Two Type of sound and listener preference are there more?

I appreciate the discussion.

Some observations to share:

• After a few decades of demonstration, I have no doubt there can be a strong left-brain/right-brain difference among listeners, and some listeners are in the middle, who eventually make emotional and physical connections to their music- their wives certainly did, right away! All this does assume the system is musical in the first place.
  
  
• When I was in high school, the left-brained ran the A/V dept, getting out the film projectors, running them for class. A few years later, that became TVs and VCRs. I observed that none could or would dance. None played instruments, sang, nor was interested in any of the arts. No one can deny that many of these technical fellows became audio designers (and reviewers, and magazine editors).
  
  
• I have watched countless individuals, including reviewers, clearly not hear when one system at a show was exceedingly musical compared to many other systems nearby.
  
  
• Most reviews start off with observations on 'detail', 'imaging', 'impact', and so on. Few begin with 'musicality' and 'engagement' or 'involvement'. Perhaps this is reflective of those reviewers and even of how poorly their room is setup, more so than the gear. But if some piece of kit was truly musical by a large margin, you'd think an experienced reviewer would hear this right away and report on it. So, I take this to mean that most gear is not musical. Which has been my experience.
  
  
• Regular CDs can be extraordinarily musical yet lacking no details, even on solid-state systems. The trouble seems to be with playback, not with their recording, and I have the recording background to back up this observation. But I have only ever heard this four times since the advent of the CD, and neither system complexity nor price were necessarily why.
  
  
• How do we know what to hear from a recording when we were not in the studio? We know it when we hear it, again, assuming we are wired to respond to musicality. As those are who also sing, play instruments, dance, and appreciate the arts.
  
  
• I have heard several times some gear combinations come together in their flaws to become truly musical, while still lacking many details of the recordings. Best to leave this as fortuitous luck!
  

Roy Johnson
Green Mountain Audio

Thank you for your thoughts.

When you write "One person’s sterile/analytical is another person’s "musical." One person’s rich and rolled off system is "musical"and to another "boring and un-engaging.", those are exactly my points, about how the non-musical listeners just do not get ’it’, over and over. It is indeed as you write, prof!

It is important to always examine what is engaging you, what is attracting YOUR attention. Is it detail, image, tone balance, richness and rolloff? Or is it the band having one hell of a joyous time?

When one cannot hear the latter, for whatever reason, this leaves of course only the former as the experience to be taken away.

Again, no criticism is intended. This is just my experience and of very many others with professional (also meaning ’daily’ across many years), high-end experience. The point from this discussion I think is not to make labels or set up challenges, but simply to work harder at finding the truly musical gear. I have found it is always best to do so by reliance upon recordings of world-class, one-in-a-billion artists, not the second-tier ones signed to audiophile labels. The musicality, the beauty of the top artists will come through regardless of the recording quality, if the system allows it AND the listener is wired to appreciate that. Those who are not wired in this manner do not understand my point and can seldom be ’trained’.

Also, experienced (and famous) recording engineers always say, "It is never the quality of the gear, but the band being on fire that makes the difference."

I recommend Tape Op Magazine -- a studio magazine not beholding to advertisers, with all articles by working pros. It is free and at least one article in each issue seems useful to us audiophiles, about what these men and women hear! By the way, when you write,

"The fact some other people didn’t "recognize" something as musical like yourself isn’t an objective failing on their part, anymore as your failure to find their choice to be musical."

this is wrong. It is indeed an objective failing on their part because I and many others can easily point out the many non-musical differences. Granted, this can take a very long time to do for someone not used to listening for musicality, which is why the world-class artists represent one’s best chance at learning about musicality. Also, read the CD reviews on Amazon, about which performances of an artist to purchase, which ones captured best their special magic.

Best,
Roy

And when you write

If you have a recording which captures live music in its rawest form, or the recording is not a good one, some of the earliest Telarc discs for example on a system which has good high frequency extension is going to sound bright, if it is on the recording, however, if you have a system that rolls off the top end you are going to experience that recording in a totally different light.

Either way, I can easily demonstrate to anyone here that either condition comes about because of flaws in the gear and in the speakers, especially in the speakers since there is more to go wrong there and, unlike amps, can distort in the time domain.

They were indeed time-coherent (across a limited range) but that is their only similarity to my work, to Dunlavy, Vandersteen, and Meadowlark.

And you are indeed right about finding other gear to make them sing. Great! The difficulty of said search speaks to the speaker's level of muscality.

One may eventually find 'this gear' exhibits strong colorations in many other systems. Finding universality to the sound of a product among people's comments and reviews is a good thing, before deciding to give it a go.

Dave and Troy, I do understand your points above, which were:

In our view a system which is tuned so that everything sounds good including bad recordings, you know you are going to have a system which has rolled off top end and perhaps a slightly fat midrange.
VS.
A system which makes things sound real and life like, if the recording is not good so will be the sound, but of course  a good recording will be glorious.

So of course each person's system is going to mirror their tastes.

If you understand the context of the original question, it will help you understand our point.

Yes we tune our systems to sound natural and we feel that natural is musical,  but in this context it means accurate without being unrealistically bright vs a system which is deliberatly tuned as mentioned above.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

What you propose is a sensible and logical goal. But a system being musical is not about a system tuned so even bad recordings sound great. But the converse will be true.
It is not about a system which makes things sound real and lifelike. But the converse can be true.
It is not about a system being accurate without being unrealistically bright.

seanheiss1 above has it right:

Defining musical is like defining how to dance. We know when someone can dance just like we should know when something is musical. PRaT?

prof, you wrote above:

If instead you give more detail about what specifically you mean by “musical” - actual sonic characteristics - then who knows we may agree. But if it reduces to various forms of “does it move you” then that, as I say is subjective, differs between listeners and therefore not a useful heuristic for identifying anyone being wrong or right about the musical capabilities of a system.

Thanks for pointing this out, prof. What I have found over the years, quite by surprise, is how most right-brained listeners appreciate most music when played on a musical system. The music may not be their cup of tea, but they, far more often than not, smile and listen and come away feeling like they understand why others could really get into that. This never happens on an amusical system.

When I am describing musicality, I can use only words that convey feelings, emotions, and physical motions like toe-tapping (thanks, ctsooner!). If, like jon_5912, you do not agree, please consider you have received my best advice on what to listen for and what to read into reviews.

Most reviewers have not heard musical systems, or cannot hear when a system is musical, cannot feel when a system is musical. If they did, they would write about that before ever writing about soundstaging, details, dynamics. This is because to anyone able to experience musicality finds that something far more important to report about a product. This is a part of Joe Walsh's message that nitrobob related. Is the music fun even on a car stereo? Again, read magazines like Tape Op to learn the magic that studio pros try to capture, want to reproduce, because they can surely never, ever capture 'reality'.

I would add that we audiophiles could ask women and artistic people's to hear our systems. If their attention is not instantly grabbed and then held by almost any great artist, at a soft volume, that system needs work.

An important aspect of a musical system is finding out, unexpectedly, that we have no motivation to play a different selection right away- drawn in automatically to hearing the entire record or CD. We are lost in the performance, never thinking of its details, image, 'bass' or 'highs', impact, dynamic contrasts... unless one has sat down to listen precisely for those things. this takes ears educated, trained, in ways right-brained people do not get and can seldom be trained. The same goes for power tools, right?

On a truly musical system, those wired emotionally experience feelings best described with words like power and floating and singing and dancing and crying, yelling ,drifting, plunging, spinning, surprising, lilting, laughing, shredding, burning, ... Spontaneous new associations made from associations hidden in the music- concepts only music can communicate.

Words are insufficient to communicate what music does. This is not elitism, but acknowledging those listeners are limited in vocabulary to describe experiences. Ask them!

If you don't get that from your stereo, it is that system's fault IF you initially loved music as a teenager, no matter what the system. On the other hand, if you got into advanced audio because of the tech, then you have to work harder to connect with the music emotionally, hence my earlier advice.

And you are both right, prof and d2girls, about the sound of real horns not being aggressive or bright. Same goes for cymbals. I find these are problems caused mostly by non-time-coherent speakers which literally shred HF transients. This leads to seans' comment of

Basically, as sounds get louder, they abruptly go from being inaudible to painfully loud.

Not true from any real instruments nor from time-coherent speakers. Go to a music store for goodness' sake and ask someone to play something!!

prof, your son who loves his music on his laptop and iPhone is still highly right-brained would be my answer, since teenagers are not rational beings. I think it worth noting that since good musicians are very right-brained, how many of those need or want a fancy hi-fi? It is not a high percentage.

This is what I would ask to try all of us to remember-- the experiences we first had back when we fell in love with music, a place in our lives that experiencing the music came first.

I hope my advice can be a guide out of the tremendous amount of non-musical gear out there. What do I do for our clients? Recommend certain brands and let them see the customer feedback to be, wait for it, always about musicality.

Sorry for the long post, but the variety of musings were nice to see and worth addressing. Thanks!

Best,
Roy

I have found that when the speakers are truly ’right’ in the time domain (not suffering from metal-cone breakups and cabinet/surface reflections), then the tone balance of the recording becomes secondary to anyone’s experience, not primary as you wrote

Please take note that I do know you heard what you did, and that I would have heard that too, right next to you. But I have scientific explanations and not just ’wow, that amp combo worked’ to offer, backed by specialized measurements you would have to see performed here, and numerous master recordings. Come to Colorado for some vacation?

Thanks for your comments- I’ll keep this brief.

There are two types of listening:

• Analytic-- looking for defects, tone balance, image, special effects, distortions, ... a very long list. This is the style of listening used by studio engineers, stereo store proprietors, reviewers, editors, designers, and most home enthusiasts to ’make better sound’. A left-brain process, with no doubt.
  
  
• Subjective-- for enjoyment, for where the music takes you, what it makes you feel, think. Which is important for all of us listed above to be able to do.

After spending much time listening analytically, it can be difficult to switch that off, to kick back and enjoy whatever the music brings us, where it takes us. For listeners most impaired, the British remark, "They have ears of cloth."

I wrote my (and others) observation that a musical system makes its mark on a right-brained listener when playing any good music. From the top artists, we have:

Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is. Miles Davis

Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe. Douglas Adams

There’s music in the sighing of a reed; there’s music in the gushing of a rill; there’s music in all things, if men had ears. Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. Lord Byron

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. Gustav Mahler

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. Henry David Thoreau

Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same. John Denver

Music - The one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. Kahil Gabran

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. Plato

Best regards,
Roy

You are completely right.
We are users of crazy machinery expected to generate any music on command over there, where we live. We don't want to hear any noise, nor any distortion or test tones. We want the sounds coming out to be musical sounds.

Those artists' views can be guides on what we should expect, to conceptualize where internally music might take us.  When the system can do it and when the listener can actually hear that. Two different subjects. Above, I proposed paths through these two difficult subjects.

Roy

It is certainly wonderful to feel happy and satisfied from a listening session. It’s understandable to expect higher levels, greater versions of those events.

Now, we experience ’things’ whenever we can name them.
Perhaps here we seek the experience itself.
This would make ’being happy’ a thing experienced.
What then is ’the experience’?

Every artist says, "It’s something beyond words, but here are some ideas."
I get some of ’that experience’ hearing artists up close and live, and when playing music myself. I am never thinking ’I’m happy’ until it’s over.

This would mean always
A: Seek deeper experiences, not greater satisfaction.
B: Expect to simply recognize an experience when ’it’ happens.
C: ’It’ can happen with one change in a system, unexpectedly,
D: and most ’deeply’ while playing the best artists, who commune with the deepest places.

It has helped to remember
I’ve no idea what the best artists wish me to experience.
Poor gear reduces the artistry and mastery of the best artists, blocking deeper connection.
Someone right next to me may not be wired to make the connection.
Perhaps he or she is not really into the arts, beyond "I like that."
I am glad they are happy!
The world is a better place right then and there anyway!

Does not the above seem right to keep in mind while striving to make systems better?
Granted, it’s deep and hard to discuss, but that’s music! Or any art.

Does this fit with anything you’ve been thinking about?

Roy
Green Mountain Audio

.

Thank you joc3021-- good points above with which I agree!
Your first one was about someone being in the mood, etc.
The second was walking into the confirming-biases trap.

To get out of that trap, the following has helped me:

Whenever a change is made in the system or gear, I listen always for increased nuance in HOW each and any note is being expressed, being phrased, being sung.
No matter the music, no matter the recording's quality, and relying on many recordings I've come to know really well, of one-in-a-million artist(s), often recorded live.

Then I ask if someone right there could hear 'that' when I pointed 'it' out? Not a judgment call.

As I was not at the original event, my reasoning is based on the following:

1. A one-in-a-million artist has included many nuances I have yet to hear.
2. Artists know most of us can hear these nuances, because when they are practicing, the results are visible in all the nearby faces listening up close and personal- just as recording mics will be placed.
3. Artists put in these nuances because whenever we do hear 'them', that helps us 'feel' whatever the artists are bringing forth.

So I think improving a system must include getting it to resolve more nuance, no matter the music or recording. It will be a more 'musical' system. 'Things', expressions, flow along better, which is a time-domain issue, not a tonal-domain issue for designers.

You wish these nuances to be obvious, to get your attention quickly, because this leads to feeling better soon, even when you're in a dour mood.

Thank you for following along. See any flaws in this logic? Let me know your thoughts.

Y'all have a great weekend!