Brilliant responses, really impressed. Audio Note (Hemp?), Harbeth and DeVore are names that often come up. Joseph Audio sounds like one to watch out for. Tannoy, I'm quite familiar with.
By rich timbre I guess I mean that you can clearly hear the harmonics in a voice or in an instrument as as you can hear the pitch, loudness or edge detail. Many speakers can do the start of a note well but not it's body - all attack and little decay. All frequencies of sound including Bass can have beautiful harmonics (I find that the ones around 4-8kHz can be particularly delightful).
Perhaps it's not strictly accuracy I'm after - I'd much sooner have exaggerated tonal colour than slightly muted. For some like me it serves as a drug when it comes to listening. Of all the critiques trying to explain the lasting popularity of the Beatles music, the best ones for me focus on their diverse use of timbre and tonal colour. Compared to many who followed their recordings (admittedly in an age of analogue recording and valve/ tube desks) do seem to exhibit 'a greater "rainbow" of timbres and tonal colors' especially from Rubber Soul onwards.
I find that Classical music and Jazz really become captivating when it's easy to distinguish the sound of the instruments rather than just the notes they are playing. Wood sounds like wood, metal has it's natural sheen, wind instruments sound different again. Piano can either sound plain and two dimensional, or it comes alive as you get to hear all the tones and micro tones. A real sense of someone at work.
Tonal colour is not merely edge detail, it's infinitely more than that. Plenty of speakers can do leading edge detail well, and seem lightning fast whilst they do it, but few seem to handle the body and decay of the notes as well.
It is difficult to speak about tonal colour without also speaking about warmth, especially in the midrange (Bose anybody?), but I don't think it's necessarily dependent upon warmth. It's just that cold sounding systems can often expose their monochromatic nature far more readily.
By rich timbre I guess I mean that you can clearly hear the harmonics in a voice or in an instrument as as you can hear the pitch, loudness or edge detail. Many speakers can do the start of a note well but not it's body - all attack and little decay. All frequencies of sound including Bass can have beautiful harmonics (I find that the ones around 4-8kHz can be particularly delightful).
Perhaps it's not strictly accuracy I'm after - I'd much sooner have exaggerated tonal colour than slightly muted. For some like me it serves as a drug when it comes to listening. Of all the critiques trying to explain the lasting popularity of the Beatles music, the best ones for me focus on their diverse use of timbre and tonal colour. Compared to many who followed their recordings (admittedly in an age of analogue recording and valve/ tube desks) do seem to exhibit 'a greater "rainbow" of timbres and tonal colors' especially from Rubber Soul onwards.
I find that Classical music and Jazz really become captivating when it's easy to distinguish the sound of the instruments rather than just the notes they are playing. Wood sounds like wood, metal has it's natural sheen, wind instruments sound different again. Piano can either sound plain and two dimensional, or it comes alive as you get to hear all the tones and micro tones. A real sense of someone at work.
Tonal colour is not merely edge detail, it's infinitely more than that. Plenty of speakers can do leading edge detail well, and seem lightning fast whilst they do it, but few seem to handle the body and decay of the notes as well.
It is difficult to speak about tonal colour without also speaking about warmth, especially in the midrange (Bose anybody?), but I don't think it's necessarily dependent upon warmth. It's just that cold sounding systems can often expose their monochromatic nature far more readily.