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
You are completely right.
We are users of crazy machinery expected to generate any music on command over there, where we live. We don't want to hear any noise, nor any distortion or test tones. We want the sounds coming out to be musical sounds.

Those artists' views can be guides on what we should expect, to conceptualize where internally music might take us.  When the system can do it and when the listener can actually hear that. Two different subjects. Above, I proposed paths through these two difficult subjects.

Roy

LOL
I play in an 11 piece band.
i also have live sound and recording experience.
I know exactly what your saying.
As far as listening i tend to lean towards  Dialing in the  overall sound.
It varies with the type of Music and recording Era and process.
I like to dial my System into what i am listening to.
My favorite is the sound i grew up with.
Late 60s early 70s Rock.
All Hi Fi is The reproduction of Music so it varies with music style, your individual taste and the flexibility of your System.
John
www.thebstreetbombers.com




Can we please add the adjectives engaging, seductive, unrelenting, like a Gila Monster?
Let's just go into everyone's brain to see how much their pleasure centers light up on each system and each tracked played.  That's the truth if folks want to label things.  It's even scientific to make those folks happy (daughter is a physic's major and I am more of a show me guy).