|
|
drdna
San Francisco, California
Posts 526
Joined on 10-29-2005
|
Post #:
|
107
|
|
Post ID:
|
26384
|
|
Reply to:
|
26383
|
|
|
|
|
 Paul S wrote: | | it seems like a miracle that two people familiar with the score could recognize "it" and agree on it, via any sort of playback whatsoever ... we tend to focus (more or less) on the parts we recognize as Music. |
|
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | I think it is very similar what happened with MSG |
|
I agree with this, and it's a keen observation -- Ultimately, we are trying to reproduce the Music, and by this I mean whatever aspects of the original musical event give us the optimal experience - of course, this may be a bit different for each person.
The analogy is the old joke about a famous sculptor when asked how he was able to make such an amazing elephant statue, replying, "I just chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant!"
So perhaps, we are doing the same with our audio systems, trying to remove the unnatural distortions and leave only the Music, and it leads to different approaches:
1) Macondo-style (High Detail/Horns): emphasize the music relative to the distortion; these listeners can tolerate more distortion, but also need a lot of musical signal to be satisfied. (It makes the Injection Channel logically consistent)
2) Tannoy-style ("Laid Back"): dampen the distortion relative to the music; these listeners can tolerate less distortion, but also need less of the musical signal to be satisfied.
3) "Neutral"-style: eliminate distortions even at the expense of part of the musical signal; these listeners can tolerate the least distortion, but also need the least musical signal content to be satisfied.
4) "iPod" Not An Audiophile: these listeners can tolerate more distortion, but only need a little musical signal content to be satisfied.
So, in all the cases, listeners are simply getting whatever they need in musical signal content, but because everyone is different, the solutions are different.
The "Neutral audiophile" may think tubes and horns are unlistenable due to the distortion, while the "Horn/SET audiophile" may find the "neutral" system drained of life.
Non-audiophiles will recognize the added musical content of audiophile systems and be impressed, but they simply don't need it to get their own musical satisfaction.
As to Romy's Dunlavy experiment, in this model, perhaps he has enough lifetime experience with music to require less musical signal content over time to be satisfied, and the dampening of distortions reduces anxious tension, leading to a sense of calm and his self-surprise that it is somehow "enough!"
Adrian
|
|
|