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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 2 responses by shadorne

shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
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Broadly speaking Dave is absolutely right.

Some people like the real thing and getting as close as possible to that - true high fidelity.

Others don’t care so much about accuracy - they want their system to enhance the sound with musicality (musicality being their preferred presentation). This is not high fidelity but it is immensely enjoyable and fun - a bit like cooking to your own tastes rather then strictly following a recipe.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
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I think it boils down to speakers. The Benchmark DAC sounds perfect on neutral accurate speakers. Lots of really rich harmonic detail far more than other syrupy gear that tends just to sound like warm mush and where masking from all that warmth hides real instrumental harmonics and timbre.

My speakers have been used for three decades to produce a large portion of the music available - sought after for accuracy in conveying the mix or master at all volumes. They match well with Benchmark clean neutral sound.

The opposite of the above would be Marantz paired with say Dynaudio speakers or drivers. These are both dark sounding brands - prized for being warm, smooth and musical.



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