Are you a tone guy or a details-retrieval guy?

[struth]

Retrieving perhaps is a better word.

[Marco]

Yeah, sure. Retrieving is exactly the word.

Geoff, what I'm getting at is that equipment, speakers, cartridges or whatever, are not simply guilty of ADDING things that shouldn't be there, but also subtracting what should - *and* the best equipment retrieves [thanks, Grant] what's been falsely taken away (e.g. by being more truthful, tonally), thus making the sound genuinely more accurate, in the true sense of the word, and in turn allowing recorded music to be reproduced more convincingly.

Are you with me?

And the best example of that process at work, IMO, is when some equipment (often of the modern variety) trades 'tone' for detail retrieval. However, the same can also apply the other way round!

Marco.

[Marco]

A personal bugbear is systems which are rounded off at both ends, especially the top end, to give that "this system ain't going to sound anything other than smooth and lush no matter what's on the recording" effect..... not for me!

Nor me... But then neither would a system that sounds falsely 'spotlit' and upfront, pretending to be 'accurate', be for me either. And a lot of stuff these days sounds like that. Mostly commercially produced kit though, not anything you or other small, specialist manufacturers would be likely to produce.

A good indication that a systems a real good 'un to me is when the sound changes markedly with each different recording played, ie it's an open window on the recording rather than the system imprinting its own sound on everything played through it.

Spot on!

Marco.

[Macca]

Yeah, sure. Retrieving is exactly the word.

Geoff, what I'm getting at is that equipment, speakers, cartridges or whatever, are not simply guilty of ADDING things that shouldn't be there, but also subtracting what should - *and* the best equipment retrieves [thanks, Grant] what's been falsely taken away (e.g. by being more truthful, tonally), thus making the sound genuinely more accurate, in the true sense of the word, and in turn allowing music to be reproduced more convincingly.

Are you with me?

And the best example of that process at work, IMO, is when some equipment (often of the modern variety) trades 'tone' for detail retrieval.

Marco.

That's all fine but I would like to know by what process is modern equipment trading tone for detail? I mean specifically, in an amp or speakers say, what design choices will affect this? I can see how drive unit materials in a speaker could do this. Are we talking about using different types of capacitor and resistors, or amp circuit design, crossover design? All of them? Or something else entirely?

[Marco]

Well, that's a very good question, best answered though by someone who builds equipment. I can only report on what I hear

But, much of it, IMO, occurs at the design stage, when too much measuring is done and not enough listening! Again, I'm talking mainly about commercially produced equipment here.

If you're that way inclined, it's all too easy fooling yourself into thinking that your oscilloscope is ultimately more musically truthful than your ears, when, if you have good ones, the very opposite is true.

Marco.

[Marco]

Oh, and you can obviously hear what I'm referring to yourself, Martin, as it's reflected in your cartridge choices!

Marco.

[Macca]

Aye but then I prefer my CD players to veer more to the clinical side. Don't get on with Rega's 'analogue sound' players, or a lot of the Marantz players: too sumptuous; or the upsampling players as they seem to have that 'fluffy bunny' presentation where nothing sounds 'solid'.

Most CD players are crap, really, regardless of the price or the badge. They don't need to be but they are. Not surprised most seem to prefer a good vinyl set up.

[Jimbo]

Aye but then I prefer my CD players to veer more to the clinical side. Don't get on with Rega's 'analogue sound' players, or a lot of the Marantz players: too sumptuous; or the upsampling players as they seem to have that 'fluffy bunny' presentation where nothing sounds 'solid'.

Most CD players are crap, really, regardless of the price or the badge. They don't need to be but they are. Not surprised most seem to prefer a good vinyl set up.

I definitely agree with your last paragraph Martin.

[RobbieGong]

Me too, there are a couple of cdp's i've heard though that were the exception so to speak, sounding analogue in the right way - I have one of them

[Marco]

Aye but then I prefer my CD players to veer more to the clinical side.

Not clinical, just genuinely less coloured and more accurate. That's why you like the old flagship Sony players, as indeed I do.

Don't get on with Rega's 'analogue sound' players, or a lot of the Marantz players: too sumptuous; or the upsampling players as they seem to have that 'fluffy bunny' presentation where nothing sounds 'solid'.

I completely agree, and neither do I. For me, the sound they produce has obviously been tailored and designed to remove some of the 'nastiness' of CD, when if the player was designed properly in the first place, there would be no such nastiness.

The same can also be said about most players fitted with valve output stages. Unless done well, they're nothing but glorified tone controls.

Thing is, can you blame the manufacturers who produce stuff like that, with so many complaining that CD is 'bright and sterile', or whatever? All they're doing, I guess, is giving folks what they want!

That's the problem these days, especially with the sonic signature of equipment and speakers tilted towards the upper frequencies (superficially to sound 'impressive'), you can so easily over-egg the pudding, so why not just 'warm up' the sound of CD players to compensate?

'Arse about face', indeed!

*However*, certain vintage players, as I mentioned earlier, DO sound 'analogue-like', for all the RIGHT reasons. Understanding what is right and wrong, in that respect though, is a little complicated. It just comes from experience, and I've been playing around with this stuff for a long time.

The sea-change in the 'voicing' of CDPs, however, occurred when the 'powers that be' decided in their, er 'infinite wisdom', that bitstream was better than multi-bit, and it largely went downhill from there....

Marco.