Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

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Simply because…

Posted by David Aiken (A) on April 5, 2005 at 19:14:21

In Reply to: Why not? posted by Mark Kelly on April 5, 2005 at 15:43:04:

a musician playing an instrument has control over the sound produced on a note by note basis. While the resonances of the particular instrument are to some extent pre-determined, the player still has considerable latitude for tonal control which they use as one of the factors in creating their particular interpretation of whatever piece they're playing, and it's that interpretation that we're interested in hearing - otherwise we'd buy a different record.

In an audio system, the listener has no comparable control over the sound produced in the way in which a performer exercises control over instrumental tone. Resonant material in a system simply resonates and adds its own particular signature to the sound of the performer on the recording. Not only that, but everything that is played gets coloured with the same particular signature, regardless of whether that colouration is appropriate to the music or not. It's like looking at a scene through a pink or yellow filter - everything gets the same amount of shift in a particular direction. It can be quite attractive for some things but not for others, but you can't pick and choose where it gets applied, or how strongly.

If you're really interested in hearing something as close as possible to what the performer actually played, you'll go for whatever gives the least colouration. On the other hand, some people like some added warmth in their sound and go for things that add colouration via resonance. It's a personal choice but there's no doubt that resonances, tuned or not, change the tonal characteristics of the music that the performer worked so hard to achieve.

I think people listen to music in different ways but one difference that I think is critical is whether or not the listener thinks that there is some 'ideal' version of a particular musical work or whether they believe that there is no 'ideal' version and that what makes a particular performance intersting and unique are the choices, including tonal choices, that the performers made when they played the piece. People who fall into the first group, with strong ideas of how a particular piece of music 'should' sound may be more tolerant of adding colourations that bring the recorded sound closer to how they feel it should sound. People who fall into the second group will tend to try and remove colourations as much as possible so that they can more clearly hear how the performers actually played the piece at the time of the recording.

I don't think there's anything wrong with either approach to listening to music, and there's large numbers of people who appear to me to fall into each of those 2 groups. I fall very strongly into the second group, but that's my preference.

David Aiken

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