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The focus and air lie

There always have been some kind of fashion in the way a system sounds and since a few years it seems that more and more people are looking for details, air and pinpoint focus / soundstaging.
There's a lot of components, accessories and speakers designed to fill full that demand... Halcro, dCS, Esoteric, Nordost, BW, GamuT are some examples.

This sound does NOT exist in real life, when you're at a concert the sound is full not airy, the soundstage exist of course but it's definitely not as focused as many of the systems you can hear in the hifi shops, it just fill the room.

To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.
It's evident for someone accustomed to unamplified concert that a lot of systems are lean and far from sounding real.

Those systems are also very picky about recordings : good recordings will be ok but everything else will be more difficult...
That's a shame because a hifi system should be able to trasmit music soul even on bad recording.
In 2008 this is a very rare quality.

So why does this happened ?

Did audiophiles stopped to listen unamplified music and lost contact with the real thing ?

Is it easier for shops to sell components that sounds so "detailled and impressive" during their 30mins or 1 hour demo ?
ndeslions
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,333 posts
 
Ndeslions,

To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.

The technical term is a "scooped midrange' - it has been extremely successful in high end audio. Add a metal tweeter and you can often achieve an "etched" sound.

If you are after timbral characteristics more than a wow soundstage, ambience or atmasphere then try to audition a Harbeth or ATC speaker. Internally damped drivers like pulp paper cones or polypropylene or doped fabrics seem to work well at preserving the timbral information on the recording - these are all very old as the hills type speaker designs. I am not a fan of newer metal or ceramic cones (often ringing issues) unless you go for the best designs like accuton. Because of the preponderance of two way designs with 6" woofer/mid drivers the midrange scoop is the most common sound from speakers today (a large cone will tend to beam in the midrange leading to a midrange scoop and an emphasis in upper mids and air when you listen far field).

I may be barking up the wrong tree but this is likely part of your problem.
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,333 posts
 
In my opinion, when it comes to loudspeakers, those that possess the necessary dynamics and instaneous swings in volume, for example, horns, tend to sound far more agressive, brash, and threadbare than real life, while those that can reproduce the proper timber, liquidity, relaxed nature, voluptuousness, or flow such as electrostatics (which often overshoot the mark) are woefully inadequate when it comes to dynamics and being able to reproduce both the suddenness and power of the real thing. Typical cone/dome speakers fall somewhere in the middle of those two, determined mostly by their crossovers and/or their drive units.

Trelja,

Your point about horns and electrostats is valid. The fact that cone/dome speakers fall in between may explain why they are the most successful and popular form of speaker. To me the closest you can get to the dynamic realism of live sound today (with a quality that approaches the timbral accuracy of some electrostatics) would be ATC's but I would agree with you that nothing out there is perfect. I would add that most people are not looking for "live" type sound at home and prefer something much more relaxing.
undertow
1,032 posts
 
The audiophile curse***

Basically many like to say "we all hear differently"

The actual truth is we have varying degree's of deafness :-)

Just nobody admits that part of it
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,333 posts
 
Undertow,

The audiophile curse***

I agree about the Armani purse.

Basically many like to say "we all hear differently"

Agreed. Many like to stay with anjou pear, definitely

The actual truth is we have varying degree's of deafness :-)

And of course, most are wearing dungarees of denim! What else are dunagrees made from these days!

BTW - What happened to the Economy and Hi-fi thread - did it get zapped? - the silence on that front is deafening!
dpac996's avatar
dpac996
433 posts
 
Shad, I was wondering about that too...looks like there was some inside scoop and the powers that be, well, beed.
Too bad as that was one of the better exchanges we've seen in some time.
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