Mr. Poletti, thank you I appreciate your answer. However I was not asking if you could detect minute differences in the sound of components. In my experience that is the easiest part.
What I was asking is, once you hear a difference in two components, apart from gross colorations, how can you determine which is more accurate?
I think that you referenced instrumental timbre and that it exposes the accuracy of the recording. But it can only do that as seen through the distortion spectra of the reproduction system. You can’t listen to the timbre of a recording without playing it on a stereo. The distortions in the recording chain, and those in the reproduction chain then being additive.
How can you seperate the two, and even if you could, how could you be sure that the reproduction chain was not simply adding complimentary colorations to the recording chain making it sound more “accurate” and lower in distortion?
As an example after running the mike feed though a solid state mixing board even order harmonics may be cancelled and a reproduction chain rich in second harmonic distortion may yield a waveform that is closer to the original mike feed. Or a more complete representation of the original spectra of the mike feed might be a better way of putting it.
To say that you want the lowest distortion is laudable, but is this determined by listening? If so, complimentary distortions may skew the results. Or is it determined by measurement, and if so, which distortion measurements and how do we know that we are measuring the right things? My apologies in advance for asking so many questions, I’m just interested in how each of us comes to the conclusions that we do.
