What is the art of sound?

Bose. Shudder!

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Originally Posted by Steve Toy

Solidstate is our representative offering the basis for starting point #4. Without actually stating the obvious, guys in this particular camp are more than likely valve amp users, possibly with vinyl-only sources.

It's an extremely valid approach and one I personally wish to investigate with the possible risk that I may wish to trash my entire system, fall in a heap and begin again from scratch if it meets some of the other critera, notably mine.

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This notion of trashing my whole rig(s) and starting over is appealing to me. Catharsis?:scratch:

I think of melody being linear, horizontal (and juxtapositional), and harmony vertical and more akin to addition/subtraction (contrapuntal). While rhythm follows the form of both melody and harmony, with vertical and horizontal characteristics, by nature of its unique space in time it can possess qualities unlike either other. Me or us? hmmm.

I have some theories about how sound differs under various physical, atmospheric conditions, and by and large, we tend only to consider indoor environment minutiae as we evaluate systems. I love to cobble the biggest rig possible, take it out into the country where no sonic alienation can be sought or wrought, and play holy hell with the wind as my listening companion.

Nice if you have the opportunity and the space!

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Originally Posted by michaelhigh

I have some theories about how sound differs under various physical, atmospheric conditions, and by and large, we tend only to consider indoor environment minutiae as we evaluate systems. I love to cobble the biggest rig possible, take it out into the country where no sonic alienation can be sought or wrought, and play holy hell with the wind as my listening companion.

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I've been playing an extension of my system in the garden over the summer, and I know what you mean - no walls, ceilings or glass to introduce any reflections, no problems with furniture or TVs to get in the way of speaker positioning - the sound of the wind and the birds adds a certain something - or maybe it was the bbq'd food and nice wine? ;)s

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I've been playing an extension of my system in the garden over the summer, and I know what you mean - no walls, ceilings or glass to introduce any reflections, no problems with furniture or TVs to get in the way of speaker positioning - the sound of the wind and the birds adds a certain something...

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You could do it bollock naked - that would add "a certain something" else, too..... :eyebrows:

Marco.

Only in your head ye pervert!

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Originally Posted by Marco

You could do it bollock naked - that would add "a certain something" else, too..... :eyebrows:

Marco.

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Who said I didn't? Well, only wearing an arab strap, but that's near enough naked in my book! :stalks:

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Only in your head ye pervert!

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Moi? I'm just a shy boy.

Marco.

Aye I've heard that! S'why ye wear the dresses... :lolsign:

Only on a Sunday, like! Otherwise I'm just in my Lycra catsuit.

Marco.

Ah,just like Uma in Kill Bill....

I was thinking more like Bella Emberg in the Basil Brush show.... http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/8288/904572.gif http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6...smileys352.gif

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8038/fart3.gifhttp://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8038/fart3.gif

Aye well,if the cat suit fits....

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Originally Posted by Marco

You could do it bollock naked - that would add "a certain something" else, too..... :eyebrows:

Marco.

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True, this is the advantage to country living.:eyebrows:

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Originally Posted by Dogruff

Perhaps the Art of Sound is the ability to transform previously unlistenable music into beautiful toe-tapping stuff.
The problem is you will probably have to bin all your previous favourites.

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A turd had no integral strength. How do you polish it without totally liquifying it, rendering it useless? I've never been able to retrieve a lost (to/on me) source from sounding lousy, if I never liked it, musically speaking, no amount of lipstick could make me smooch that piggie. Werd.:mental:

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Originally Posted by jcbrum

Hi-Fidelity is by definition about RE-production of sound, - not production.

Some one once said that the ideal hifi set is a cable with gain.

I can well understand that many wish to alter the sound of their replay kit till it pleases them but that can be different for say, modern commercial recordings, and 40yr old vinyl.

This amounts to "added effects". In the ideal situation you would have a black box with many knobs, so that with all knobs at centre zero, the set simply had gain and didn't alter or colour the sound at all, then either because of deficiency in the recording, or because of personal preferences, one could tweak the knobs and achieve a modification of the output sound. That is adding "effects".

I say if your hifi won't do "gain with no effects" then it can be of only limited use.

Digital systems are almost perfect in this respect since "effects" are very easy to control and the kit can be set up to give "straight gain". Once that has been achieved then the desired effects can be applied to each recording individually and saved with it for later perfect satisfaction in replay. You can even undo some of the effects of compression in the original recording.

This could amount to everyones library of music being tailored to his idea of perfect re-production with no two "songs" necessarily the same anywhere in the world. This would make listening to someone else's hifi and music collection of some interest.

In order to achieve all this it's necessary to have loudspeakers which are uncoloured in the first place. and of the highest tonal accuracy. Undoubtedly this is the hardest thing to achieve presently, but without it good HiFi, and all that I have suggested is not possible.

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I'm studying this guy. He knows.;)

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Originally Posted by Tony G

A lot of interesting thoughts here.
The proposed categorisations, which I see as aspects of emphasis in system selection, can certainly be illustrated from my own experience.
Most notably, when upgrading my speakers nearly 2 years ago.
I was fortunate to be able to audition 1 of the potential contenders in my own system for some time with a view to purchase.
The other contender was an unheard, import only proposition, roughly price equivalent.
Not perhaps a complete unknown as I owned a lower model in the range at the time and a higher model using the same driver was exceptionally well reviewed by a tntaudio writer with whom I share an affinity of tastes in reproduction.
The speakers in question had received very good press and for more than a week I was very taken with them, they mated well with my amplifier, made everything sound great, tremendous sense of scale, not quite as dominating of my living space as the ones I eventually bought.
They definitely covered the first two aspects and were not remiss in the fourth.
Until I stopped being in the first flush of love and heard what they were missing, then followed a week of tinkering to see if the problem was elsewhere, I set up a switchbox to switch between them and my then current speakers to check what I was hearing and finally decided that what I was noticing was the compromises that had been made in the design to achieve their design goals.
I still find it a mystery why a speaker with a nominal sensitivity very similar to what I am using now should not reproduce the micro detail I hear now.
Be that as it may, I reluctantly returned them to the dealer with recompense for his trouble in delivering and picking them up again, feeling that it was only proper to do so and also that it was a cheap letoff.
Those speakers have now gone to a home where they are loved, but they were not for me, much as the effortless sense of scale was intoxicating.
I then went through the import thing and after nearly 2 years am constantly delighted with what I hear, yes they are ruthlessly revealing, yes they do not do the bottom octave and I may add bass augmentation at some time but at present, for most of what I listen to and the comfort of my neighbours, they are more than adequate.
Quality of bass, for me, exceeds quantity for most music. They have also proved an excellent system tuning tool.
Enough illustrative digression.
I would propose, and it is covered in various ways earlier in this thread, rather two categories, the first resolution and the second re-presentation.
The first being the ability of the system to retrieve the recorded information and the second its ability to faithfully re present (as in present again) that information.
I expect this is similar to what Marco is referring to as accuracy and feel it most closely resembles category the third, though it embraces the other 3.
I do not set out to find problems with the re-presentation of my system, but should some particular distortion intrude upon the music, then I will embark on tinkering and tweaking to ascertain its source and if possible resolution.
Whilst improved fidelity has often revealed recordings to be less than might be desired, the balance of improved sounding recordings is very favourable and the improvement made by some changes been much greater than expected.
An example here would be the improvement to the performance of the DL-103 after changing from a cheap SUT to an active headamp, another, a particular distortion in vocals on a couple of recordings eliminated after using Mr Yips protractor and painstakingly realigning my cartridge.
The results of the above 2 examples, improved information retrieval for the latter and harm minimisation in the former, resulting in more accurate re presentation, instead of a screech of massed violins there are individual violins, instead of one singer there is a backing singer and some studio reverb.
If the information is retrieved with accuracy in the time domain and re presented with phase coherence then I think tunefulness and all else will/can be re presented given a minimum damage amplification chain and suitable output transducers.
I think that is enough of an essay.

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I'm studying this guy:), too.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hi John,



Not if you're listening to original recordings on vinyl from the 1950s, which were made using valve microphones and mixing desks in the days when quality prevailed over cost and convenience, and which were produced by some of the most talented recording engineers ever born ;)

I have many records from that era, where the recording quality is utterly stunning (the nearest thing you'll hear to live music) - eons better than anything produced today on vinyl, CD or anything else....

I agree with your above statement, but the fact is, when you hear some of the amazing early stereo (and even mono) recordings on vinyl, played on a top-notch turntable, through a suitably capable system, it leaves digital for dead!

Having the pleasure of hearing that quality of music at home in all its glory is the reason why I own the type of system I do.

Marco.

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REALLY feeling this. Uh Huh.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Hi John,

You make some very valid points here:



We don't have any kids, and thus I'm able to dedicate a (comfortable, nicely furnished) room at home which is simply for my hi-fi system and music collection. Therefore I can set my system up optimally with specialist equipment supports, and connect it to a dedicated earth and mains supply and have cables placed where I want them, with no concessions whatsoever to 'WAF' nonsense. All that matters is what sounds best, not what it looks like. We have a separate lounge for all the non-hi-fi stuff where the TV and all the 'normal' stuff lives.

I realise that I'm lucky in that respect. However, and this is the key, I'm far from being the 'lonely boy' who's locked away in his room from the real world with only his hi-fi for a friend, which can all too easily become the case with this hobby of ours.........

Quite often my wife will join me when listening to music and we'll share a nice bottle of wine and just relax and have a chat. The secret is to create an environment at home which is conducive to this.

I'm also lucky that my wife loves music, and crucially, is pretty interested in hi-fi. She even goes to shows with me and is an active member here!

We do this because we're genuinely interested in each other's hobbies and like to share our mutual interests, which is something that I find is sadly lacking in some people's relationships, where many married couples are like disparate souls leading separate (and often quite unhappy) lives. We're nothing like that, and indeed very close and do pretty much everything together.

Having that sort of relationship with your partner makes listening to music and owning a quality hi-fi system a joy, not a lonely existence. And not only does my wife often join me when listening to music, but we have many friends who share the same interests, so there is nearly always someone visiting who's into hi-fi and music, and we make it really enjoyable by sharing some lovely food and wine with them, so that the focus is not just on hi-fi and music, but a social occasion where there is plenty of fun and good banter! :cool:

As for the analogue vs. digital debate, I know where you're coming from. All I can say is that I have a fairly substantial music collection and own a very (VERY) good CDP, and also turntable. Whilst I enjoy superb sounds from CD and have heard some very good computer streaming set-ups, nothing I've heard digital-wise, and I mean NOTHING, gets close to the sound produced by my T/T when playing mint superbly recorded vinyl of the type I mentioned earlier.

Clicks and pops? There's (almost) no such thing if you have plenty of brand new vinyl, only buy the best condition second-hand records, own a professional record cleaner, and above all, take care of your records and store them properly! ;)

Owning a top-notch vinyl replay system, and both maintaining it and looking after records, is definitely a labour of love. But I enjoy every bit of it, as I much prefer this more tactile 'human' way of accessing my music collection than some 'soulless' files stored on a computer, which are worth bugger all in monetary terms, and which could be lost in the blink of an eye with a software failure!

No, give me a physical music collection and the ritual of pulling a record out of its sleeve, popping it on the turntable, and placing the stylus in the lead-in groove, and then sitting back and admiring the cover artwork and gatefold as I listen to the music, any day over some utilitarian computer set-up. It's such a dispassionate way of accessing one's music collection and yet another example of how modern technology, in some instances, has dehumanised us......

Don't get me started on that one though! :eyebrows:

Marco.

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I really dig this sentiment. I hope I can find some reason to come down on the side of lossless listening as I don't particularly enjoy the up-and-down, back-and-forth to the machine. I hope I'm not over-quoting y'all, I just really appreciate y'all's POV. It's refreshing after hanging out with Yankees on American sites, I must say. Carry on.

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Originally Posted by Welder

No problem with any of that Marco me old china.
I must admit I do miss the record sleeves; a pixel light image on a screen just doesn’t cut it.
Shame you’re mainly into classical and I wasn’t about when I unloaded my vinyl; even the 78’s went (sob sob)
What I wrote about listening to classical music though, I just can’t do it through a HiFi not mine or anyone else’s I’ve heard.
Maybe your kit would do the trick but you ain’t going to give it to me are you?
I’ve always believed you would need a huge listening room and kit capable of at least 10Hz to 40 kHz to cover what can be heard, felt and, if you believe that perception of sound goes beyond aural capacity, perceived. Even then, there is something about dressing up, an attractive lady on your arm and the entire ambiance of the concert experience.
Fortunately a lot of the more modern music often sounds better once the recording engineer has straightened out the final mix. I cant think of many live rock/whatever concerts I’ve been to where live matched recorded in quality and I’m a modern music fan.
Maybe Tower of Power were one of the exceptions to this.
However, despite all of our different perspectives and different means of replaying the music we like, I have a feeling that if it hasn’t already happened it wont be long before a handful of bits shunted through a USB or Firewire cable will produce audio indistinguishable from the master mix.
Let’s hope so or we may all be listening to mp3 on a white fruit company pod thingy.

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Shudders! (as y'all say) hehe

A more macabre take on the art of sound
http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/ca...34824064MmRtXE

Gosh, that's dark. I wonder what the creator of that was on?

It was indeed - and I loved it! Nice one, John... That kinda stuff is right up my street :)

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

It was indeed - and I loved it! Nice one, John... That kinda stuff is right up my street :)

Marco.

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You weirdo Marco, very strange but clever stuff indeed :mental::scratch::eek:

Lol - I just love anything dark, macabre and psychologically disturbing... You wanna see my taste in films! :eyebrows:

Marco.

I should imagine you'd like Eraserhead.

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Originally Posted by MartinT

I should imagine you'd like Eraserhead.

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That's about as messed up as it gets :eyebrows:

Recommended ;)

To bring it back on topic (although a very clever video) my preference is to get the tonality and dynamics of teh system right, and then everything else, tuneplaying, detail etc seems to fall into place.
Example, if you have the tonality right the microdynamic details that tell you the violin isn't just a high screech but "a wooden bodied instrument played in a room (which an acoustic signature) by dragging a bow across the strings with varying amounts of force" tends to be there, making listening to it a believable musical experience.

Yes?

Well I think if the toneality seems right our brains tend to compensate for the rest, so yes the rest will fall into place.
A friend who sets up systems etc told me a little story that illustrates this. He went round to a person house, intially he found the system really tiring. After a few hours his ears adjusted and could enjoy the system.

I want to be emotionally attached to the music and experience the felling of getting it and the happiness an artist must feel when they get a perfect take. That perfect take could still be compromised with little mistakes having been made, or it is the best out of a bad bunch after a hard days recording. So perfect is the wrong word, but the take that will be used on the album.

I love to imagine I was there.

I love Neil Young and Crazy Horse on 'Ragged Glory'. They are playing together, with one take in what sounds like a shed and are having a brilliant time. That shines through in the music.

On Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti the track Black Country Woman, recorded outside starts with the sound of an airplane flighover head and some laughter, Jimmy Page saying to leave it and then the music starts. They too are in the groove.

I would have loved to have been there to high five Roger Waters as he finally got his perfect sound for one of the tracks on DSOTM.

Even the that I'll do attitude of many of the punk bands may not be musically perfect, but it has the energy and passion that is more important. Nick Mason hated the way Pink Floyd recorded music and he produced one of the first punk albums Damned, Damned, Damned' which is a riot of short tracks, get on with it and energy.

I love hearing those differences and hate bland recordings flattened out by the Loudness Wars. Such music is the mass produced posters of cute cats for peoples walls and far removed from real art.

The near accurate reproduction of the sound of instruments, their setting and atmosphere of what is in our recordings. I would say live music but that is recording dependent.

But what does an electric guitar sound like?

Where is the reference that it is accurate to?

I should have said acoustic instruments. Pardon moi.

For the last 10 years or so I have been photographing the performances of the Chattanooga Symphony in a marvelous restored early 20th century movie house.

Lucky me, I get to hear music live and get paid for the trouble.

I want my little system to come as close as possible to what I hear from the rehearsals I get to attend.

I sit about 15 rows back, and am usually, although not always, alone in the seating area of the hall (fast, long lenses, ya know?).

Rich, brash, loud, soft, detailed, huge crescendos, and fiddles of all sizes that sound pretty much like fiddles.

Over the last 10 years my system, and quite possibly my ears have improved fairly dramatically.

I don't know which camp I fall into, but when I close my eyes in my listening room things are much closer to row 15 than they have ever been...and nobody is rattling paper, coughing or shuffling around in the seat next to me.

Audio Art indeed!!!!:)

That's very similar to my experience, also, even tho I have a small room. It's about speaker placement and listening position as much as it is about equipment. And the recording, of course. I listen to a lot of recordings made on location.

'If we have data, let's examine the data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine'.

Some American CEO.

The Art Of Sound are genuine people from all backgrounds with the same passion for listening to music and enjoying the virtue of Audio Engineering and nostalgia. Plus lively debate.
:eyebrows:

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Originally Posted by idc

I want to be emotionally attached to the music and experience the felling of getting it and the happiness an artist must feel when they get a perfect take. That perfect take could still be compromised with little mistakes having been made, or it is the best out of a bad bunch after a hard days recording. So perfect is the wrong word, but the take that will be used on the album.

I love to imagine I was there.

I love Neil Young and Crazy Horse on 'Ragged Glory'. They are playing together, with one take in what sounds like a shed and are having a brilliant time. That shines through in the music.

On Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti the track Black Country Woman, recorded outside starts with the sound of an airplane flighover head and some laughter, Jimmy Page saying to leave it and then the music starts. They too are in the groove.

I would have loved to have been there to high five Roger Waters as he finally got his perfect sound for one of the tracks on DSOTM.

Even the that I'll do attitude of many of the punk bands may not be musically perfect, but it has the energy and passion that is more important. Nick Mason hated the way Pink Floyd recorded music and he produced one of the first punk albums Damned, Damned, Damned' which is a riot of short tracks, get on with it and energy.

I love hearing those differences and hate bland recordings flattened out by the Loudness Wars. Such music is the mass produced posters of cute cats for peoples walls and far removed from real art.

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Some great albums were notoriously terrible to make with band arguing and hating each other, perhaps even each coming in to record their part on their own..

Not sure I'd like to imagine I was there for those!

I prefer to try to be in the place the band or artist wants to fool me into believing I am - whether it is real or not. For that, it just has to sound as the artist intended which requires a system that can do everything.

Can't remember who said this but someone experienced in the high-high-end - I think was a high-end dealer either on a forum or maybe in person to me when I bought a customer trade-in? - as you move into the very high priced gear and speakers, they become less capable as all-rounders but instead begin to hone in on particular aspects of sound like dynamics or midrange tonality etc etc and you have rich audiophiles who love that particular aspect above all else and are willing to pay high prices for something they can't get elsewhere.

In other words, if you have a wide taste in music and you simply want the music to be replayed exactly as intended, you should ignore all the flagship products and aim lower.

I'm not sure I agree with that, Nat. Yes there are expensive but narrow paths (such as some single-ended valve amps) but there are also some great high end products of universal appeal.

It's all about system design and construction, working with the room and your music. I would hate to build a system that only suited certain kinds of music.

Detail for the sake of detail? Not me.
Zero colourations and lifeless? Yeah nah!
Toes tapping, head bobbing, eyebrows going up and down, bum wiggling and singing along badly( after 3 too many ) My Oath!
Don't really know how to explain my style of listening, apart from thinking its more like being 5 rows back from the stage rather than sitting in front of the monitors and watching the band through the window:)

Interesting thread. Here's my take, and I apologise if this has already been said better by someone else.

Music is a puzzle. I have no idea why humans can get so much emotional pleasure from listening to it. But we do. We don't all get the same pleasure from the same music, however, so there is inevitably an enormous subjective element in the enjoyment of music which makes analysing the pleasure we get from it even harder.

When it comes to the hardware we use to replay recorded music, pursuit of objective fidelity is desirable, and not to be scoffed at. However, the concept of fidelity has an irreducibly subjective component, because we're trying to create a emotional response. What works for me might not work for you, etc. This means there is huge scope for snake oil purveyors, because we can and do fool ourselves. The placebo effect is real. Vigilance against irresponsible foo is necessary and desirable, then, but there are bound to be areas where it's really hard to say what's foo and what isn't. (There have been several occasions over the years when I've 'upgraded' through several steps and convinced myself that my system's never sounded better, only to swop back to a much older system configuration for some unforeseen reason, to discover that the old system didn't in fact suck, as I'd expected, but actually gave more pleasure than the new one.) To sum up, neither unqualified objectivism nor unqualified subjectivism can be allow to stand. We all just have to muddle through, hoping to enjoy what we hear and trying not to be ripped off in the process. The message I take from all this is that a little humility is essential in any attempt to discuss what we hear.

We also need to remember that listening to recorded music involves the imagination - we hear sounds emitted by an audio system, and we imagine we are hearing people singing, instruments playing etc. If all goes well, we get the emotional pleasure we sought.

What this implies, of course, is that people who can enjoy music fully via lo-fi reproduction have superior ability to recreate a musical experience imaginatively compared to those who enjoy music most via hi-fi. I therefore regard my own hi-fi habit as sign of a kind of musical disability, and I try to remember this any time I post on a hi-fi forum. :)

Good post Ian! :)
A...

Excellent post, Ian. I agree with much of it! :thumbsup:

Marco.

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Originally Posted by irb

Interesting thread. Here's my take, and I apologise if this has already been said better by someone else.

Music is a puzzle. I have no idea why humans can get so much emotional pleasure from listening to it. But we do. We don't all get the same pleasure from the same music, however, so there is inevitably an enormous subjective element in the enjoyment of music which makes analysing the pleasure we get from it even harder.

When it comes to the hardware we use to replay recorded music, pursuit of objective fidelity is desirable, and not to be scoffed at. However, the concept of fidelity has an irreducibly subjective component, because we're trying to create a emotional response. What works for me might not work for you, etc. This means there is huge scope for snake oil purveyors, because we can and do fool ourselves. The placebo effect is real. Vigilance against irresponsible foo is necessary and desirable, then, but there are bound to be areas where it's really hard to say what's foo and what isn't. (There have been several occasions over the years when I've 'upgraded' through several steps and convinced myself that my system's never sounded better, only to swop back to a much older system configuration for some unforeseen reason, to discover that the old system didn't in fact suck, as I'd expected, but actually gave more pleasure than the new one.) To sum up, neither unqualified objectivism nor unqualified subjectivism can be allow to stand. We all just have to muddle through, hoping to enjoy what we hear and trying not to be ripped off in the process. The message I take from all this is that a little humility is essential in any attempt to discuss what we hear.

We also need to remember that listening to recorded music involves the imagination - we hear sounds emitted by an audio system, and we imagine we are hearing people singing, instruments playing etc. If all goes well, we get the emotional pleasure we sought.

What this implies, of course, is that people who can enjoy music fully via lo-fi reproduction have superior ability to recreate a musical experience imaginatively to those who enjoy music most via hi-fi. I therefore regard my own hi-fi habit as sign of a kind of musical disability, and I try to remember this any time I post on a hi-fi forum. :)

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What an excellent post Ian! I think you have hit the nail on the head there.

Well done.

Well put Ian, particularly

Music is a puzzle

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Originally Posted by Steve Toy

We believe that the actual process of selecting components and their ancilliaries before assembling and setting them up to make a system through which we can enjoy listening to music is more an art than science. Like with any art an element of technical expertise is of course essential. Just as painters need to master the techniques of mixing paint and putting brush to paper before they can create a masterpiece, the components chosen to deliver music into your home will have been well designed and engineered by by experts with considerable technical prowess.

However, whilst favourable measurements taken of THD, dynamic range, power output, current delivery, slew rates, impedance, sensitivity (and whatever else we can actually measure) can be used to support your reasons for choosing a particular piece of kit, these arbitrary measurements will never be able to substitute what your ears and your own judgement can tell you regarding the effectiveness of the components in delivering enjoyable music into your listening environment. If you choose your kit relying solely on such measurements, the end result is unlikely to be particularly inspiring.

Therefore, such a faculty for discernment using yor ears is vital to the success of building the kind of system that, with the right kind of music, will move you to tears, plant a big grin on your face, get your feet tapping and/or keep your attention for any length of time. If you do not place much importance on the process of actually listening for yourself and making your choices based on what you hear then perhaps there are other sites that will meet your needs better than this one.

Because of the very subjective nature of The Art of Sound, it is inevitable that for different people there will be different points of departure for how they would like their hi-fi system ultimately to transport them to their musical nirvana. These starting points outlined below are just that - starting points, for surely all of us would want absolutely everything from a system without compromise if such a thing were ever possible. As such the starting points listed below are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive so you are free to add to or combine them in any way you see fit:

1) Playing the tune or tunes. Components are selected on their ability to make more sense of different melodies, how they fit together in time and generally give the greatest possible insight into the musical performance. The method used to make the selection is often refered to as "the tune dem."

2) Recreating (or getting close to) life-like dynamics, scale and visceral impact. If you are a regular concert-goer you may seek a system that can recreate the drama and thrill of the live band at the arena or the orchestra in the concert hall.

3) Detail retrieval. You want to extract the last tiny little drop of detail embedded in those silver or black discs.

4) You want to listen to your system all day long without experiencing listener fatigue. For you tonal accuracy, low coloration and distortion are very important.

Me, I fall into the first category although I seek elements of the other three in my system. People often think of Linn/Naim when tune or timing are mentioned. Some will even argue that there is no such thing as musicality/tunefulness and that it is just a marketing ploy touted by the aforementioned manufacturers and their brand-loyal followers. For me it is simply a way of evaluating kit, especially as there are a lot of manufacturers out there that excel in this area and it is by no means a foregone conclusion as to which brands or products are likely to be chosen using the tune dem method.

For tune dem read also deriving the greatest insight into the musical performance.

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This has got to be the most sensible thing I have read about Hi Fi - thanks for the insight:)
Peter

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Originally Posted by irb

Interesting thread. Here's my take, and I apologise if this has already been said better by someone else.

Music is a puzzle. I have no idea why humans can get so much emotional pleasure from listening to it. But we do. We don't all get the same pleasure from the same music, however, so there is inevitably an enormous subjective element in the enjoyment of music which makes analysing the pleasure we get from it even harder.

When it comes to the hardware we use to replay recorded music, pursuit of objective fidelity is desirable, and not to be scoffed at. However, the concept of fidelity has an irreducibly subjective component, because we're trying to create a emotional response. What works for me might not work for you, etc. This means there is huge scope for snake oil purveyors, because we can and do fool ourselves. The placebo effect is real. Vigilance against irresponsible foo is necessary and desirable, then, but there are bound to be areas where it's really hard to say what's foo and what isn't. (There have been several occasions over the years when I've 'upgraded' through several steps and convinced myself that my system's never sounded better, only to swop back to a much older system configuration for some unforeseen reason, to discover that the old system didn't in fact suck, as I'd expected, but actually gave more pleasure than the new one.) To sum up, neither unqualified objectivism nor unqualified subjectivism can be allow to stand. We all just have to muddle through, hoping to enjoy what we hear and trying not to be ripped off in the process. The message I take from all this is that a little humility is essential in any attempt to discuss what we hear.

We also need to remember that listening to recorded music involves the imagination - we hear sounds emitted by an audio system, and we imagine we are hearing people singing, instruments playing etc. If all goes well, we get the emotional pleasure we sought.

What this implies, of course, is that people who can enjoy music fully via lo-fi reproduction have superior ability to recreate a musical experience imaginatively compared to those who enjoy music most via hi-fi. I therefore regard my own hi-fi habit as sign of a kind of musical disability, and I try to remember this any time I post on a hi-fi forum. :)

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Big puzzler for me Ian is why my wife doesnt particularly like any form of music and certainly not why I have to have kit that enables me to enjoy it. Great post
Peter:)

I remember reading many years ago, round about the time Andre Previn and others were extolling the virtues of pretty average hifi, that these musicians carry the performance around in their heads, so only need a reminder of how it sounds. Whereas us mortals need all the help we can get.
As I can hear the difference between mains cables, I obviously need more help than most. :mental: