The focus and air lie


There always have been some kind of fashion in the way a system sounds and since a few years it seems that more and more people are looking for details, air and pinpoint focus / soundstaging.
There's a lot of components, accessories and speakers designed to fill full that demand... Halcro, dCS, Esoteric, Nordost, BW, GamuT are some examples.

This sound does NOT exist in real life, when you're at a concert the sound is full not airy, the soundstage exist of course but it's definitely not as focused as many of the systems you can hear in the hifi shops, it just fill the room.

To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.
It's evident for someone accustomed to unamplified concert that a lot of systems are lean and far from sounding real.

Those systems are also very picky about recordings : good recordings will be ok but everything else will be more difficult...
That's a shame because a hifi system should be able to trasmit music soul even on bad recording.
In 2008 this is a very rare quality.

So why does this happened ?

Did audiophiles stopped to listen unamplified music and lost contact with the real thing ?

Is it easier for shops to sell components that sounds so "detailled and impressive" during their 30mins or 1 hour demo ?
ndeslions

Showing 2 responses by wadav

I say it depends on what you are listening too. R&B(which I listen too)in a jazz club atmosphere sounds real similar to what I am able to recreate at my home. It depends on what your standard of live music is. Go get a MTV unplugged CD set and listen,you will be surprised in a top flight system with lights off at night how you can recreate that event.

So again,it depends on the venue you are using as a standard.
I understand what you are trying to say Thompson9015. When I was a kid listening to music on a cassette and recording my favorite music off the radio (that's true downloading before MP3)onto an old used cassette because that was all I could afford, I did not think I was missing out on anything.

Does one need a highend rig to enjoy or appreciate music? No. However in my case it will help.......no make you appreciate and enjoy music more.