How do you add color?
For those of you who are adherents of straight wire, ruler flat frequency response, accurate and neutral sound, artists’ true intentions, etc. ... please stop reading now. You’ve been warned. If you continue to read, you might get heartburn and since I’m a nice guy, I don’t want to do that to you.
Now, for those who are not opposed to adding a bit of color and flavor to tune/tweak the sound to their liking, what is your preferred method of madness? Speakers, amps, preamps, DACs, cables? I know many who like the combination of solid state amps with tube preamps. Lately, a lot of upmarket DACs are using tubes (Lampizator) or R2R to add a sort of tube-like flavoring. Let’s say you’re happy with your solid state amp but want to add a bit of tube magic to the chain, would you get there by way of tube preamps or tube DACs? Or both -- which might be too much of a good thing perhaps?
I’d wager Mr Spock would call this topic “illogical”.
Then Dr McCoy would bawl him out and Kirk would give a speech about being human. This would be an episode called “The Color of Sound” where a strange alien probe makes the crew have mind wiping psychedelic dreams whenever a certain tune plays. Then they take over the Enterprise and only Spock can save them thanks to his unwillingness to see color from sound. Great episode! Make it so! |
@noromance Wrote:
I agree 100%! Mike |
I have already mentioned that perhaps the usage of the term ’color’ was not very apt to describe what I was trying to say. I see folks are still hung up on that word :) The point was that some people want neutrality at all cost. Some are okay with morphing the sound just little bit, similar to how you can season your food without altering the basic essence of the dish. Why get so dogmatic about it? I know people who reject tube amplification as a form of ’polluting’ the sound. The tube euphonics, in their mind, are an added coloration. They hate tone controls, and look down upon folks who buy amps with tone controls. These people often have telepathic abilities to know exactly what the artist had in mind when recording the song in 1967. I readily admit that I have no idea what the artist had in mind. I listen to enjoy and connect with music in a way that pleases me. I like what tubes bring to the table. I like what some of the very best SS amps bring to the table. I like to swap cables to try out a different ’flavor’ of sound every now and then. Different strokes for different folks. |
There is another point. Microphones do not 'hear' everything and so part of the real sound being recorded will be missed. Let's call it negative coloration. You might try to at least partly restore those lost in recording elements, without adding elements that were never there. This is a formidable task bordering on utopia. But we can try. |
"colour" as qualitative word associated with the gear component is one thing... "colour" as a qualitative concept in acoustic and psycho-acoustic associated with TIMBRE is ANOTHER thing... I cannot be clearer and shorter... Confusing the two muddle the problem... Gear colours as with dac that are of different type or with amplifiers S.S. or tubes is a synergy and design qualitative coupling problem... "Colour" as with tonal colour associated with TIMBRE experience is the main problem in audio with the spatial aspects of sound independently and this independently of the price tag of your system ..... No recording reproduce a perfect experience of timbre only a specific one in specific recorded location of the musician in the room and with some microphone location and typ; our room acoustic translate this imperfect recording of timbre and the spatial recorded information cues into our own room acoustic ...( Speakers crosstalk muddle this information about timbre and location and other spatial acoustic concepts ) The best gear in the world in a very bad room will be less desirable than less costly gear in an optimal room... This is a fact not my opinion... |
