I am thinking more 1-7 players (solo to septet) as chamber music. A chamber orchestra is much too large for a standard home or a parlor in a larger house. Then you need something with rather large, royal or imperial sized rooms.
The Devil is in the Detail
- Thread starter dcathro
- Start date
In the old days engineers were tuning equipment -especially speakers- by ear now they're tuning by testing equipment. I'm not against test equipment but testing by ear should be primary.
Old speakers are big, looking bad and have big drivers but they also have simple crossovers. That's their main advantage IMHO. Modern speakers have faster, lighter drivers but in order to align phase and frequency crossovers became too complicated. IMHO modern crossovers are killing the sound. Another issue is using small drivers for bass.
Old speakers are big, looking bad and have big drivers but they also have simple crossovers. That's their main advantage IMHO. Modern speakers have faster, lighter drivers but in order to align phase and frequency crossovers became too complicated. IMHO modern crossovers are killing the sound. Another issue is using small drivers for bass.
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This sums it up nicely for me, dcathro. The mind is free to wander at will, focusing on the particular aspect of the experience that captures its attention at the moment. When it is all about details or images, the mind is stuck, and removed far away from the music, the gestalt, the intent.
When it comes to music, resolution, the system's ability to resolve the information on the recording, is far more than pixel count. A system must contend with scale, dynamics, tone, balance, weight, relationships, so much more. When all is in order, the system is very resolving, and if the recording is good, the experience is more complete. That leads to believability, involvement, enjoyment.
Counting pixels is not what happens in the concert hall, and it is the last thing I want to do in my listening room. Even when describing the quality of up TVs picture presentation, there is much more to it than pixel count. Micro plasma TV actually has a pretty small pixel count, but the image is quite resolving and realistic looking to me. It does not have a super sharp, and enhanced image edges that distract from what is happening on the screen.
This is the distinction I read from the opening post.
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That is why I like simple two-way speakers (like my Odeons or my DIY horns) or augmented fullrange speakers (like my Horning Eufrodites).
I just don't listen to music at home that for me doesn't work on home audio. I'd rather just go and hear it live or not at all.
There is for me also another major factor. Home audio is often about listening to the same recordings time and again. One of the great joys of much live performance is that it is a one-off, unique experience, and often you don't know what's going to happen. We go to a lot of contemporary dance and often we really have no idea what we're getting before the show starts. I can't afford to see the same operas 10 times and I wouldn't want to. I far prefer seeing things I've not seen before.
I remember an article by Chiam Bermant (a very funny man who died 25 years ago) in a Jewish newspaper saying that Jews really need 6 dishwashers. Only Jews will understand, but it's an extension of the same argument.
i agree to a large part. However there are some historically great performances, the quality of which if you attend every live show, might come once in a few years. These performances were captured on great recordings by great engineers with great equipment and if you want to replay them, you should have a system.
Otherwise a system should only be scratch some itches in a hobby.
but then most people don’t live in a concert - rich city like you and I do. They might not even have restaurants or places to go in those cities. They are stuck at home. In a chair in the center of a room. They have the choice to go fishing to get away from everyone or retreat to a room
I understand.
I did not realize you prefer Peter's definition. In this case my view only will confuse things.
I will bow out.
Ron, it is not my definition. I did not come up with my understanding of resolution. It grew out of many conversations with people deeply into the hobby. People who listen to a lot of live music, design equipment, and assemble systems and listen carefully to them. It is not from Webster’s dictionary and has nothing to do with television pixel count. It is what I mean when I describe a system’s ability to resolve the information on a recording. It is holistic as opposed to bits and pieces.
I am simply responding to and agreeing with various points made in the opening post.
I think we all have different expectations, and thus preferences in sound, and that's as it should be. But there is a standard we can apply to reproduced music that can be heard live that does not really apply to some kinds of created music that involve multiple tracks laid down in a studio, and perhaps incorporating natural sounds and so on: it has to try to approach what we would hear at the live performance. Hard to reproduce details managing to emerge from your speakers are a good thing, up to a point. If they come at the cost of losing some of the sense of rhythm, or the correct balance of all frequencies working together as they do when you sit in the fourth row - musicality. Sure, we can hear lots of details by turning up the treble (if we have tone controls!), but only by damaging the overall sound picture. At the end of it all, the one thing that works for me is to discover, often over a long period of time, whether I find myself choosing to play music rather than do something else, and especially to do so and do nothing else. Play it and listen to it, rather than play it and read or chat.
I don't have the distraction of assessing imaging, as I have only one ear and don't hear stereo. But I still want to experience the emotional response that I get in the opera house, or at my neighbour's when she puts on a chamber concert. Part of that is that I hear details there I may not at home, but seem to do it in a way that doesn't make me lose the rest of the picture. Part of it, I recognise, is the volume: live music is louder, but turning up the amplifier at home doesn't seem to answer the problem. In fact, it is a rule of thumb for me that if I always feel the need to turn it up then something isn't doing a good job, either in the equipment or in the recording. Perhaps another part of it is that live music hasn't been 'messed with' at the mixing desk. The recordings that sound best to me are usually just a few performers and a pair of microphones and that's it.
But as long as you're happy with your sound, that's all that matters!
I don't have the distraction of assessing imaging, as I have only one ear and don't hear stereo. But I still want to experience the emotional response that I get in the opera house, or at my neighbour's when she puts on a chamber concert. Part of that is that I hear details there I may not at home, but seem to do it in a way that doesn't make me lose the rest of the picture. Part of it, I recognise, is the volume: live music is louder, but turning up the amplifier at home doesn't seem to answer the problem. In fact, it is a rule of thumb for me that if I always feel the need to turn it up then something isn't doing a good job, either in the equipment or in the recording. Perhaps another part of it is that live music hasn't been 'messed with' at the mixing desk. The recordings that sound best to me are usually just a few performers and a pair of microphones and that's it.
But as long as you're happy with your sound, that's all that matters!
some people could choose lots of ways to listen to music, and their top choice is at home. exactly as they choose. they still do the "live" thing when the mood strikes.
i understand that others want to paint a 'stuck at home' picture, but that's not right. being home might be a strong preference. might even mostly prefer it musically.
YMMV.
i enjoy posts about live music, and appreciate all the great descriptions. and talk about various great halls and musicians. it all a positive part of the hobby. but then casting negativity toward those who maybe lean toward listening at home is not appreciated. don't need that. just my personal viewpoint.
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So you are laughing at people who go to live venues because they haven't spent on a home system? Lol
This is personal preference, of course. This is a different sub-hobby than putting a stereo system together and listening at home.
I am sure many people who enjoy the sub-hobby of listening to their stereo at home would disagree with this. But it happens to be true of me.
Mike I was just trying to inject energy in an otherwise often discussed thread topic.
I always bring a friend fishing with me. Way easier to be social while fishing than listening to stereo.
FWIW I filled my salmon catch card which means I filled another with guests. Thats 50 fish retained from my boat. Overall I probably personally landed 200 this year. Those 25 fish put a solid $2000 of food into my kitchen.
I love live acoustic music from a good seat in a good venue. But, Sometimes I think I’d rather hear it at home.
Amplified music, on the other hand is usually torture as it’s ridiculously loud and distorted. The sound people responsible for this are all hearing impaired, drunk or both and I consider them enemies of music.
I like diving deep into recordings typically listening to the same recording for a week at a time before moving on to something else.
The sound of much of the current high end audio? The OP is, in my opinion, approaching the topic in a new and refreshing way leading to some interesting discussion. YMMV and all that.
And involving the Devil is a pretty new twist.
I liked the style of the writing but the resolution and detail that follows in the thread just comes up every so often, with the debates on those terms resolution and detail.
Maybe, if someone had a good video of what is good detail, and then swapped something to show bad detail, it would become more clear.
I think the thread topic, as introduced in the OP, is about how the industry's new gear is focused on detail and imaging to the detriment of the music. No? Resolution vs. detail is a sub topic added for clarity by some as part of their response to the OP. It is about an holistic versus bits/pieces presentation of the music.
