Does "Fast" = "Detailed"?

Every "fast" system that I have heard (as described by others) has been detailed, clear and without bloom. None have been what I'd consider warm and inviting. One or two have been cold, clinical and I could not listen for more than about an hour before getting a headache. Maybe I haven't yet heard the right "fast" system.

BTW, my VAC, Von Schweikert VR4 Gen III, APL Denon 3910 system is one I consider fast, although it has some bloat in the bass, so it is not as fast as others I have heard. It certainly makes the music sound real, though. Interestingly, the tube amp produces more realistic bass than any SS amp I have owned because all the solid state amps tend to overload the room with bass so the tonal balance can seem out of whack.

"Every "fast" system that I have heard (as described by others) has been detailed, clear and without bloom. None have been what I'd consider warm and inviting. One or two have been cold, clinical and I could not listen for more than about an hour before getting a headache. Maybe I haven't yet heard the right "fast" system."

I regard my system as fast and detailed. I have no interest in a system that sounds as you describe. A good ribbon or electrotstatic system combined with tubes is fast and not at all cold or clynical. e.g.My Moscode and M/L CLS or Soundlabs with an Atma-Sphere amp.

fast = -LOG (square root of detail/ x-1)

If Bob has an amp playing Chicago at 100 Vus and Timmy's amp plays Boston at 5 VuS but has been warming up for an hour ....

The term "tight bass" is often used to describe a restriction in the drivers harmonics that increases sensitivity and detail.

I also think mdhoover is onto something... I've definitely heard some warm + fast systems; in fact I think my own system is warm and fast. Triodes (push-pull or single-ended) in general can sound this way, with great transient speed, but without the dryness of a "detailed" solid state amp. The trick for speed, I think, is high slew rate and good time-domain response for non-periodic signals... to capture that leading-edge. Bold (possibly false) claim: I think some "detailed"-sounding amps are really just injecting correlated noise from the power supply (from regulators, electrolytic caps, etc.), which give added illusion of texture and microdynamics (that dry clean sound). My amps sound less "detailed" but much faster since installing polypropylene caps to replace some electrolytic caps in the initial gain stages... I now suspect what I thought was real detail was nothing more than power supply noise, and good riddance to that!