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Two Type of sound and listener preference are there more?

In our thirty years of professional audio system design and setup, we keep on running into two distinctly different types of sound and listeners.

Type One: Detail, clarity, soundstage, the high resolution/accuracy camp. People who fall into this camp are trying to reproduce the absolute sound and use live music as their guide.

Type Two: Musicality camp, who favors tone and listenability over the high resolution camp. Dynamics, spl capabilty, soundstaging are less important. The ability for a system to sound real is less important than the overall sound reproduced "sounds good."

Are there more then this as two distincly different camps?

We favor the real is good and not real is not good philosophy.

Some people who talk about Musicaility complain when a sytem sounds bright with bright music.

In our viewpoint if for example you go to a Wedding with a Live band full of brass instruments like horns, trumpts etc it hurts your ears, shouldn’t you want your system to sound like a mirror of what is really there? Isn’t the idea to bring you back to the recording itself?

Please discuss, you can cite examples of products or systems but keep to the topic of sound and nothing else.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
128x128audiotroy

Showing 1 response by onhwy61

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onhwy61
5,150 posts
 
There are two types of people in this world, those that divided the world into two types of people and those who don't.  As others have pointed out, it's far more complex and nuanced.
Type One: Detail, clarity, soundstage, the high resolution/accuracy camp. People who fall into this camp are trying to reproduce the absolute sound and use live music as their guide.
High resolution and accuracy should be a path to excellent tone.  We are all at the mercy of the recording, but a cello should sound like a cello.
Type Two: Musicality camp, who favors tone and listenability over the high resolution camp. Dynamics, spl capabilty, soundstaging are less important. The ability for a system to sound real is less important than the overall sound reproduced "sounds good."
Musicality and high resolution are not mutually exclusive.  I believe most experienced audiophile seek the high resolution coupled with long-term listenability.  In blunt terms, many audiophile oriented systems have too much treble when compared to live, unamplified music.

Finally, there's a common sense consideration.  Does it really make sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars putting together a system that only sounds "good" on a limited number of recordings and makes most of the music you like sound crummy?   Again, we are at the mercy of the recording.
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