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In Reply to: even better, in the February issue posted by Bruce from DC on January 31, 2007 at 14:35:53:
It may be more musical but then its fidelity is reduced making it a very good tone control but only on certain recordings, certainly not on all. But that's one of the big audio anomolies. Do you want it to sound like the last time you heard a piece live or should it sound like the software?
Follow Ups:
Maybe Cordesman's argument is one for the return of classic tone controls to preamps. At some point in the 1980s, tone controls got to be a dirty word in audiodom. Then you could correct for the engineer's failings, but only when necessary.Ultimately, there is no escaping the listener's dependence upon the sonic taste (and playback equipment) of the mastering engineer. If the mastering engineer's taste is for a "ripe, rich" sound and he/she is using speakers with a ripe, rich sound built-in, then the listener who plays back that recording through speakers with a ripe, rich sound is going to experience a seriously over-ripe sound!
That said, one of the notable differences between the sound of unamplified instruments -- even close-up -- and their playback is how much "fuller" they sound in the midbass. I'm thinking for example, of a string quartet that I heard in a very small auditorium (that seats maybe 50 people) where I was maybe 15 feet from the players. Frankly, most audioplayback makes the cello sound like a slightly-lower voiced viola . . . but it's not.
So Cordesman is not at all off-base, in my opinion. Which leaves the question as to why recording engineers end up with a sound that is, comparatively speaking, "thin."
Of course, if you're going to reproduce that in a room of any size at volume levels much above background, you have to have a speaker capable of generating that much output without wimping out into distortion which will have the overall sonic effect of "leaning out" the sound as you make it louder.
But that's an argument against a lot of standmount speakers and in favor of speakers that are potent in the mid and upper bass range, not necessarily for tilting their amplitude response to favor that range.
Maybe Cordesman is just nostalgic for the classic "New England sound" of the acoustic suspension speakers from AR and KLH that he came of age listening to, as I did. Because that was the way they were balanced sonically . . . a little ripe and rich.
...in about 1980, I heard Jon Dahlquist and David Wilson talking before Dahlquist was to introduce his new line of (DQM) loudspeakers in an audio salon. Wilson was working on building his statement WAMMs, IIRC.Dahlquist told Wilson, "The most important thing and one of the most difficult in designing a speaker is to get the transition from the midrange to the bass right. If you can do that, the rest is pretty easy."
I don't disagree with Crdesman. I'm just stating that there are two approaches to audio involved. Both have their own validity. My bias is truth to the software but for any individual, that is a personal choice. I do recall a very old Sereophile where Gordon Holt criticized the KLH 12 speaker and Henry Kloss, of course, disagreed. A month later Gordon was in another seat at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and damned if it didn't sound like the KLH 12. Maybe not the old tone controls but some newer more sophisticated ones?
It's absolutely true what you say about string quartets and cellos. I have attended many concerts--500 seat auditorium, but, I was fortunate to have 2nd row aisle seats--of string quartets (as well as other small chamber groups). And I don't know as I have any string quartet albums (and I have a few) where I can confidently place the cello--except in its lowest registers. It's like--damn, that the cello, oops, it's the viola. And I have "warm" speakers--Vandersteen 2's. I think the dogma of "fidelity" gets in the way of enjoyment of music at home--at least that's what's dawning on me recently.
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