What Does "Speakers Are Designed To Sound Coherent, Relaxed, Detailed, And Dynamic" Mean?

EDLIU

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When one describes that: the speakers are designed to sound coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic, what does he/she mean?

Thanks.
 

bonzo75

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To really understand the difference you have to hear examples of the above and examples of the antithesis of the above. And use records by people who use such terms to understand what they are talking about

So if I had to post the same question, I would word it differently - I am trying to understand coherence, dynamics, etc... Can you recommend me some systems/components that do this and those that don't? What records should I use while auditioning and what should I look out for?
 

EDLIU

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Jun 30, 2017
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I googled for "coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic", but cannot find any useful info.

I just like to know that when a pair of speakers are described as above, what do they mean?

For example:

I googled for "warm sound", and found that - Warm sound has a tilt towards the bass frequencies. The bass and vocals are more prominent, and the higher sounds, though present, are quieter and subdued. Warm headphones and speakers tend to sound “comfy,” “musical,” and “pleasant.” Sometimes warm headphones are profoundly thumpy and bass-heavy.

Any useful information is appreciated.

I would word it differently - I am trying to understand coherence, dynamics, etc... Can you recommend me some systems/components that do this and those that don't?

FYITM
 
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the sound of Tao

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Jul 18, 2014
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I googled for "coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic", but cannot find any useful info.

I just like to know that when a pair of speakers are described as above, what do they mean?

For example:

I googled for "warm sound", and found that - Warm sound has a tilt towards the bass frequencies. The bass and vocals are more prominent, and the higher sounds, though present, are quieter and subdued. Warm headphones and speakers tend to sound “comfy,” “musical,” and “pleasant.” Sometimes warm headphones are profoundly thumpy and bass-heavy.

Any useful information is appreciated.
If there aren’t too many takers on this it’s possible that much of this has been discussed so very often and in considerable depth in many threads so unsure if too many are just likely to go around the Ferris wheel of defining subjective elements afresh.

Might be good just to start with one term and see if you can get some traction on it Eg what is warmth in sound. There has been quite a lot of discussion of late around what are dynamics.
 

sbnx

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Mar 28, 2017
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When one describes that: the speakers are designed to sound coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic, what does he/she mean?

Thanks.

Come over and I will show you. :)

Todd
 

sbnx

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In seriousness. Relaxed sound -- do you feel relaxed or tense when you listen? Warmth and detailed have to do with the frequency response "tilt" you have between your speakers and room. Interestingly, if their is a dip in the frequency response in the midrange then the system can also sound detailed as we hear the treble being louder than the mids. Dynamics is how well your speaker will play the contrast between ppp and fff. Coherent usually references the speakers ability to disappear. This has to do with two factors. first is how well integrated the drivers/crossover are in your speakers and second how precisely you have the speakers positioned in the room. I offer the extreme example. If you had the perfect speaker with the perfect crossover and yet position the left speaker with very poor time alignment (Forward position, toe-in, rake etc) you would still hear the speakers as separate entities in the room -- poor coherence). Good coherence also help with the system dynamics.
 
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RogerD

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That is a very deep rabbit hole...;)
 
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Simon Moon

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I googled for "coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic", but cannot find any useful info.

I just like to know that when a pair of speakers are described as above, what do they mean?

For example:

I googled for "warm sound", and found that - Warm sound has a tilt towards the bass frequencies. The bass and vocals are more prominent, and the higher sounds, though present, are quieter and subdued. Warm headphones and speakers tend to sound “comfy,” “musical,” and “pleasant.” Sometimes warm headphones are profoundly thumpy and bass-heavy.

While "warm sound" can refer to speakers that are rolled off in the upper frequencies, it can also refer to a speaker which have a very flat frequency response, but has mids and tweeters that tend to round off transcients and the attacks of instruments.

Coherence usually refers to speakers where all the drivers are integrated so well, that you can't hear where each driver (woofer, mid, tweeter) transitions to the other drivers, so all the music has the same sonic signature.
 

Al M.

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Coherent usually references the speakers ability to disappear. This has to do with two factors. first is how well integrated the drivers/crossover are in your speakers and second how precisely you have the speakers positioned in the room. I offer the extreme example. If you had the perfect speaker with the perfect crossover and yet position the left speaker with very poor time alignment (Forward position, toe-in, rake etc) you would still hear the speakers as separate entities in the room -- poor coherence). Good coherence also help with the system dynamics.

Only partially. One thing is coherence so that you don't hear separate drivers but have them fully blend, another disappearing from the soundstage. There are large speakers that excel at the former, when sitting at a sufficient distance, but still have problems with the latter -- you clearly hear the sound emanating from the speakers, rather than that the speakers disappear as sound source to which you can point. This may have to do with width of speaker, diffraction patterns etc., which have little to do with driver coherence and integration per se.
 

TheMan84

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Sep 5, 2019
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Warm sound would be to my ears heavy on bass, thick in general and with treble rolled off to have the whole thing in front of me rather stuffy than airy. Warm sound characteristic would be then the opposite of analytical approach.
 

Simon Moon

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Warm sound would be to my ears heavy on bass, thick in general and with treble rolled off to have the whole thing in front of me rather stuffy than airy. Warm sound characteristic would be then the opposite of analytical approach.


I tend to disagree with this.

I have heard many speakers that have a flat frequency response, without being heavy on bass or rolled off treble, that still sound warm.

Speakers that tend to round off transcients, even slightly, will sound warm to my ears.

GamuT RS5i for example, measure pretty flat from around 30 hz to out near 60k, yet they sound warm to me.
 

Hipper

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Jun 12, 2011
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When one describes that: the speakers are designed to sound coherent, relaxed, detailed and dynamic, what does he/she mean?

Thanks.

Let's look at the opposites.

The speakers are designed to sound incoherent, stressed, blurred and slovenly!!!!

Basically it means nothing but sales talk.
 
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TheMan84

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I have heard many speakers that have a flat frequency response, without being heavy on bass or rolled off treble, that still sound warm.

Fair enough. That warmth I spoke of earlier also is to me associated with material of drivers in use; titanium vs textile domes, paper vs aluminium cones etc. Not sure about everyone else, but there's a pattern in there. Not in every case though, but frequently.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Warm sound would be to my ears heavy on bass, thick in general and with treble rolled off to have the whole thing in front of me rather stuffy than airy. Warm sound characteristic would be then the opposite of analytical approach.
Warm sound characteristic would be then the opposite of a bright sound characteristic. Analytical is a common subjective interpretation of the latter but not necessarily an accurate one. I would prefer to say that an analytical approach (sic) would be better correlated a neutral spectral balance, i.e., the absence of warm or bright coloration.
 
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TheMan84

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Analytical is a common subjective interpretation of the latter but not necessarily an accurate one. I would prefer to say that an analytical approach (sic) would be better correlated a neutral spectral balance, i.e., the absence of warm or bright coloration.

I can agree with that. The 'analytical' word I put in the 'bright' bag as you wrote. But come to think of it, neutral sound profile results in insight into music, which makes it... analytical indeed. That's a fair point.
 

assessor43

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Coherence to me is the seamless integration of multiple drivers in a speaker to sound as one sound, one driver.
 
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EDLIU

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What does "round off transcients" mean? I googled, but without help.
 

sbnx

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A speaker or system with rounded off transients will sound soft and mellow. There are a few ways to achieve this.

One is if the gear (Amp, Preamp, DAC, etc) has limited bandwidth. e.g. the amp has a -3dB point at 17kHz in the frequency response. The amp simply can't make a square wave at 10kHz if this is the case.

Another is if the speaker drivers have a lot of overhang. Meaning they can't start and stop when told to do so.

Another is if the speakers are not set up properly. The more the arrival time differs between the two speakers the more time smearing. This will lead to transients being less crisp.

Hope this helps. perhaps others will chime in.
 

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