My Theory of Sonic Cues to Explain Different Sounding Systems

[PeterA]

What this thread also misses is that many customers don’t really have a sonic value. Many hifi systems are just where they end up. Initial purchases, dealer trade in, upgrade, try next new component, buy without listening, etc. There just isn’t a proper audition process.

Justification on forum for ownership of component is being confused for trying to align to sonic cues to live. Quite a stretch imo. Like the people using live sonic cues on this forum is even lower than the number of people having a decent sounding system

Bonzo, You go to a lot of concerts and hear a lot of gear and systems. By what criteria do you judge the components and systems you hear?

 

[Al M.]

What this thread also misses is that many customers don’t really have a sonic value. Many hifi systems are just where they end up. Initial purchases, dealer trade in, upgrade, try next new component, buy without listening, etc. There just isn’t a proper audition process.

Justification on forum for ownership of component is being confused for trying to align to sonic cues to live. Quite a stretch imo. Like the people using live sonic cues on this forum is even lower than the number of people having a decent sounding system

As I said before, I too suspect that many don't have clear listening priorities, preferences and references. Their systems then are just what they end up with, as you say.

I have known my system priorities for more than 30 years, with another parameter added since about 10 years. I have known what I want for a long time.

 

[bonzo75]

Bonzo, You go to a lot of concerts and hear a lot of gear and systems. By what criteria do you judge the components and systems you hear?

they just resonate with my auditory template.

i can then distil/analyse the components to explain why they did. But that doesn’t mean all have the same cues, some have different ones. They are more aligned by the fact that they don’t have stand out wrong things.

And yes, any further cues are taken from the data points of previously liked systems.

 

[jtcfdog]

I understand what Ron means. I think the words *live music* are getting in the way.Sometimes there is a sound that sends an emotional dart to my brain that makes a recording feel real.

 

[thedudeabides]

My theory is that suspension of disbelief is facilitated by emotionally-engaging satisfaction of the particular sonic cues each of us subjectively and idiosyncratically selects for our stereo systems which most directly trigger in our brains our memories of the sound of live music.

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Agreed and hopefully the main goal of any system. Without an emotional connection, why bother?
I am not sure why you posted this and what you are looking for. Another futile attempt to objectively define subjectivity? Please explain.

 

[Alrainbow]

No - at live, cello sounds like cello, violin sounds like violin, piano sounds like piano, orchestra sounds like...you get the picture. I don't have to distil anything in a live concert.

Only when I listen to a hifi system, do I have to distil what the hifi system does to the above. You incorrectly keep thinking people come away from the live show thinking how do I distil this. Maybe those who don't go to listen to the concert, but go there to think how I do take this concert and fit it to my system so I can tell people on the forum that the concert sounded like my system at home, can do it,.

Wow I actually agree totally. Now what you did say is also no one has a system that’s real lol.
I also totally agree but since most can’t have live performers at there place.
I do think we each have a way of getting close enough to get emotional.
I don’t need speakers to get me there always.
the answers are there but many times cannot be accepted

 

[Ron Resnick]

I understand what Ron means. I think the words *live music* are getting in the way.Sometimes there is a sound that sends an emotional dart to my brain that makes a recording feel real.

What about the sound is the trigger -- the procuring cause -- that drops the hammer on that emotional dart?

 

[Ron Resnick]

I am not sure why you posted this and what you are looking for. . . . Please explain.

I actually think there are intellectual elements to this hobby. I enjoy trying to develop theoretical and behavioral underpinnings of this hobby to better understand this hobby, and to better understand why we audiophiles do what we do in this hobby.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, you keep presenting this theory as “the“ theory. Can you point us to where others discuss this theory? If not, it seems to me that it is your theory and you should discuss it in those terms.

I changed the title of the thread to "My Theory . . ."

And I would like to understand more about what you think of as “sonic cues“. Are they just audio file attributes listed in the glossary?

Not necessarily. They could be audiophile glossary attributes, or they might not be. I wouldn't prejudice how each audiophile describes, defines or characterizes these cues for himself/herself.

My parents for instance don’t think about these sonic cues at all or at least they do not discuss and theorize about them. They simply know when they hear a stereo system that reminds them of the sound of real instruments.

This case is not really relevant because your parents are not making decisions to purchase components to assemble a system of which they like the sound. Nor are they comparing two systems.

Same with the furniture maker who built my audio rack. I had him over and we directly compared two different lines of electronics. He is also a musician, and he simply said one set of electronics makes the system sound much more real.

Embedded in his conclusion about which is "more real" are his subconscious sonic cues.

 

[bonzo75]

I changed the title of the thread to "My Theory . . ."

might as well then change the title to take off “sonic cues” as most systems are different sounding for non sonic reasons

 

[the sound of Tao]

I think we all hear substantially the same thing in the concert hall if we are sitting in the same seat in the concert hall. So why do we end up with audio systems which sound very different?

Ron, I feel you pulled this idea from thin air that a suspension of disbelief comes from recreating a live sound. That concept may be l far from a reality.

And then you seem to imply everyone wants to recreate, or should want to recreate that sound. Again, Why should that be my or anyone elses focus.

You then ask us to select specific attributes of a live sound we focus on.
Did I missunderstand? It that what your saying. That we should all have a goal of recreating the sound heard at a live venue?

What may give someone goose bumps is a big fat facefull of overpowering bass. Nothing real at all. Just a dense, immersion of sound felt throughout the body.

I feel like all the pissing, bickering and fighting on many forums stems from this idea we all should have some similar goal, and if we don't adhere to it, we're flawed in our thinking and our systems are inferior. We failed to achieve Natural Sound.

Again, I might totally missunderstand what your saying. I seem to do that all to often.
Also, my writing is many times dry and to the point. I fail in the use of niceties and flowering language which may make my comments seem pointed and insulting. That is not my intent. I'm only sharing my observation.

Ron I’d figure the opening par in your OP does set up that it’s all about hearing things in concert halls when many here just don’t go to concert halls and are generating their own preconditions for characteristics of what is sonically right.

So I’m guessing those here using the sound of live acoustic instruments in concert halls as a primary benchmark are in the minority and listen to quite a bit of live acoustic music to make sense of their sonic cues to benchmark.

But if we rule out that everyone is hearing the same concert hall things and so not referring to the same benchmarks that live acoustic performances can tend to teach, that many must be finding their own (other) way in regulating their mix of preferred sonic characteristics and in sculpting their own sound.

That the sonic characteristics (or your cues) that we are individually seeking is simply a reflection of our own life and music experiences and are therefore in ways validated by that.

But does one range of life experiences lead some to seeking their determinations of acoustic realism out of their regular live acoustic music experiences and is that it and then are others seeking out greater quantities of some other mix… a different kind of peak sonic and or musical experience. But are we also shaped by the traditional audiophile culture of unicorn chasing at various times in our pursuit some more other hyperbolic hifi-ness.

Having started out back in the late 70’s and 80’s with a far broader range of gear interests and much less specific and precise expectations about how it could/might/should sound… in ways initially my aims were quite simplistic and kind of generic. I just wanted to have a great time with it. I was partying in life so live music was nightclub and pub rock and electronic dance music as well as jazz and classical and so energising a room with sound and sufficient quantity of bass was also a large part of expected experience.

I was also at that time reading plenty of false cues and being driven (crazy) by lots of audio reviews pointing to some other nirvana well beyond that also related to how much money was spent and that everything was essentially flawed if you weren’t clambering up the gear chain to the unobtainable… if only I clicked back then what was best for me was focussing just on benching against live music and the love of music as a summative guide and not some audio writers impossible commercial list of product and hyperbole of writerly imaginings.

So being completely pumped and audiophile teased and gear tantalised into wanting to recreate concert levels of volume and bass and into striving to increasingly produce more intense high level exciting audio images per the audio review handbook… pitch black backgrounds, the more exaggerated and fantastic (and electric/electronic) the experience the better. I think I generally wanted more of everything, a full on and exaggerated exquisite everything rather than a reflection and prescription of sonic characteristics that existed with live acoustic sound and music.

More experience shapes us. We find our way. The further along I go with this journey the less types of gear types seem intrinsically right for me… that is to say the less types of gear have the right mix of characteristics or display essential rightness to me.

After the prerequisite silly number of decades living with plenty of types of gear… and in listening to decades of music (both live and reproduced) and analysing the hell out of every quality in each piece of gear and all the characteristics of sound and chasing and tweaking my way to some prescription nirvana I eventually found myself somehow happily, impossibly right in the ballpark of rightness. Since then everything for me including how I assess has simplified and clarified.

So now when the gear and the music is right for me it’s that sort of immediate recognition like Ked’s click that doesn’t involve any initial analysis time or working through a slow sonic tick box of cues… it’s just that immediate and resonating click factor… the rightness you know straight away when you hear the right type of gear (for me) setup properly and playing the right music (for me).

Once you have rightness it is easy to then go in and analyse the parts and establish and appreciate the specific qualities of cohesion, right tone, lifelike dynamics (both the macro and micro), appropriate scale, to be able to reproduce appropriate flow and appropriate angularity and true resolution depending on the music, performance and the recording.

It’s more I figure about tipping points to reach rightness and an enmeshing of sonic cues to bring together a sonic and musical experience… an immediately obvious and overwhelming rightness where the whole fundaments of essential realism are in place and there’s a lack of any noticeable artificial qualities… all in concert with a powerful (given the right music and performance) and irresistible draw of full musical engagement… this more fully replaces for me and correlates in ways I imagine to Ron’s suspensions of disbelief.

So now for me listening in wholeness and rightness (in gestalt) is the one cue that rules all. The immediate experience of a very un-fragmented kind of musical and sonic realism… perhaps at times more painterly or at other times more finely resolved depending on (and in being transparent to) the recording. But recognising whole rightness and being comfortable with that is the start. Further refining the bedrock mix we need of sonic and music fundamentals by analysis of the tick box of cues of sonic characteristics can just easily fall into place after that.

 

[Kingrex]

I feel you are misunderstanding me or I feel I must've misstated something. One of my goals with the list of objectives of high-end audio is precisely to help people understand that different people have different sonic objectives. Suggesting that everybody has the same sonic goal or should have the same sonic goal is the exact opposite of what I am trying to do.

By "re-creating a live sound" you must be referring to the particular objective "create a sound that seems live." My objective is different than your recharacterization, because I don't believe it is possible to create a live sound from a sound reproduction system. The goal as stated by me embraces this reality by suggesting only creating a sound that seems live. (This may very well be only a semantic difference here.)

I am not suggesting that that particular objective should be anyone's audiophile objective. I am suggesting only that it is one of the possible objectives.

Thanks for clarifying Ron. Gosh I hate rereading my post sometime. I did present my thoughts in quite a rough way.
Very tactful response.

My theory is that suspension of disbelief is facilitated by emotionally-engaging satisfaction of the particular sonic cues each of us subjectively and idiosyncratically selects for our stereo systems which most directly trigger in our brains our memories of the sound of live music.

Maybe I am just grasping onto this line. I feel it is too broad and all encompassing. It feels leading.
I have no idea what it is that grabs my attention and really makes me sit and listen. In all honesty, it may have more to do with low noise, clean playback, lacking grain and sibilance. As soon as I hear noise I am moving on. A good recording played on a well tuned system might be all that is required to lock you in your chair and listen. Not some sort of memory of past experiences. Maybe its as simples as full immersion that aurally and physically stimulates your senses with no undo noise to agitate and distract you. Hence, the all to often brow beat as not being part of the natural sound systems may do a better job placing you in a state of content rapt attention.

 

[Gotland]

I think what drives me is a specific experience -- it is probably my "cue". Im completely happy when I can enter a musical space with enough speed and temporal correctness. It has to be three dimensional and is has to be fast sounding -- this -- in my experience -- wil be enough to get the musical idea of the composer/artist.
To achive this I need to have:
1. microdynamics to create the illusion of space
2. speed to keep up with the music
3. recodings with these two attributes (which is not always the case)
This is enough to give me an estetical experience comparable to the investment. Unfortunately it is my own experience. Most people around me are totally disinterested in hifi and musical reproduction. I can undertstand that and its OK.
But I do think the a system is indicative to the personality and taste of the owner. When I listen to other peoples systems its like looking into the owners soul. Its actually a little voyeuristic, I think. I usualy dont comment other peoples systems in detail, but it very interesting to see what other systems stress as important. What goes through his (her) mind and what is his looking-glass?

 

[PeterA]

This case is not really relevant because your parents are not making decisions to purchase components to assemble a system of which they like the sound. Nor are they comparing two systems.

No, that is true. They are not making purchase decisions, but at the same time they don’t pick apart the sound. They listen to a cello and they know what a cello sounds like and then they hear it on a system and it either reminds them of the sound of a cello or it does not. They just know by listening. They do not have to analyze the sound.

I think where we differ is in your attempts to dissect and take apart elements of the listening experience. Your experience with various systems seems to be that they involve trade-offs and compromises and then you extrapolate that to theorize that everyone has a similar experience so they choose or learn or develop or subconsciously have sonic cues which determine their direction and system choices between given trade offs. You are trying to understand what that process is and you are trying to develop a theory around it.

I experience unamplified music holistically and judge systems by that standard. I look for components and systems that sound right with few or no identifiable trade-offs. If they do not sound right in a holistic sense, it’s pretty easy to hear and move on. Using your language, my suspension of disbelief is shattered when a system deviates from the holistic approach and emphasizes or spotlights something, a sonic cue, which throws the balance off and draws attention to itself. The experience is then not as rich for me or emotionally involving. To me, a successful system is one that avoids emphasizing certain qualities or attributes. I want balance and completeness not spotlighting and trade-offs.

Prioritizing certain sonic cues, consciously or unconsciously, leads to systems that emphasize those cues or de-emphasize others. To me, that is an approach that inevitably leads to an unbalanced and incomplete sound and likely a less engaging listening experience.

 

[AudioHR]

An audiophile whose most valued sonic cue is dynamics is unlikely to select a small monitor loudspeaker

An audiophile whose most valued sonic cue is clearly delineated and focused sonic images is unlikely to select a planar dipole loudspeaker.

An audiophile whose most valued sonic cue is upper bass/lower midrange "weight" and density is unlikely to select a full-range electrostatic loudspeaker.

A corollary of this theory is that having subjectively selected our individual preferred sonic cues, we tend to dislike systems assembled to best achieve other sonic cues. If one assembles a system to maximize dynamics, is it any surprise that such person would prefer his/her system to a system which is not designed to focus most closely on the cue of dynamics?

You are a brave man Ron! Thank you for this think piece.

 

[Alrainbow]

Does digital compared to analog music reproduction have different cues that matter. ??

 

[Ron Resnick]

You are a brave man Ron! Thank you for this think piece.

A think piece is exactly what it is!

 

[bonzo75]

Does digital compared to analog music reproduction have different cues that matter. ??

yes and different gear has different cues. Which is not the subject of this thread. It is whether you pick up cues from live and go home, and digital people take home different cues and analog people take home different ones. Which is not the case.

 

[bonzo75]

Come to think of it, all people I know with live AND sufficient gear experience prefer SETs, horns, and analog.

Those with no live BUT sufficient gear experience prefer horns too and analog.

the ones with SS and digital and inefficient speakers are the ones without the horn exposure.

recording exposure is the rarest

thanks Ron, case closed

 

[Kenc]

Caveat: I haven't read all the responses.

I have never ascribed to the absolute sound concept.
When I listen to my system at home, it is a totally different experience to attending a live performance. Both are good!
In live performances (which I missed so much during Covid) I get caught up in the music, the motions and expressions of the musicians and the general vibe of being amongst fellow music lovers. The actual sound quality follows distantly.

At home, it's all about the sound. Speed, clarity and resolution is what I like but, of course, not at the expense of "musicality".
My sound at home is completely different and very much sonically superior than what I might hear at a jazz club or concert hall.