ask how the 'harshness' presents itself and to what degree. We simply tell him to buy some 'warm' wires, buy some tubes, ad infinitum, ad naseum.

Am I off base in this observation?