I just think you need to like it. There's so much confirmation bias, escalation of commitment, and subjectivity that it's scarcely possible to say what's really going on here. The continual upgrading turned me off eventually.
The system should be suited to the space, it should be something I can live with. It should play the kind of music I listen to most well. I don't want a system that dominates the room from an interior design perspective.
Ultimately, I feel that the key component is to acknowledge the diminishing rate of return and to isolate oneself from the ongoing dissatisfaction that reading web forums brings. I glance at the digest for this one and comment once a month at most.
We've got a couple of Omega systems running off small tube amps with discreet subs and I think I am done with audio purchases forever. They sound great with the kind of indy folk stuff we listen to. Mids matter most because that's where most of the information is anyways.
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@waytoomuchstuff ....scorching brows is easy (wayyy too highs of all sorts), cracking plaster is the subs laid on their sides 'gainst the walls...
Now, shattered sheetrock?
A 'renovation scheme' that underlies:
All you need
Is POWER.
Watts up?
Lots...and then some. :)
Anyway....Just carrying on whilst being carried away...*G*
Personally (Is there really an Other? Doubt it...), like to play the genre and the cut the way I feel it's meant to be...got some flexibility to do so, so I do... *S*
Got to keep the radiators radiated and dusted in any case...
Anyway....back to the regularly scheduled program... J out
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In an earlier comment, I said "clarity and tonality". It just occurred to me that there’s an overlap of the two together which I could call harmonic completeness.
Subtle overtones can’t be heard without clarity, and these make music seem lively and realistic. An imbalanced tonality will also affect the ability to hear them. Without refined tonality, sound reproduction will be less full or pleasant to me. The way I am using tonality, I mean the totality of the degree of the presence of all potential tones across the audible range in relationship to each other.
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Pardon my eschewing the “binary code” of the question, but my answer is:
A final product (overall sound quality) that makes me forget all the silly frettin’ and fussin’ and fightin’ that my fevered, obsessive, perfection-seeking mind engaged in.
Just kind of…you know, enjoying that, uh…music stuff.
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Your post is okay with me 👍🏼
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For emotional engagement, an absence of distractions such as fatiguing highs and poorly controlled bass is helpful but I'm not at all convinced emotional engagement is, in my case, dependent upon "high fidelity". I can be just as emotionally engaged listening to a car radio as my system at home. What's that, you say -- my system must be pretty crappy? Compared to others, here, no doubt it is but you wouldn't confuse the two in a snake-oil-free, scientifically-controlled, double-blind measurement-corroborated listening test
For physical engagement, PRaT is very important; if my body is not drawn into the music, chances are the rest of me won't be either. I attribute this to my musical tastes having been formed during the 60's/70's when the Devil's Music dominated the air-waves and, paired with various recreational substances, insidiously re-structured the brain structures of vulnerable adolescents such as myself. (I wouldn't have it any other way).
I guess this means my intellect is not particularly active during music listening.
What's that, you say -- this post doesn't appear to display a dazzling intellect, either ? While there are, no doubt, smarter members here, I don't envy anyone whose aesthetic engagement is dependent upon their IQ.
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Soundstage/image
nimble bass
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@bdp24
As an elderly gentilemen, I am quiet familiar with the term "immediacy". It wasn't until this morning that I was able to connect the phenomena to music. Thank you.
@asvjerry
I was thinking more along the lines of scorched eyebrows, but shattered sheetrock will do.
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Space between the notes.
Dynamic contrast.
Enough detail and resolution that even Stevie Nicks vocals are discernable. (Found this to be impossible for under $100k)
Oh yeah. I recently did a survey on A’Gon and got 209 results. Was fun laughing along with you guys on the subjject of "polls". Maybe a survey on how many of you listen to music with your pets?
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Accuracy to the original event.
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Tone, tone tone. Without that piano, sax and vocals don't sound good. The ability to go from a loud passage to a soft passage and back again or dynamics. Clarity can he bad with changing capacitors and resistors in your amp or preamp.
Happy Listening.
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Fun and captivating - a synergy of audio qualities not defining sound perfection but revealing to the heart and soul.
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...shatter sheetrock.... ;) *L*
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The most important sound quality is whichever one you feel your current system is weakest. Because that is the one you will be focused on. Also the reason for the constant need to upgrade.
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For me, if the soundstage is not wide and deep, I can’t enjoy the system no matter how good everything else is.
Clarity and tone can be had in mono. I’m into stereo.
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If I can only pick two:
- Tonal Quality - The ability to accurately and realistically reproduce fundamental frequencies and harmonic overtones in a manner that allows the listener to easily distinguish between different instruments and vocal pitches.
- Dynamics - The realistic portrayal of the variation between notes or phrases from quietest to loudest, including the ability to play loudly and powerfully, when the musical material calls for it.
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Amen @noodlyarm. J. Gordon Holt used a term I like a lot, one I think you are getting at: "immediacy". I hear it in the sound of direct-to-disk LP’s, Decca/London pickups, and electrostatic loudspeakers. Horns as well, but they are too colored for my delicate sensibilities ;-) .
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Clarity and presence. I want my system to sound as close to “live” as possible.
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for speakers: linearity and dispersion
or: linearity and dynamism
usually, though not always, linearity also means clarity.
and, admittedly, not all great speakers are perfectly linear AND it is also in the ears of the beholder, always
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Easy since 75% of the music is the midrange ,the-other Bass.
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Effortlessness - that sense of ease that allows you to forget about the hardware and just hear the music. This is what well driven Magnepans or electrostats do. Huge effortless sound.
Definition - clear highs without edge, mids without honk, full bass without mud.
My acoustic guitars aren't edgy, or honky, or muddy, but I can hear those very undesirable distortions instantly on a poor system or recording
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Warmth, depth... blackness.
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@bdp24 Agreed. Also, "What is this?!? Image sizes for ants?" 🤣
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I think imaging and soundstage. I'll give up the last 10/10th of detail for a lack of fatigue, if necessary at a budget point.
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Clarity and weight. Hard to achieve but worth it.
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To be "immersed" while listening to only 2 channels I have to listen in the sweet spot. When listening in 9.2.6 the walls and ceiling become the speakers and the entire room is the sweetspot. YMMV.
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The lifelike reproduction of vocals is by far my first priority. If a loudspeaker fails that test it is immediately eliminated, and most are (vowel coloration---though significantly improved since the early days of hi-fi---remains a problem). Closely following is the reproduction of instrumental timbres, especially acoustic string instruments: guitar, dobro, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, piano (yes, it is a string instrument ;-), and harpsichord.
As for "hi-fi effects", it is image size and scale. Most loudspeakers sound comically "small" to me, the image of a grand piano, for example, being reduced to a miniature of it’s actual size. It’s like watching a movie on your iPhone. Hearing a doll house-size musical picture immediately destroys the suspension of disbelief.
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OP… “Listing a third or fourth quality without indicating priority is fine, but it's dilutive because it's that much closer to listing all the attractive qualities one can think of.”
Actually, perhaps I wasn’t getting my point across. I was not trying to list many items through my experience… but indicate earlier ones lost top relevance as one learns and understands the real essence of well reproduced music.
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If we wanted to be objective, we'd still be worshiping at the feet of Hirsch & Houck...as much as I do miss those guys...😶
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You cannot be serious! A checklist makes no sense whatsoever.
Just listen and draw your own conclusion based on what you hear.
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Like my handle dynamic linearity is fundamental. And I don't mean playing loudly cleanly although that would be true with dynamic linearity. It means linear level changes, no compression no matter how small or how large the change in level. It's one factor that doesn't change when listening to live sound when you change your seat or even leave the room and listen out the door and you still know the sound is live.
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Soundstage realism and instrumental identity.
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Dynamic contrasts within a 3d soundstage. Tom
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@skchun
Me too.
For me instrumental tone/ timbre/ textures is both 1 and 2.
Everything else ie dynamic range, transient speed, lack of sibilance, lack of overhang, full range bandwidth, image depth are all of far lesser importance.
That's why I can sometimes prefer a $40 portable speaker which has a vivid tonal palette to a $4000+ Hi-Fi that doesn't.
Seriously, it's inexplicable to me just how so many of these so called 'High End' systems fail miserably in this regard.
Getting the most accurate instrumental tone would always be my first priority as a manufacturer.
This is a good question and one of crucial importance in determining the relevance of the various responses we often read here.
I tend to skip any published review that does not offer a few words about tone. Strange as it seems, it would appear that, for far too many people, precise instrumental tonality seems to have little or no relevance, whilst to a few others it's almost everything.
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Tone is the most important aspect in my system.
Having spent most of my life 20’s and 30’s in night clubs in New York and seen/heard most of the bands of that era, when I listen to music, my musical/aural emotions draws from those experiences.
I’m not trying to recreate the live performance experience of my past since my aural memory is dim but bring out the emotional experience from my memory when I first heard that song.
The right tone is the only aspect of the music that brings back those emotions, not soundstage, clarity, detail, etc.
skc
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Thanks for showing up. I was trying to explain your system "immersion" concept when making suggestion on how to achieve.
Even from a distance and without visual contact you simply ’know’ when they’re playing live.
Well said.
This would seem to suggest that ’live immediacy’ already gets lost during the recording process. So any playback system, no matter how good, is at the mercy of the recording quality.
Pretty much. You can do things like go with metal drivers to compensate, But on another recording it may be "too much of a good thing". Reducing components, clean power supply, or going with horns is a systemic way to reduce the loss.
True be told, I came up with these two when recently auditioning mini-systems for work. Maybe partly cos they mix songs to sound good on a boom box??? The home stereo (typical set-up we all use) obscures those qualities. Distractions due to:
1) Produces too much detail
2) Room effects
If I stick my head directly between the mini-system speakers, I get the same "detailed" effect as listening at home. So I know is a feature of setup.
My epiphany came when, as @tubeking1 said about emotions. I was just working, listening to LCD Soundsystem, not really thinking about the music when OMG it just hit me. I could feel the coldness, the emotion, the poignant beauty or whatever they were trying to express.
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When I listen to my system the most special times are when I experience an emotional response to the music being played. If it doesn’t then it draws my attention to setup or something other than the enjoyment of music. Trying to put labels on it seems diminish or make things clinical when I just want to play music. I understand the need to take the necessary steps to ensure quality music reproduction but the sooner that is done the better. For me it’s like going to an art museum. I don’t actually look to close at the brush strokes I just enjoy myself and sometimes actually experience the artist’s intent if I am really lucky. Now if you want to know what’s important to me is manageable treble. I seen to be able to fill in the blanks when necessary but harsh, etched treble is my nemesis.
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Timbre, ( covers tonality and clarity)
Dynamics, (what music isn't dynamic other than heavily compressed recorded music?)
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Going into detailed descriptions of the meanings given to a couple qualitative terms and the factors needed for enhancing them is really interesting.
Well said, guys. Expressive and colorful articulation without getting too poetic or prozaic.
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Indeed - the best you can possibly get is what the producer and other tech people can put on the source. And of course the 'source' can sound very different even in the same venue and performance depending on where you are. But yeah, that's great when you can get transported that way!
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@cdc ’immediacy’ is an even better word for the kind of realism I was trying to describe. One could say immediacy is what distinguishes the real thing from a recording. Just think of street musicians. Even from a distance and without visual contact you simply ’know’ when they’re playing live. Whether they use amplification doesn’t matter. It will sound completely different from recorded sound, even when it comes from speakers outside the adjacent store just a few feet away, no matter how loud they go.
This would seem to suggest that ’live immediacy’ already gets lost during the recording process. So any playback system, no matter how good, is at the mercy of the recording quality.
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@larsman No, of course you can’t. Just as you can’t fool youself into thinking you’re sitting front row in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam (to give an example I’m familiar with) hearing a performance of Mahler 6 (or any other large scale orchestral score). But every once in a while you sit in front of your speakers and your usual disbelief gets suspended for a moment and you almost feel teleported to the venue. That’s when the ’gestalt’ of the live music event is somehow faithfully reproduced in your own space. When this happens your brain gets tricked into thinking it’s hearing the real thing. It’s those moments when even your cat takes notice and this experience is what any audiophile aspires to. These are usually few and far between, but a well balanced system can get you there more often.
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@gladmo
Thanks for that. Those were my 2 points when at my low point in hi-end audio.
Currently. . . . how to describe? I like a system which lets me connect to the emotional and musical content of the song. Auditioning, I put in a song and don’t really listen for anything. It plays tunes, nothing stands out, and I don’t think about the system. The 2 things I aim for are:
1) Top to bottom even.
- Flat frequency response.
- The more full range the better. No sound below 70Hz is not "even".
- No integration problems between drivers.
- Meaning well designed crossover (better yet none)
- No change in sound quality between drivers.
- Potential problems like: Metal tweeter and poly woofer / Ribbon tweeter vs. cone midrange.
- No change in tone going from low volumes to high volumes.
- Harmonically correct. This again relates to even sound with higher level harmonic in balance with the fundamental. Resulting in instruments and vocals sound like themselves.
2) Immediacy - means the music’s is "there" and you can feel what the musicians are trying to convey. What they are thinking when they play. Achieved by, IMHO- minimal crossover components, clean power, not trying to fix one problem component with another, and minimal system components in general. This encompasses:
- Transparency.
- Clarity.
- PRAT.
- Soundstaging.
- Dynamics / lack of compression.
- Black background.
It’s all about choosing where to compromise and no system can do it all. The more differences between songs the better. Also better spatially means the system is dong something more right.
Looking at this list, I come up with something like Quads or single driver speaker run with a chip amp or SET? Maybe horn speakers or omni like MBL / Ohm / 3D mutli speakwr systems.
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'Realism' would never work for me as there's no way I can fool myself into thinking my living room is the venue for a Metallica concert. If I'm enjoying the sound, it's all good and I don't worry about all these characteristics.
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Great thread! I was going to start one that was a top 5 so I’ll list my top 5 things that I want to achieve with my system. From least to most although they no doubt all fit together
1- great center image
2-clean sound with superb clarity and detail with no grating highs
3- wide soundstage with as much depth as my room will do
4- great tone and midrange magic
5- speakers disappear so it’s just me and the music
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