I think Tim expressed the idea well that creating a language to describe how a system (or a component in that system) sounds requires us to sort out what is important about the live listening experience.
We need to develop our language in more musical terms than what the current hi fi lexicon provides if we want to share our hi fi and musical journeys with others. WBF members want to talk with each other about their hi fi systems. More than a few of you have been lucky enough and worked hard enough (and probably spent more than enough money) to put together an incredibly musically satisfying hi fi system. More are probably still mired in the intricacies of their hi fi journeys, however, and these folks could really benefit from mentorship, but we need the right words to describe what we hear when we experience our musical sweet spot to earn bragging rights legitimately. The value of a more expressive language and the values it represents could have far-reaching positive consequences for our industry if more members of the review press and more manufacturers adopted this approach. I will flesh out that conversation in a future thread on my forum.
Tima said:
The live experience teaches us about tonality and harmonics, it teaches us about how the expressive use of dynamics and gradations of dynamics shape emotion.
Tim has summarized well most of the fundamental aspects of music reproduction that help shape and build our emotional connection with the music.
Fairly early in my hi fi life, I rejected hi fi terms as a tool to explain what I thought were the characteristics of a musically satisfying home audio system. To that end, I have used up quite a few pixels so far in my threads discussing the importance of tonality, harmonics, and dynamics to musically satisfying sound. I have mentioned that typical non-high end audio systems present a balanced slice of these qualities although not with the dynamic power and resolution that the best high end audio systems deliver. I have shared my all too prevalent listening experiences with more than a few high-end audio systems that fall significantly short of the mark in terms of balanced tonality and capturing dynamic gradations.
Several times in this thread, members have acknowledged that when listening to live music that pinpoint imaging in 3-dimensional space does not usually exist except when the music features a soloist, but even then, the sense of location is more diffuse than what many hi fi systems present because the complex fundamental and harmonic tones of a soloist start filling the performance space as soon as a note begins. It is possible, however, to achieve such an effect with all types of music by component choices, speaker set ups, and room treatment, but it is almost always at the expense of musically believable tonal balance and dynamics. These “heavier” essential qualities tend to cloud the over-emphasis on harmonics that is so necessary for enthusiasts to achieve the level of pin-point imaging they think they should be pursuing. Consequently, these set-ups effectively carve out the meat of the music to one degree or another.
In my vernacular, I have replaced the term “imaging” and any hi fi words associated with it such as sound stage with “space”. The combination of direct sound and the reflections of the music’s fundamentals and harmonics off the venue’s boundaries give us a sense of music space. Direct sound allows us to determine the approximate location of instruments, and reflected sounds captured on most recordings flesh out the listening experience.
Space is the final frontier. It allows us to forget that we are only listening to a hi fi system. A system’s or component’s ability to recreate music space can help us transcend space and time (where we actually are). Musical space invites and allows us to connect with recorded music on an even higher emotional level, however, only if tonal balance and dynamics provide the emotional foundation to the music reproduction experience.
I intend to have a deeper discussion of “space” in an upcoming thread on my forum. I have not been in a rush to discuss it because imaging is such a hot button in the hi fi world, and my concept of “space” requires a total recalibration of what one should expect from a hi fi if music is the priority.
Here is a description of what I consider to be 3 easy-to-grasp fundamental music listening criteria. I’ve had a chance to use these terms for years with audiences with very different music and hi fi experiences. The terms apply equally well to all genres of music including studio recorded electronic music, and one can freely drill down into these concepts with whatever descriptive words best express whatever any listener is hearing.
TONAL BALANCE : Does the system or component present a musically believable balance of fundamentals to harmonics with the full range of instruments featured in the recording? Does the system reveal the timbral differences created by different instruments and their musicians?
DYNAMICS: Does the system or component reveal dynamics expressively with all the gradations of dynamics from very soft to very loud, and everything in between?
SPACE: Does the system or component recreate the original recorded music space to a believable level by revealing the direct sound of instruments and the reflected sound of fundamentals and harmonics within the performance space?
These are not my words. You are all free to adopt, reject, change, or supplement them. I look forward to expanding upon these conclusions in a future thread, and I welcome hearing your thoughts.
There’s more than one right answer here.
