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In Reply to: RE: Why Does The Denon DL-103/103R Sound So Magical? posted by beach cruiser on June 21, 2017 at 12:46:07
I'm 100% with you on your issue with "magical" equipment. This is one of those contentious subjects though in which flames are bound to result! However, as a musician and engineer I think I can put forward a balanced argument why I feel that fidelity and pleasure may not actually be achievable simultaneously in the sense that a poor recording or poor performance should remain just that when replayed. What that is telling us is that we should buy a different recording if we want to hear the piece as the composer intended!
Take the Brahms Violin Sonatas which I'm currently enjoying. I love the performance of Dumay/Joao. They have an intensity and emotion in the playing that only comes from complete synergy between the performers (well they WERE a couple!). Other recordings like Capucon/Anglich are also well performed, but for me, the playing doesn't have quite the same emotional intensity although the performance is superb. This is what makes us human! Someone else listening to both recordings might very well think the complete opposite.
I'm not saying which is better as a performance. I'm only saying that Dumay/Joao really hits the spot for me. To me, I think it is a mistake to attempt to fiddle with the equipment to achieve the same emotional pleasure between the two recordings. Just my opinion!
Of course, I'm talking about using equipment that already meets the required standard of technical excellence in order to reproduce a recording. What I am saying is that any attempt to magically add emotion or "realism" would be to colour the sound which is the opposite of fidelity. In other words, a flat, sterile sound should be accurately reproduced as such and I would expect nothing less from my equipment! ;) The musicians being recorded are the ones conveying the motion of the music through their performance. The equipment can't ADD emotion where none existed to begin with. If the transducer meets the engineering requirements to enable a faithful reproduction of the groove then the job is done. Any equipment that "Transforms" the sound must be adding something that wasn't there which contradicts the concept of fidelity.
The process of "listening" involves emotion and our own psychological state affects HOW we respond to particular music. The equipment can only reproduce what was recorded more faithfully. Unless we are present at the mastering session, we can't possibly know what was done to the original recording.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Follow Ups:
Your point is well taken. The original intent of posting the magic of the DL-103/103R is that it sounds (to me) magical no matter what turntable, what arm and what electronics or room I am using at the time. I have used both of these carts over they years and had excellent results
That is what is magical to me. BTW I know magical is a little over the top but that is what I could come up with at the time......
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand your viewpoint! Don't take my post as any kind of criticism - I just thought there was a discussion point around the difference between (what I would define) fidelity vs universal enjoyment of any recordings being played, but perhaps I should have started that as a new thread rather than hijacking your thread - my apologies. At the end of the day, our hobby is all about the enjoyment of music and our recordings. Whatever way one chooses to achieve the achievement is perfectly valid.
We all have different priorities. In my case, I strive for technical perfection as a means to enjoying my recordings "as faithfully as possible".
Having said that, the better my system got, the worse some records sounded! That comes down to the mastering and the intended playback equipment for which the recording was balanced for and that was really my point.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Thanks for responding to my post as if it were of equal quality. I had second thoughts, and considered taking it down, as pointlessly argumentative, and weak. Yet, that didn't seem exactly polite , somehow, in case someone went to the trouble to actually read the thing.
Your point is well made, probably because it follows educated logic and exactly because it agrees with my understandings.
Audio reproduction is not reality, it s only an illusion of past reality. Beatlemania live! Or a museum color corrected print , some copies are better, and more functional, than others.( I have some prints, never went to Beatlemania. beatle music snob. )
It is easy to understand why distortion is so difficult to record with fidelity, and then to reproduce that copy again with the same fidelity. , Also why I could never listen to Jimmy Hendrix for very long until I got a better turntable and arm. Same recoding from my childhood, different results with different equipment, Much better hi fi and sonic effects , but the emotion conveyed is still about the same fun level . I still wanted to reach for the next record, now I can, after cleaning up the ear fatigue . I think it was the arm , for the most part. But without measurement, I can never know with certainty. Which returns to my point. Illusion, what you think you hear, verses science, where results must be reproducible to be true. .
My buddy has a fine old carved walnut wind up record player with the cabinet full of thick old recordings of Irish tenors, brought over from, "the old country" as he puts it. Not modern high fidelity, but it is full acoustic in the entire audio chain. It has no horn, the sound goes into the furniture and the sound volume is controlled by movable acoustic vent slats, open one, or all for party time.
I hear only old timey recordings when he plays it, good for historic reasons, curiosity, etc. He gets a full emotional response , never displayed with all the rock he always plays. Either that emotion is a learned response tied to family, or he can hear something I can't. Which, come to think of it, could very well be an emotional response filtering his perceptions of hearing, as seen through my impressions of sonic reality. Wow, thinking is like , hard .
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