Detail vs Musicality - Is the sound more detailed or merely pruned?

Pigeon_Fancier posted:

I still vote for detail and separation. Conceding that some of my music collection is as a result less enjoyable, I’d counter that my tastes are changing and the recording quality and presentation to some non-trivial degree inform what music I like. 

I believe you can have both detail & separation as well as musical engagement, but it needs the speaker-room interaction to be benign. Bass modes, slap echo and sidewall reflections can all muddle or harden up otherwise great sounding music.

What many people perceive as extra detail, I hear as accentuated high and mid-high frequencies and is not natural. The problem is that most rooms in homes are not conducive to hearing the kind of warmth, bass power and dynamic impact that we associate with live music in a mid to large venue. Therefore the best music systems are the ones which manage to tread the fine balance between scaling down the overall sound to fit the room perfectly, while keeping the timbres, textures and overall balance believable.

Songstream also makes a great point about the midrange getting less attention when describing differences between components/systems, and is spot on that this is the most crucial area which has to be right before we can possibly hear a system as natural sounding or truly musical. It is the key to forgetting about hifi artifacts and just being able to enjoy the music itself.

DC71 posted:

 

The other aspect to this is that a lot of music I like which I have found unlistenable on some super detailed hifi systems and even with some iterations of my system, is now not only listenable but really enjoyable. I feel like many audiophiles are prepared to trade off the ability to listen to their whole music collection in favour of extracting the maximum detail from r'elatively few well recorded albums. I can no longer tolerate a system that gives me hifi detail above musical engagement, or that makes half my favourite music unlistenable.

Interestingly I have not felt that badly recorded music sounds worse per se, on a music replay system as the system clarity improves, rather it doesn't sound better, unlike better recorded music, the sound of which does improve - so it sounds worse by comparison. This is just the impression I have, and I haven’t tried making direct comparisons of deliberately chosen poor recordings.  Certainly I can still listen to the poorly recorded music I have, after all if the music itself is good enough to be worth listening to it is still possible to listen and enjoy it on almost anything (though of course more enjoyable the better it sounds) - but it can be a shock when it starts playing, though it is a simple mental adjustment to accept ‘oh yes, this was a bad recording’, ignore the shortcomings and listen.

DC71 posted:

Pigeon_Fancier posted:

I still vote for detail and separation. Conceding that some of my music collection is as a result less enjoyable, I’d counter that my tastes are changing and the recording quality and presentation to some non-trivial degree inform what music I like. 

I believe you can have both detail & separation as well as musical engagement, but it needs the speaker-room interaction to be benign. Bass modes, slap echo and sidewall reflections can all muddle or harden up otherwise great sounding music.

What many people perceive as extra detail, I hear as accentuated high and mid-high frequencies and is not natural. The problem is that most rooms in homes are not conducive to hearing the kind of warmth, bass power and dynamic impact that we associate with live music in a mid to large venue. Therefore the best music systems are the ones which manage to tread the fine balance between scaling down the overall sound to fit the room perfectly, while keeping the timbres, textures and overall balance believable.

Songstream also makes a great point about the midrange getting less attention when describing differences between components/systems, and is spot on that this is the most crucial area which has to be right before we can possibly hear a system as natural sounding or truly musical. It is the key to forgetting about hifi artifacts and just being able to enjoy the music itself.

To me, naturalness is important, to achieve which it all has to be there, with nothing over-emphasised. So, yes, midrange needs to be right - but the rest must also be there, and in balance, so, as an eacample, emphasis of upper bass to compensate for missing bottom end is a turn off, though some people seem to be happy with it, or even prefer it.

I also think there is a lot of mention of mids but is usually associated with naturalness and reality of voices both male and female... a good system will naturally convey a voice without drawing attention to unnatural rich bass resonances, overly nasal qualities or unnatral sibilence which our ears very attuned too. A so called detailed system that draws attention to sibilence in my book is clearly broken.

Interesting stuff everyone, thanks for sharing.  I agree with Innocent Bystander on bad recordings, rarely have I found that they sound worse as the system improves at delivering really nice recordings, quite the opposite most the of the time.  Saying that, I played the track Mystify by INXS a few weeks ago, and I'd probably not heard it in...that's a scary thought.....well, a lot of years, anyway my system absolutely murdered it.  It was horrible.  Luckily, this is not typical, I think it's just a shockingly bad recording that might have sounded OK on a car stereo or whatever back in the day, but certainly that wasn't voiced for Naim. 

Going back to detail for a moment.  I would say the biggest win for me on extracting more detail from music, in the way that I like and believe to be important, came when I moved to my current Kudos X3 speakers.  What sold them to me almost instantly was the detail in the midrange, so things like backing vocals being beautifully defined, but just everything too in the real guts of the mid-range is so layered and defined, yet without being, and I really want to stress this, in any way lean.  It's amazing, and I don't know anything about how it's done.  To my eyes they're still two similar looking drive units, bolted in to a similar shaped wooden box, but they couldn't be more different and indeed capable than the speakers they replaced, which themselves were in exactly the same price bracket.  Interestingly for me, and although they have a couple of fans here, they don't seem to win the hearts of that many people.  I wonder if this is because deeper and tighter bass, and beautiful crisp highs are not really the stand out feature.  I have no issue with their performance at the frequency extremes, I really like the bass performance which is much less dominating than other speakers I've heard and owned, and the highs very easy on the ear, but I doubt I would have bought them if those were the qualities I was most focused on. 

When it comes to what amount of detail sounds right, I imagine something like an audio Turing Test. Not in the sense of a system sounding indistinguishable from real, live music, but more in the sense of its ability to create a beautiful, believable illusion.

For me, this means just enough detail to allow, when I choose, to follow individual instruments or musical threads within a mix, but not much more. My main complaint about most of the extremely expensive, hyper-detailed systems I’ve heard is their lack of musical cohesiveness. There’s a point for me at which excessive detail is more of an artificial distraction from, rather than an aid to, the enjoyment of music.

Innocent Bystander posted:

DC71 posted:

Pigeon_Fancier posted:

I still vote for detail and separation. Conceding that some of my music collection is as a result less enjoyable, I’d counter that my tastes are changing and the recording quality and presentation to some non-trivial degree inform what music I like. 

I believe you can have both detail & separation as well as musical engagement, but it needs the speaker-room interaction to be benign. Bass modes, slap echo and sidewall reflections can all muddle or harden up otherwise great sounding music.

What many people perceive as extra detail, I hear as accentuated high and mid-high frequencies and is not natural. The problem is that most rooms in homes are not conducive to hearing the kind of warmth, bass power and dynamic impact that we associate with live music in a mid to large venue. Therefore the best music systems are the ones which manage to tread the fine balance between scaling down the overall sound to fit the room perfectly, while keeping the timbres, textures and overall balance believable.

Songstream also makes a great point about the midrange getting less attention when describing differences between components/systems, and is spot on that this is the most crucial area which has to be right before we can possibly hear a system as natural sounding or truly musical. It is the key to forgetting about hifi artifacts and just being able to enjoy the music itself.

To me, naturalness is important, to achieve which it all has to be there, with nothing over-emphasised. So, yes, midrange needs to be right - but the rest must also be there, and in balance, so, as an eacample, emphasis of upper bass to compensate for missing bottom end is a turn off, though some people seem to be happy with it, or even prefer it.

okay than, Naim is not for you because Naim sound signature is anything but natural

I personally very much agree with what Hook commented.  I've often said, including around here before now, that i would trade detail, to a degree, for a natural and believable sound that allows me to get lost in the music.  It's why detail and musical cohesiveness should have trouble coexisting that gets me.  On the one hand I think more detail is great, but I suppose its the relationship between detail and leanness I am a bit puzzled by, as to some degree, at least with sources, they seem to go hand in hand a lot of the time.  

When I originally bought the DAC-V1 I had a Cyrus 8vs, and while it was more than capable of revealing the extra detail, and more stable imaging the V1 brought to the system, that combination was too lean and dare I say airy.  What the SN2 brought the show wasn't necessarily any new detail, although to be fair it's hard to remember now, but I do remember the sense of absolute solidity to the stereo imaging, increased impact and slam when required, and a sense of vastly superior control over everything.  I still think that the two components work very well together, considering many would probably consider a DAC-V1 mated with an SN2 a bit mullet, or maybe a lot mullet, and I while don't doubt the source could be bettered ultimately, it ain't bad for the money.  In fact, based on some other combinations I've heard (just generally, not specifically Naim or anything), it ain't bad at twice the money, if judging on a balance between believable performance and detail on offer.  

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Hi Ali, interesting, the Hugo1 is not at all bright in my system.. but I use Naim hiline interconnects, and ground my 552 through my CDX2, and feed the SPDIF from the galvanically isolated NDX which might all be something to do with it.

i think it’s bourses for courses and system synergy... what I did notice was the starting realism as well natural presentation with no notable highlighting from the Hugo that I really appreciated  when I got my 552DR... with the 252DR the Hugo sounded natural, and I could listen in, but i didn’t quite get that sense of realism I have with the 552.

I think the natural and full presentation with no exaggerated extremes is its endearing quality.

Now where DAVE would score more is if I listened extensively to hidef, where the larger filter kernel sizes over the Hugo would benefit... I have discussed this with Mr Watts.. but as I listen mostly to ripped CDs, the Hugo1 kernel size is upretty much on the money for me. Increasing the kernel size and controlling the additional resultant  EMI and ground plane modulation is a big part what you are paying for with DAVE.

I was thinking about this.

One way to increase realism is through source improvements, or preamp improvements, or speaker improvements, but  for me, one of the most compelling one,  actually was what Touraj of Vertere said (on his website) - the cables ruin the signal the most.

And on a 202/200 system, with the Chord Mojo and the entry level Vertere DFI interconnects (and I have repeated this on entry level Yamaha Home theatre amp, and my car) - the DFI interconnect gave huge gains in terms of realism and "live" in the room effect.

I've had some of the best musical enjoyment in my car with the humble Mojo and the Vertere interconnect...... I can certainly understand why Naim chose the Superlumina cable design based  somewhat on what Vertere did in terms of multi-conductor of different diameters (Certainly vertere cables were released before Superlumina) - as the gains in realism, while keeping the dynamic energy of the music and bandwidth are superb.

to my ears, there's not much point buying a hi-end source without having an interconnect of that caliber/ability.

Both work together - Naim certainly believe this as they sold the CD555 with a Hi-line and provide their own DIN interconnect otherwise.

While the Hi-line is still very good, the Superlumina is in a completely different league.... 

I haven't seen this level of knowledge in cable manufacturing or performance from other hi-fi manufacturers....?

As a distinct difference of Detail or Musicality to any other preference whatever, as long as it's done right and thought through properly it shouldn't really make one better than any other.

Much like the visual differences between a Cezanne painting.

With a flattening of perspectives and detail rounded up with broad brush strokes.

To a Vermeer painting.

With precisely defined perspectives, tones and detailing.

Both are marvellous, because they have been rightly executed.

TOBYJUG posted:

As a distinct difference of Detail or Musicality to any other preference whatever, as long as it's done right and thought through properly it shouldn't really make one better than any other.

Much like the visual differences between a Cezanne painting.

With a flattening of perspectives and detail rounded up with broad brush strokes.

To a Vermeer painting.

With precisely defined perspectives, tones and detailing.

Both are marvellous, because they have been rightly executed.

 

Now, visual art does nothing for me, but I do see a parallel: sometimes people taliking about paintings discuss the brushstrokes, and sometimes people talking about recorded music discuss how they can hear the rasp of the bow hairs drawing on the string (etc) - to me, that is a distraction: just as in a painting I want to see an image, and in photographs I can’t stand soft focus, in recordings I want to hear the music, not how the artist makes it. I want the detail to let me hear all the notes or layers in the way the composer/performer intended them, not a blur, but ideally also not hear incidental noises. Now, incidental noises of course are imevitable as upinstriments are played and musicians are living people in a real environment, but if the portrayal in front of the listener is sufficiently clear it actually becomes easier to ignore the incidental noises and hear the music.

Mmm.  True.

TOBYJUG posted:

As a distinct difference of Detail or Musicality to any other preference whatever, as long as it's done right and thought through properly it shouldn't really make one better than any other.

Much like the visual differences between a Cezanne painting.

With a flattening of perspectives and detail rounded up with broad brush strokes.

To a Vermeer painting.

With precisely defined perspectives, tones and detailing.

Both are marvellous, because they have been rightly executed.

 

But, but, but, (I'm Dutch) put Cezanne next to a Van Gogh and the execution appears not to be so magic anymore. To Vermeer, this can't be done, there simply is no better.

Detail is obviously a good thing, but how confident can we be that the detail is real and not ficticious detail, digitally created.

 Below are two images of the same scene, one is as the camera sensor recorded the image. (or very close to it) The other contains a huge amount of digitally created fake detail.

I own a TV that apparently has a database containing information of how thousands of things look like. When the processor identifies one of these things, it retrieves the relevant info from the database and displays an image based on the database. Fake detail.

 So, how hard would it be to create a DAC, (particularly one with huge processing power), that could create fake detail. Identify classical music, identify violin, retreave Stadivarius sound profile from database and Bobs your uncle.

analogmusic posted:

 I can certainly understand why Naim chose the Superlumina cable design based  somewhat on what Vertere did in terms of multi-conductor of different diameters (Certainly vertere cables were released before Superlumina) - as the gains in realism, while keeping the dynamic energy of the music and bandwidth are superb.

 

But Vertere copied the multicore of different size cross section from Kimber cables (Russ Andrews). I’ve been using Kimber PBJ interconnects for about 25 years.

And it has Fluorocarbon dialectric insulation. Sound familiar.

fatcat posted:

Detail is obviously a good thing, but how confident can we be that the detail is real and not ficticious detail, digitally created.

 Below are two images of the same scene, one is as the camera sensor recorded the image. (or very close to it) The other contains a huge amount of digitally created fake detail.

 

 

 

I own a TV that apparently has a database containing information of how thousands of things look like. When the processor identifies one of these things, it retrieves the relevant info from the database and displays an image based on the database. Fake detail.

 So, how hard would it be to create a DAC, (particularly one with huge processing power), that could create fake detail. Identify classical music, identify violin, retreave Stadivarius sound profile from database and Bobs your uncle.

 

If you were to be confined to the padded cell for the rest of life, with no other reminder of the outside world, which of the two pictures would you take with you folks?  If you're viewing this on a 'smart' device like Fatcat's TV, don't even bother thinking about it, it's probably messed both of them up anyway. 

If it was a very, very , very smart TV, it would convert the fake image back to the original.

I tried from all the different options of the Chord DAC at Bristol HiFi, I was not impressed maybe because my ears were shot from experiencing  all those past deafening rock gigs.  However I did audition the AVI  DM 10 active system and my heart sang as my old ears did detect a lovely treble, more detail than my present system, a large and deep soundstage, and timing on a sixpence.  Detail or musicality or why not both together.  One HiFi dealer simply said its all about whether the customer likes the 'delivery of music'.  Who cares if the tones are accurate, whether the sound is believable or not, some systems create sibilance in voices, I never heard sibilance from live music?  I think at the  end of the day its about pleasure and comfort of listening.  If the system makes you want to listen all over again your vast music collection, that for me is a very good sign

TOBYJUG posted:

As a distinct difference of Detail or Musicality to any other preference whatever, as long as it's done right and thought through properly it shouldn't really make one better than any other.

Much like the visual differences between a Cezanne painting.

With a flattening of perspectives and detail rounded up with broad brush strokes.

To a Vermeer painting.

With precisely defined perspectives, tones and detailing.

Both are marvellous, because they have been rightly executed.

 

Great thread! Thank you, Songstream. Is Chord vs Naim dacs the new Linn vs Naim CD-player. That would be Cool. 

Ps

I am a Norwegian Munch-man myself. Broad brush but loads of emotions: the guy in the front is perhaps thinking about if he should go for Naim or Chord...