Live music, Tone and Presence: What most systems get wrong

[manisandher]

Wow Mani, the Anima with the with the Thoress should sound excellent. And the Decca. If I remember right you had the BD horns before?

Yeah, I replaced the BD Orelo horns with Animas, because I wanted to use SETs. The Animas are still breaking in, a process which may take quite a while yet, so the jury on the outright performance of this speaker/SET combo is still out.

IMO, the Decca Reference is outstanding... provided the record is perfectly centred and in really good condition. I haven't owned many cartridges in my time, but the Decca is easily the most frustrating. The arm I've managed to get the best performance out of the Decca from is Townsend's latest front-damped Excalibur, hence the use of a Rock TT.

Mani.

 

[Mcbrion]

Last night I went to a very nice house concert in a house in one of the nicest parts of Zürich. The house was of modern design and the room for concert was fairly large at about 6 x 10 meters (20 x 33 feet) with high ceilings. THe concert was a duo with two cellos. Both cellists were professionals from the Tonhalle Orchestra and so quite skilled if not at the uppermost levels of the soloist world. The pieces ranged from largely unknown to me to a final piece that was quite demanding from Paganinni (not sure if it was originally written for cello or transcripted).

Anyway, my wife and I sat in the front row, which was only 2.5 meters or so from the performers themselves but slightly "off-axis" from the center. The music ranged from light and playful to "hard and heavy" or deeply romantic. So, quite a wide variety of sound and styles and technical diffculty. It was clear that some of the pieces required an extreme amount of concentration whereas other pieces they were able to feed off of each other in a playful manner. Really great stuff!

Now, there were two really deep take home audiophile messages from this concert that had nothing to do with the musicians playing or the compositions but really the sound itself and the impact that sound created.

1) The tone of the two instruments was FAR richer sounding than 99% of the high end systems I have heard, either at people's homes or shows. This was driven home to me more than usual because we were sitting so close (I could easily hear the breathing of the cellist closeest to us). You expect a certain richness in a big hall when you sit in the middle to the back of the hall due to absoprtion of high frequencies. There was none of that here.

The other important point about tone was the disctinct and laughably easy differentiation between the two performers cellos. Now, this might also have to do with how they played their instruments but it seemed to be more the instrument (or bow) themselves. What do I mean? The cellist closest to us (by closer I mean about 50-75 cm closer) had a warmer tone that was also somehow less complex and more midrange centered. It also projected a bit more but was more tonally homogeneous and therefore somewhat less interesting. The other cello (ist) had more growl in the low notes with complex overtones in the lower strings and likewise a bit more "bite" in the upper frequencies, which were again more complex. It gave a more "hear into" quality on her solos. Mids were a bit less projected but still more interesting from the complexity of the tone.

Resolution was of course the real thing. Every nuance of their playing revealed, every squeak, squeal, fingering etc. all there without hardness.

This level of tonal differentiation is VERY difficult to get right with hifi. I have never heard a system with a SS amp get it right...ever. Very few tube systems get it right either though and none of the push/pull type from what I have heard so far.

So, next time you hear someone say that an all tube system sounds too rich for reality don't believe them in most cases because the reality for real instruments in a real space IS rich and harmonically complex...even up close where you get more high frequency "bite" to the sound. The problem with most tube systems is that the tonal richness often comes at the price of transparency and resolution of details. They get tone right but lose the nuance.

2) The presence of the music was THERE! It was in your lap, in your face and then fading back to the performers during quiet passages. It lived and breathed. It didn't sit back in space, it invaded your space but with all the richness and resolution without hardness described above. This palpability is nearly unprecedented in hifi playback. Of course you need a recording that is intimate (most small ensemble recordings are rather made this way). A big orchestra recording is often going to have a more distant perspective...just like when you sit mid-hall.

Small ensembles in the spaces they were designed for can generate powerful waves of music and it is immersive and present in the room with you. It is more visceral than going to a big concert I have found, unless you sit very close as well to the orchestra. For example, I was at a concert the week before at Tonhalle to hear Mussorgsky "Pictures at an Exhibition" and we sat in the mid-back of the hall. It was powerful sounding and moving but from a more distant perspective. The horns did not land in your lap.

I have heard very few systems that do the presence I heard last night even remotely close to that live performance. The closest thing it reminded me of was the Schubert Festival in London where we heard quartet and quintet in the home of a London doctor. That was equally visceral.

This presence is one of the things that horns seem to do better than dynamic speakers. Whether it is the sensitivity or the directivity of the speakers it is hard to say...probably a comination of these and other factors. The presence I heard last night I have never heard with a dynamic speaker but I did hear it from time to time with big electrostats. I have also never heard it with a system driven with SS electronics...they tend to paint a more distant perspective of the soundfield and lack the dynamic bursts to capture that pulsing sound.


It seems to me now that in some ways, there are many systems that have even more trouble getting this presence, dynamic "breathing" and tone right of a small, two instrument, ensemble than do to recreate a nice panoramic orchestral sound (not a lifelike SPL mind you). It is severe even because most fall down on both the tone and differentiation of tone as well as the presence and microdynamics. Most are flat and gray compared to what I heard sitting 2-3 meters from the performers.

I have seen many people argue that SETs make an unrealistic sound in terms of tone and "projection" of the sound...artifacts and distortion some people say. And yet, they get closer to the sound I heard yesterday (coupled with horns in particular) live than any other technology I have heard. I have laid out technical reasons why but the best is just listening and realizing what the real deal sounds like and which technology gets us closer to that.

I believe Jonathan Valin pointed out once how solid state amps seemed to push the entire presentation backwards, while tube projected forwards. I don't remember my old Goldmund Mimesis 9 pushing the soundstage backwards, but the Bel 1001 did, my NAD integrated did that and a few other amps. But not the Plinius SA-250 of 1994 vintage.
I find that if the music sounds "contained" in an invisible 'force field' of sorts, so that it does not move out towards you, it becomes a bit of an intellectual experience rather than visceral. But some of that comes from, as someone pointed out in a post, sitting to the rear of the hall. Carnegie Hall, from the balcony, now sounds more distant than it did in 2004. I thought it was my seat, but someone who lives in NYC confirmed that the sound was different to his ears, too, and that the sound does not "blossom" outwards (maybe the curtains they had around the stage helped the music move outward). So, I guess Carnegie Hall now sounds like solid state in 1st Tier, 2nd Tier and Balcony.
I prefer tubes for their tonal balance, but I've heard tube amps that are not particularly dense-sounding although they demonstrate the colors of the orchestra. My experiences is having acomponent with really good mid bass, it moves the reproduction closer to real life (although Avery Fisher Hall wouldn't demonstrate that. That hall has frequencies that stick out, others that seem 'shelved down'. And by really good, I meant the weight, authority and dynamics. Although cello straddles mid bass to squarely midrange, most of the playing I've heard (in the piano teacher's "salon" in her house where she gives recitals) seems to be upper bass/lower midrange frequencies (of course, these are related to the pieces she chose her students to play). Her room was very even sounding and the cello sounded luscious (and I was around 10' away from the cellists). About the only transistor amp I've had that sounded very tube-like was my Rowland Model 5, back in 1987.

 

[Mcbrion]

Last night I went to a very nice house concert in a house in one of the nicest parts of Zürich. The house was of modern design and the room for concert was fairly large at about 6 x 10 meters (20 x 33 feet) with high ceilings. THe concert was a duo with two cellos. Both cellists were professionals from the Tonhalle Orchestra and so quite skilled if not at the uppermost levels of the soloist world. The pieces ranged from largely unknown to me to a final piece that was quite demanding from Paganinni (not sure if it was originally written for cello or transcripted).

Anyway, my wife and I sat in the front row, which was only 2.5 meters or so from the performers themselves but slightly "off-axis" from the center. The music ranged from light and playful to "hard and heavy" or deeply romantic. So, quite a wide variety of sound and styles and technical diffculty. It was clear that some of the pieces required an extreme amount of concentration whereas other pieces they were able to feed off of each other in a playful manner. Really great stuff!

Now, there were two really deep take home audiophile messages from this concert that had nothing to do with the musicians playing or the compositions but really the sound itself and the impact that sound created.

1) The tone of the two instruments was FAR richer sounding than 99% of the high end systems I have heard, either at people's homes or shows. This was driven home to me more than usual because we were sitting so close (I could easily hear the breathing of the cellist closeest to us). You expect a certain richness in a big hall when you sit in the middle to the back of the hall due to absoprtion of high frequencies. There was none of that here.

The other important point about tone was the disctinct and laughably easy differentiation between the two performers cellos. Now, this might also have to do with how they played their instruments but it seemed to be more the instrument (or bow) themselves. What do I mean? The cellist closest to us (by closer I mean about 50-75 cm closer) had a warmer tone that was also somehow less complex and more midrange centered. It also projected a bit more but was more tonally homogeneous and therefore somewhat less interesting. The other cello (ist) had more growl in the low notes with complex overtones in the lower strings and likewise a bit more "bite" in the upper frequencies, which were again more complex. It gave a more "hear into" quality on her solos. Mids were a bit less projected but still more interesting from the complexity of the tone.

Resolution was of course the real thing. Every nuance of their playing revealed, every squeak, squeal, fingering etc. all there without hardness.

This level of tonal differentiation is VERY difficult to get right with hifi. I have never heard a system with a SS amp get it right...ever. Very few tube systems get it right either though and none of the push/pull type from what I have heard so far.

So, next time you hear someone say that an all tube system sounds too rich for reality don't believe them in most cases because the reality for real instruments in a real space IS rich and harmonically complex...even up close where you get more high frequency "bite" to the sound. The problem with most tube systems is that the tonal richness often comes at the price of transparency and resolution of details. They get tone right but lose the nuance.

2) The presence of the music was THERE! It was in your lap, in your face and then fading back to the performers during quiet passages. It lived and breathed. It didn't sit back in space, it invaded your space but with all the richness and resolution without hardness described above. This palpability is nearly unprecedented in hifi playback. Of course you need a recording that is intimate (most small ensemble recordings are rather made this way). A big orchestra recording is often going to have a more distant perspective...just like when you sit mid-hall.

Small ensembles in the spaces they were designed for can generate powerful waves of music and it is immersive and present in the room with you. It is more visceral than going to a big concert I have found, unless you sit very close as well to the orchestra. For example, I was at a concert the week before at Tonhalle to hear Mussorgsky "Pictures at an Exhibition" and we sat in the mid-back of the hall. It was powerful sounding and moving but from a more distant perspective. The horns did not land in your lap.

I have heard very few systems that do the presence I heard last night even remotely close to that live performance. The closest thing it reminded me of was the Schubert Festival in London where we heard quartet and quintet in the home of a London doctor. That was equally visceral.

This presence is one of the things that horns seem to do better than dynamic speakers. Whether it is the sensitivity or the directivity of the speakers it is hard to say...probably a comination of these and other factors. The presence I heard last night I have never heard with a dynamic speaker but I did hear it from time to time with big electrostats. I have also never heard it with a system driven with SS electronics...they tend to paint a more distant perspective of the soundfield and lack the dynamic bursts to capture that pulsing sound.


It seems to me now that in some ways, there are many systems that have even more trouble getting this presence, dynamic "breathing" and tone right of a small, two instrument, ensemble than do to recreate a nice panoramic orchestral sound (not a lifelike SPL mind you). It is severe even because most fall down on both the tone and differentiation of tone as well as the presence and microdynamics. Most are flat and gray compared to what I heard sitting 2-3 meters from the performers.

I have seen many people argue that SETs make an unrealistic sound in terms of tone and "projection" of the sound...artifacts and distortion some people say. And yet, they get closer to the sound I heard yesterday (coupled with horns in particular) live than any other technology I have heard. I have laid out technical reasons why but the best is just listening and realizing what the real deal sounds like and which technology gets us closer to that.

I believe Jonathan Valin pointed out once how solid state amps seemed to push the entire presentation backwards, while tube projected forwards. I don't remember my old Goldmund Mimesis 9 pushing the soundstage backwards, but the Bel 1001 did, my NAD integrated did that and a few other amps. But not the Plinius SA-250 of 1994 vintage.
For me, if the music sounds "contained" in an invisible 'force field' of sorts, so that it does not move out towards you, it becomes less an "immersion" into the music, more "heard" (intellectual) than visceral ("felt"). But some of that comes from, as someone pointed out in a post, sitting to the rear of the hall. Carnegie Hall, from the balcony, now sounds more distant than it did in 2004. I thought it was my seat, but someone who lives in NYC confirmed that the sound was different to his ears, too, and that the sound does not "blossom" outwards (maybe the curtains they had around the stage helped the music move outward). So, I guess Carnegie Hall now sounds like solid state in 1st Tier, 2nd Tier and Balcony.
I prefer tubes for their tonal balance, but I've heard tube amps that are not particularly dense-sounding although they demonstrate the colors of the orchestra. My experiences is having a component with really good mid bass, it moves the reproduction closer to real life (although Avery Fisher Hall wouldn't demonstrate that. That hall has frequencies that stick out, others that seem 'shelved down'). And by really good, I meant the weight, authority and dynamics. Although cello straddles mid bass to squarely midrange, most of the playing I've heard (in the piano teacher's "salon" in her house where she gives recitals) seems to be upper bass/lower midrange frequencies (of course, these are related to the pieces she chose her students to play). Her room was very even sounding and the cello sounded luscious (and I was around 10' away from the cellists). About the only transistor amp I've had that sounded very tube-like was my Rowland Model 5, back in 1987.

 

[DaveC]

I believe Jonathan Valin pointed out once how solid state amps seemed to push the entire presentation backwards, while tube projected forwards. I don't remember my old Goldmund Mimesis 9 pushing the soundstage backwards, but the Bel 1001 did, my NAD integrated did that and a few other amps. But not the Plinius SA-250 of 1994 vintage.
For me, if the music sounds "contained" in an invisible 'force field' of sorts, so that it does not move out towards you, it becomes less an "immersion" into the music, more "heard" (intellectual) than visceral ("felt"). But some of that comes from, as someone pointed out in a post, sitting to the rear of the hall. Carnegie Hall, from the balcony, now sounds more distant than it did in 2004. I thought it was my seat, but someone who lives in NYC confirmed that the sound was different to his ears, too, and that the sound does not "blossom" outwards (maybe the curtains they had around the stage helped the music move outward). So, I guess Carnegie Hall now sounds like solid state in 1st Tier, 2nd Tier and Balcony.
I prefer tubes for their tonal balance, but I've heard tube amps that are not particularly dense-sounding although they demonstrate the colors of the orchestra. My experiences is having a component with really good mid bass, it moves the reproduction closer to real life (although Avery Fisher Hall wouldn't demonstrate that. That hall has frequencies that stick out, others that seem 'shelved down'). And by really good, I meant the weight, authority and dynamics. Although cello straddles mid bass to squarely midrange, most of the playing I've heard (in the piano teacher's "salon" in her house where she gives recitals) seems to be upper bass/lower midrange frequencies (of course, these are related to the pieces she chose her students to play). Her room was very even sounding and the cello sounded luscious (and I was around 10' away from the cellists). About the only transistor amp I've had that sounded very tube-like was my Rowland Model 5, back in 1987.

I agree... I'm kind of a soundstaging freak I think the soundstage is an indication of the overall performance of the system, i.e. it's not possible to have a 3-D, immersive soundstage without a resolving system and good acoustics. I've rarely heard a conventional dynamic speaker system set up well enough for this to occur but it's possible to a degree... IME horns and SET amps are best and provide a much more immersive experience, where you feel you are there, you can hear the recording venue and the spatial cues aren't dominated by the listening room. When a system has these qualities it's easier to relax and enjoy the experience where conventional speakers/SS amps often seem like work to listen to.

 

[Folsom]

MikeL's setup does soundstage like no one's I've heard, and they're "just" dynamic speakers. But his space is pretty incredible, too.

 

[microstrip]

(...) About the only transistor amp I've had that sounded very tube-like was my Rowland Model 5, back in 1987.

Did you use it with the Rowland Coherence One? I had great sound with them used with the Quad ESL63!
I remember that the first version, unbalanced, sounded much more tube like and "liquid" than the balanced later versions that favored detail and control. At that time a good friend had his Model 5 updated and was really disappointed.

Great days of the past ...

 

[Ron Resnick]

We have an experience, in this case in a concert, and we then try to correlate it to how we experience similar things in the music at home. But rather than develop a deeper appreciation of something and correlate the experience by re-evaluating we all at times just easily leap to the end by reaffirming a preconceived understanding which can simply become a further justification of our own preferences... and then of course we can use this data point to argue these preferences to the death. There is however something of the ground hog day syndrome in these instances for all of us. Bonzo earlier identified here the missed underlying opportunity perfectly.

I love a lot of the gear that Brad prefers within this thread. But also, like Bonzo, I see limits for how these can be used in terms of the variety of music we might enjoy as they can constrain you to certain types of music. I understand you can force SET onto any speaker but that doesn't necessarily give you the best final outcome in the big picture.

The virtues of SET have been broadly discussed over the years. In its better implementations I also love it as an amp type but when I put a 27 watt Line Magnetic 219ia (that is 845 based with a 300b as driver) on the Maggie 20.7s (just as an experiment to evaluate the tonality of it) I played a cello sonata and heard all the SET magic but also in the big picture, missed sufficient definition within the mid bass structure and also it left the music less coherent than I prefer. What it was is the ultimate simple limits of an amp type set in a less than ideal role for its application. Pair it with a horn or high efficiency speaker and it does what it does so much better and with the sonic profile of the Animas and the rich mid bass birch horn and it was all good. I could also have tried on the 20.7s the Manley 300B monos that I had here for the Anima horns which is similarly wattage constrained but thought the 845 with the big iron in the Line Magnetic would have had a better shot at the Maggies benign 5 amp impedance load.

Brad, I completely get that you prefer SET and horn, it is also one of my favourite combos as well. But it would be good to consider past that discussion point and explore your original post and the premise and potential opportunity to explore your experience that it sets up.

You hear cellos in an intimate setting. How does the near field experience factor in the change your of your perception of the experience of music. One of the reasons I have my 20.7s in a near field set up is that sense of being in the music in that system. Less separation from the performers and the music itself. You become more a part of the performance so easily. Everyone that listens in that room invariably get sucked into the music. It's what I find is the most enjoyable part of having put that system together.

So here is a proposition, that it is not only about the SETs natural, less smeared and more authentically natural presentation that you are experiencing the presence in similar music played at home but perhaps in part this sense of connection is also made possible through some additional avenues.

In a near field listening proposition it comes in part from the physical resonance felt through out the body. The music is felt as much as it is heard. This is part of the excitement and connection of that experience. The absolute immediacy.

Horns and SET (from my experience with the Animas in my much larger open space downstairs) are quite wonderful at that as well, but for me it is their dynamics that intensely contribute to this immediacy of presence. However the sense of presence (or being present in the music and the performance) on the full range ribbons upstairs in near field arrangement is even again more convincing, and on just about any type of music you try it with.

I figure when we set up a system the parameters of the experience are greatly set by the relative position of ourselves and the speakers within the room. Such that if we end up with a sensation of a mid hall perspective there is an experience of the music that is likely less immediately present. This is not a bad thing.

With the horns in a large room this sense of distance also allows for the full majesty of scale of music to be appreciated. When the orchestra swells in a big piece of Mahler symphonic and you sit back a bit as it comes at you like a tsunami you get time to appreciate what is happening. You get to time yourself to the experience of the wave. I swim regularly in the ocean and it is always much more comforting to see the launch of the wave ahead and sit back so you can time your dive into it. But it is always more exciting to be closer to the break when you just have to go with it. More instinctive and raw and less considered.

That same music on the ribbons upstairs you are more present and caught in the initial wave. You don't get time to prepare and are in there churning up with the resonant wave of cellos and violas, occasionally erupted out of the top of the wave by the tympani. A range of factors play in here. The dipole pattern of the wave, the algorithmic decay pattern of the ribbons, if you have the timing of the reflected sound just right within the room the ribbons can abduct your awareness completely, and you can just ride the music and see the eddies and currents apparent in the orchestration.

The benefit of a potentially more objective viewpoint of the music from say a sensation of being further back in the hall is you have more time to see the music coming at you. I view music as a series of emotional waves. Sometimes that music is calm, sometimes it is a flow like rapids. Listen to Dvoraks Moldhau or even Handels water music and that sense of water journey is absolutely specific and programmatic.

Music for many is purely emotional content that we just occasionally get some conscious sense of through intellect. But I believe as in all art, the greatest part of music is essentially below the surface of awareness. Some people distance themselves even more from music because they struggle even temporarily with the notion of giving their emotional state over to something outside of themselves. Sometimes we even drink or drug ourselves to tune in more deeply. With more abandon.

Presence for me is the lack of separation from that experience. It isn't just about tonality (that for me is more about the sound of instruments being more natural within the tonic) but presence (at least how I identify with the experience) is more about spatial and temporal perspective. That is that we are least separated when we are most together, when it presents as itself to us as most coherent. When nothing from a timing or spatial point of view is disparate and so there is no need to shift you perception to a more analytical frame to determine what is not exactly right about what you are hearing. Like the real thing in a real room. Nothing is apparently out of place.

When the timing and space are clear and seamless it is easier to then just alter where the focus of you mind is so that you can be in any part of the music at any time. This for me is being present in the music and the music itself is present with you in your listening space. That you can be the listener or that you can project your awareness to the performer or past the performer and then into the music itself. The great wave. The perfect wave.

This is just one perspective on experiencing presence in music. At this point given all the limits of any measure in a human experience this is the sum reality and the sole valid assessment (for me) of experiencing presence when I play cello music at home. It isn't something I can prove or disprove nor do I feel compelled to but its validity is solely prefaced by my experience. That is the basis of any subjective experience.

My understanding of it cannot interfere with your perception of presence in the setups you have heard unless we correlate. We could have completely divergent experiences and opposite understandings and still both be 100% right because the limits of this discussion are actually subjective. We can share our perceptions but we cannot have the same experiences. We are in this way separate universes, each existent, each valuable, each valid.

I am fairly sure though I could probably listen to any system Bonzo or Brad love and love it to. A great system and great music transcend differences. We are more together than separate in this.

Only today did I discover this thread which was commenced in early December by Brad with an interesting post about tone and presence. I read the entire thread today.

While not without the usual arguments and bickering I think much of this thread is a very interesting and thoughtful discussion, and it embodies valuable learning gained from extensive experience in listening to live music, in auditioning systems and in putting systems together. For people new to the hobby I can imagine it reads like a graduate course in high-end audio.

I particularly liked the sound of Tao's introspective, thoughtful and beautiful essay.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Might I ask why SETs should not be used for ribbons? I've never heard of this, and two of the most glorious set-ups I've heard with my loudspeakers have been Wavac and Viva Aurora.

At the moment, I'm rocking a pair of 32W Viva Auroras on my Genesis Fortes......

I think it is a lot easier to drive the ribbons in Gary's speakers than it is to drive the trapezoidal ribbons in Apogees. Also, removing from the SET amplifier the duty of powering drivers below 100 Hz allows the SET to avoid its most difficult, high-distortion frequency range.

 

[morricab]

I think it is a lot easier to drive the ribbons in Gary's speakers than it is to drive the trapezoidal ribbons in Apogees. Also, removing from the SET amplifier the duty of powering drivers below 100 Hz allows the SET to avoid its most difficult, high-distortion frequency range.

Well the short answer is yes, no and maybe. The planar drivers in Gary's speakers (they are not ribbons but are push/pull planar magnetic drivers) are from Bohlender Graebener. I have a set at home in a DIY project I did many years ago. They are about 87db sensitivity and 4 ohm impedance. They can be driven by SET no problem as they have a very even impedance and being a line source the 87db is adequate for a more powerful SET. They are covering probably 150Hz up to about 15Khz or so. Later Apogees also have around 87db sensitivity and even easier 5 or 6 ohm impedance. The two-way models would have a true ribbon mid/tweeter that goes from around 350Hz to 20khz. The trapezoid planar magnetic bass (it was not a ribbon) will cover from around 30Hz to the crossover point of 350Hz. The impedance is also very even and not a big challenge for a SET. Older Apogees were significantly harder to drive due to low impedance and low sensitivity.

 

[marslo]

Let me tell you a story about tone and presence.
During last weekend I spent many hours listening to the music and ripping my sacd's.
Playing with my Lampi one of new DSD albums, my wife entered the living room to ask me a question and she was surprised that there was not me playing piano but this was the music reproduced by the gear.
I do not need any other evidence that my system does right the tone and presence

 

[morricab]

Let me tell you a story about tone and presence.
During last weekend I spent many hours listening to the music and ripping my sacd's.
Playing with my Lampi one of new DSD albums, my wife entered the living room to ask me a question and she was surprised that there was not me playing piano but this was the music reproduced by the gear.
I do not need any other evidence that my system does right the tone and presence

Cool experience. I would love to hear your system as I am pretty sure it gels with what I am communicating in this thread. What was the recording? I have found that definitely the recording plays an important role in getting to that "believability" stage. I have some nice piano + violin recordings (Itzahk Perlman playing violin) that can sound very believable but not all my recordings can get there.

 

[morricab]

I believe Jonathan Valin pointed out once how solid state amps seemed to push the entire presentation backwards, while tube projected forwards. I don't remember my old Goldmund Mimesis 9 pushing the soundstage backwards, but the Bel 1001 did, my NAD integrated did that and a few other amps. But not the Plinius SA-250 of 1994 vintage.
I find that if the music sounds "contained" in an invisible 'force field' of sorts, so that it does not move out towards you, it becomes a bit of an intellectual experience rather than visceral. But some of that comes from, as someone pointed out in a post, sitting to the rear of the hall. Carnegie Hall, from the balcony, now sounds more distant than it did in 2004. I thought it was my seat, but someone who lives in NYC confirmed that the sound was different to his ears, too, and that the sound does not "blossom" outwards (maybe the curtains they had around the stage helped the music move outward). So, I guess Carnegie Hall now sounds like solid state in 1st Tier, 2nd Tier and Balcony.
I prefer tubes for their tonal balance, but I've heard tube amps that are not particularly dense-sounding although they demonstrate the colors of the orchestra. My experiences is having acomponent with really good mid bass, it moves the reproduction closer to real life (although Avery Fisher Hall wouldn't demonstrate that. That hall has frequencies that stick out, others that seem 'shelved down'. And by really good, I meant the weight, authority and dynamics. Although cello straddles mid bass to squarely midrange, most of the playing I've heard (in the piano teacher's "salon" in her house where she gives recitals) seems to be upper bass/lower midrange frequencies (of course, these are related to the pieces she chose her students to play). Her room was very even sounding and the cello sounded luscious (and I was around 10' away from the cellists). About the only transistor amp I've had that sounded very tube-like was my Rowland Model 5, back in 1987.

My experience is not so much that SS pushes sound back as it simply doesn't "breathe" . It either sits flat in the plane of speakers or goes back but good tubes both go back in depth or forward depending on what is called for by the recording. Close miked stuff tends to project and naturally recorded stuff has more depth but can also project.

 

[bonzo75]

My experience is not so much that SS pushes sound back as it simply doesn't "breathe" . It either sits flat in the plane of speakers or goes back but good tubes both go back in depth or forward depending on what is called for by the recording. Close miked stuff tends to project and naturally recorded stuff has more depth but can also project.

This is true when SS is in systems with less room, speakers not sufficiently out from the wall, and rest of the gear is not up to it. You are not going to get a deeper soundstage than Mike L has - yet, his gear with speakers back to the wall in a small room might give you exactly what you are writing about

 

[marslo]

Cool experience. I would love to hear your system as I am pretty sure it gels with what I am communicating in this thread. What was the recording? I have found that definitely the recording plays an important role in getting to that "believability" stage. I have some nice piano + violin recordings (Itzahk Perlman playing violin) that can sound very believable but not all my recordings can get there.

It was most probably one of Nat King Cole albums, I ripped 5 of them last weekend, one of songs with piannist only ( maybe Nat himself?), can't remember precisely.

 

[marslo]

@morricab
Zurich - Berlin - one hour flight with Air Berlin and then 3 h drive with rented car. Easy
Or Zurich - Frankfurt - Poznan in 3,5 h for 250 E return ticket, I'll pick you up

 

[DaveC]

MikeL's setup does soundstage like no one's I've heard, and they're "just" dynamic speakers. But his space is pretty incredible, too.

Right, not saying conventional speakers can't do it, just that it takes a ton of effort and even then most people don't get excellent results no matter how much money they spend.

OTOH, speakers exist that will produce an immersive 3-D soundstage in an ordinary space with little effort required.

 

[bonzo75]

Right, not saying conventional speakers can't do it, just that it takes a ton of effort and even then most people don't get excellent results no matter how much money they spend.

OTOH, speakers exist that will produce an immersive 3-D soundstage in an ordinary space with little effort required.

Agreed

 

[morricab]

Right, not saying conventional speakers can't do it, just that it takes a ton of effort and even then most people don't get excellent results no matter how much money they spend.

OTOH, speakers exist that will produce an immersive 3-D soundstage in an ordinary space with little effort required.

Speaker directivity has a big effect in reducing problems with the room. Wide dispersion usually means a lot of room interaction. Controlled directivity means a lot less spent on room treatments.

 

[morricab]

@morricab
Zurich - Berlin - one hour flight with Air Berlin and then 3 h drive with rented car. Easy
Or Zurich - Frankfurt - Poznan in 3,5 h for 250 E return ticket, I'll pick you up

Yes, not far at all but far in time . Poznan was the home town of my ex the violinist.

 

[DaveC]

Speaker directivity has a big effect in reducing problems with the room. Wide dispersion usually means a lot of room interaction. Controlled directivity means a lot less spent on room treatments.

Exactly

IMO, the Harman preference testing favoring wide dispersion is colored by the fact people are used to wide dispersion. It takes a few minutes for the brain to adjust to controlled dispersion and after that wide dispersion sounds funny for a few minutes while the brain adjusts. It's an interesting phenomenon, acclimation... it's also the reason why people with less experience tend to favor their own systems over everything else.