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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: High-end audio: Absolute Sound vs Naturality vs Expressivity
Post Subject: The lightbulb into Romy's approachPosted by PeterA on: 12/29/2024
This is an interesting post.
For me, it is not about worshipping naturalness. It is about understanding it as experienced in my listening room, so that I can recognize what is "unnaturalness" and move forward. The challenge is that it relies on memory. Another way is to create a way to move beyond that. I now think I understand what you mean. The first two approaches, the Absolute Sound, and Naturalness, refer to music, the sound of music, the sound of audio, etc, etc. You are talking about something completely different with your third way. You say "Musical". You call the approach Expressivity.
I think you are referring to the idea in the brain of the composer as "Musical", not to music as the performance by musicians and presented by a system in the living room. Audio can sound natural, that is like a live music performance, the energy, tone, dynamics, ideally like a near full experience of live music, but we only know this through comparison of what we experience in the listening room to our memory of experiencing live music. Yes, music is what it is. Audio is different. It is natural or unnatural, but you chase something beyond this. For you, audio is malleable. It is only a tool. You are after that idea in the composer's brain. You want your audio to be an expression of that idea taking you in your room to what the composer is thinking and feeling. You want that music to fill your heart, your soul, your brain. You want to stand up and wave your arms to Bruckner and experience the composer's genius. And the audio is your way of making that experience starting with what is on the recording, even though it is now very removed and corrupted. Music, sound, observing is not enough. You want to go beyond that to be consumed by the experience, in your home, and you want your ability to create the tool to get you there. Is that right? Is this what you mean by Musical, Expressivity, your third way, THE RIGHT WAY!?
Magic is created, at the magic show by the musician, or by the designer with his audio designs by knowledge, experience, and effort. I have spoken to David about this and he recognizes and appreciates the work and efforts of those rare individuals who created superior audio devices. His talent is recognizing their efforts and genius. He calls these audio thinkers the Beyond level. When those thinkers are gone, their efforts will be lost. He told me this about the man who created that first American Sound turntable in the 1970s. No one knows anything about him. Also those who created the original, early CN-191. They had a very clear understanding of what they were doing. They had a clear target and method of getting there. And it was not magic.Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site