Not expensive enough, Shane clearly mentioned "expensive" TTs.
Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Not expensive enough, Shane clearly mentioned "expensive" TTs.
I find more value in moderately detailed descriptions of what is heard rather than "more of this audiophile attribute, less of that." There's almost no agreement here on what words like "resolution" mean. People throw around "resolution" and "transparency" as if they are commonly understood terms with clear and distinct definitions, then add modifying adjectives on top of those. Rather than putting sound in audiophile boxes, tell us what you hear.
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Resolution as a word has a clear definition as it should be used in Audio:
A)The process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object, closely adjacent optical images, or sources of light
B) : a measure of the sharpness of an image or of the fineness with which a device (such as a video display, printer, or scanner) can produce or record such an image usually expressed as the total number or density of pixels in the image
2
: the ability of a device to show an image clearly and with a lot of detail
[count]
- computer screens with high resolutions
- The monitor has excellent resolution.
- a high-resolution copier/monitor/camera
Clearly, dictionaries use the visual reference for resolution as it is relatively easy and obvious for us to understand. For music there are different parameters for resolution:
Dynamic resolution: How finely does a system deal with micro shifts in dynamic action? The finer the shifts detected the greater that system is in dynamic resolution. This is not the same as the overall dynamic range of the system. A system could have huge dynamic range but is unable to show small dynamic shifts convincingly.
Tonal (timbre) resolution: How finely can a system show small differences in instrumental timbre? For example, can you tell a Stradivarius violin from a Guarneri Violin from a good modern violin? Or is the system so poor in this type of resolution that an oboe and a clarinet or a clarinet and a saxophone are difficult to tell apart. Or when two instruments are playing the same notes can in the same register can you still tell there are two different instruments playing those notes or does it all blend together.
Spatial resolution: Is the recorded soundfield and spatial relationships between instruments in that space well delineated or are instruments not well ordered in space (or worse just flat in one plane) and do they have 3d volume or are they cardboard cutouts in that space (flat or otherwise)? The perception of width, depth and height as allowed by the recording, the ordering of objects (instruments/singers) in that space and their perceived solidity in that space.
Transparency resolution: Are all recorded details portrayed in the playback so that one does not perceive that they are "missing" something? Is this done without exaggeration of details (often from distortions) that can impact the other types of resolution described above? This is the visual analogy of a dirty vs. clean window vs. no window at all. This and spatial resolution are probably the closest to visual definition of resolution given above, whereas timbral and dynamic resolution are really audio related and perhaps more abstract.
So, perhaps it would be helpful if one is talking about resolution that they clarify with the qualifier of what parameter of resolution they are referring to (dynamic, timbral, spatial, transparency) to facilitate the discussion in a useful direction. If someone thinks of another category that doesn't overlap or could fit in the ones I have pointed out then that could help to flesh out the definition for audio.
partially agree. Transparency default meaning is the see throughness while playing a track the kind best demonstrated by electrostats. So I feel I have to qualify transparency to recordings.
resolution default is detail, which the larger community uses to indicate any additional information. Where they use it to show the kind that leads to etched outlines or something else depends a bit on the listener so fair enough they should describe why they think is higher resolution
I can accept 'transparency to recording' -- an ability to show the sonic differences between recordings rather than homogenizing. Otherwise, absent some electrostatic on hand for comparison, this sounds rather close to 'clarity.' Another example might be OTLs some of which offer see-through-ness.
Iirc "resolution is detail" was Tang's take who felt adding modifiers turns it subjective.
With stats you see through the soundstage more, kind of like there is nothing between you and the front wall.
Ps: no discussion on what soundstage means
Ron, this is my definition:
“Ron, to me resolution means information. Greater resolution means greater amounts of information. Natural resolution means information presented naturally. The more natural resolution that a system can present, the more listening to the system reminds us of listening to real music.”
What is yours?
No, those are the dictionary definitions that I brought forth as the initial examples of what is commonly understood as resolution and the context for use in audio...as opposed to other definitions of resolution that have nothing to do with distinguishing one thing from another.
You can call it dynamic resolution dynamic gradation if you want but it is still the the degree to which subtle inflections in dynamics are detected...the finer that can be done the better the resolution of those changes. Resolution is the distinction between things. How well separated out they are so they can be detected. I guess you could measure this as subtle dB/time shifts but there is no standard way to sort this out.
Timbral resolution clearly involves the preservation of distinct overtone (harmonic) structure of each instrument so that even when playing simultaneously, the system preserves the correct timbral character of each instrument and our brain can sort that out...but only if all the harmonic information is preserved correctly (including temporal as an instruments harmonic pattern changes with amplitude). The ability to distinguish different makes of an instrument (or even the bow or strings) is resolution, getting down into the auditory "pixels" that make up the special character of an instrument or make of instrument. Being able to clearly distinguish two instruments playing the same thing at the same level is also resolution as you have the information such that your brain can pull apart those two (or more) signals from instruments to declare that one is a violin and one is a viola (one of the tougher examples I can think of). I don't think technology exists to separate this objectively with analytical test equipment...like you would with pixels or quanta because it is all happening in that very complex super computer in your skull. Maybe an AI smart system could detangle this and tell you if your system is losing harmonics when additional complex signals are added...with sufficient training sets.
Spatial resolution is hearing things clearly in their own space and not over running each other due to squashed soundstage or vague imaging. Instruments should have volume and distance from each other...as they have in real life...two instruments will never occupy the same space at the same time in real life but they can and often do in reproduced music. This is more like the resolution I think of in science where you have a system to separate molecules (chromatography) and a detector. The further separated the molecules are when they come out of the system the higher the resolution of that system. If the peaks come out together or overlap this is considered low resolution because the peaks are not separated completely...i.e. they are not "resolved". Same as the timbral one...this is all phase, time, pitch etc. computation in your brain that decodes this...an AI smart system perhaps to deconvolute this perhaps and predict whether a system will be good at it or not?
Transparency resolution, loss of information could perhaps be processed in a waveform subtraction but this would not account for distortion additions as well as subtractions...would be very messy. However, I think this one is pretty easy to hear and understand. The hearing into or the feeling that nothing is missing (window wide open) is pretty distinct. OTLs seem to be very good at creating this feeling...although I question their timbral accuracy...often they sound thin.
To me, a system is either resolving or it is not. If it is, there are different degrees. Just like it is dynamic or transparent or natural, or not. Some terms are more narrow and describe a specific attribute or characteristic while other terms are more broad and all encompassing. There are times for broad, all encompassing descriptions and there are times for more specificity. Some systems encourage one more than the other. Some people think more in terms of one than the other.
Interestingly, I first started thinking about this, resolution being information, during the talks about black backgrounds. Some praise black backgrounds as good because there is silence and nothingness. I never hear that at the concert hall. I hear information in those periods, subtle vital information about the space. It is what adds realism to a system’s presentation, if it comes through. Others call it a lack of noise. These are the gulfs that seem wide between us.
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Too simple...see my post above...there are different parameters to audio that will have differing degrees of resolution in a system. No system is perfect at all (or any of these) characteristics. You can have great spatial resolution but the system has poor dynamic resolution (think micro-dynamics) or timbral resolution (cold and analytical or overly warm)...or you don't feel that you can "hear into" the music (poor transparency resolution).
I think your definition should stop after the first two sentences, and focus on information. The problem is that your natural sound overlay apparently introduces tonal balance and transparency, and results in the confused mashup you wrote in Post #1,693 hereof:
Ron, how can one configuration get an A on resolution and not do well on total balance? Poor total balance, that is one that does not reflect the way the system sounds at the listening seat, shows that is not resolving enough. Accurate total balance is a reflection of the transparency of the recording.
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The 6th definition of "resolution" in the American Heritage Dictionary provides: "6. The clarity or fineness of detail that can be distinguished in an image, often measured as the number or the density of the discrete units, such as pixels or dots, that compose it."
I apply this visual concept to sound, and so my definition is: the clarity or fineness of detail that can be distinguished in reproduced sound.
Resolution is a substantially objective concept, analogous to pixels in video (more pixels per inch equals greater resolution). Think of resolving power as in a telescope or a microscope, but in the context of sound.
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The problem is when you say resolution do you mean timbrally, dynamically, spatially, transparency? No system resolves all these things equally well and so I think discussing a specific characteristics resolution is more meaningful than saying a system is resolving.
For me language is of the majority, for the majority. Like democracy, you might want to change it, but then order breaks down. So unless I use it as a shortcut, I will generally just write more - this had better nuance or inflection of violin, this had better tones or texture, this had more bass or was more transparent to recordings. I wouldn't use resolution to describe any of those things if I hear them. When someone else says more resolution, I read it had more visual high/mid detail. If they say at the cost of something else, I read that as the hifiish detail we do not like. Like Brad says in the post above just saying resolution opens way more questions. If you mean it does all of that then go back to my original post of how such broad comments do not help a discussion.
I am not disagreeing with you. Timbrally, dynamically, spatially, transparency can apply the concept of "resolution" to these different attributes of sound.
I think in terms of how resolved are special or ambient cues.
I think you are applying the concept of resolution to different elements of sound. This makes sense to me.
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They are likely intertwined to some degree as well...if you have a high degree of spatial resolution then likely it contributes to a sense of transparency as well but not necessarily timbral resolution or dynamic resolution.
I understand the pixel analogy. Can you give an example “in the context of sound” so that I can better understand what you are describing?
I agree some of them are likely intertwined to some degree as well.
Figuring out how much we agree or disagree about intertwined-ness of subcategories of resolution is probably going to end in tears. I think that this is far more subjective than the basic definition of resolution in the audio context.
For example dynamics, to me, has nothing to do with transparency. I agree with the Kedar example of transparency (electrostatic see-through quality) as well as Tim's example (OTL). Those are two things I think of when I think of transparency.
An example would be the slightly greater or the slightly lesser intelligibility of a solo vocalist. In one system you think you might be able to understand a certain word that is being sung, but in another system you're confident that you are hearing it more clearly.
Another example would be the ability to hear and to make out the words of one or more individual voices in a choir, versus an aggregated mass of voices that cannot be teased apart.
The clearer the intelligibility of the speech, the higher the resolution.