If you have a minute of time and a bit of patience I will tell you a story and at the end I'll ask also your opinion.
At Munich Hi End 2014 or 2015 I listen to a vynil played by a a huge Horn system (I don't remember If Acapella, Cessaro or Avantgarde). I loved that short piece of Music, sung by a tenor acompanied, I thought by Tympani or Grancassa, Percussions and a Choir. Only when I listened to the same piece played on Magico M7 plus CH Precision electronics (the same system assembled for this 2016 HiEnd) I realized that it was the great young Josè Carreras. This should be, for me and per se, a demostration that horn system was so coloroured that I couldn't have identified the voice of one of my favorite singers (I have at least 30 complete operas featuring Carreras). But, please, let's ignore this point and let's go on with my story. So last May 2015, once at home I made an internet research and I discovered the piece was the Kyrie, the incipit (the begin) of Misa Criolla by Ramirez. So I ordered the Decca CD (recorded in 1987) and I ripped it. Once I listened it on my home system I had a start and jumped on the chair: the Carreras voice was clear and wonderfully natural as usual on my system, but the Choir was smallest than I have heard in Munich and above all, the greatest difference concerned the percussions: no, it wasn't a Tympani or a Grancassa, it was a smallest drum...its sound reminded to me a drum once I heard in a concert given by a folk-pop group insiede a church near my house. Ok, I thought, the Magico system has much more bass extension than my Magneplanar 3.7 II, and this explains what a difference in percussions sound....
This year in Munich 2016 I heard once again that piece, played at least in 2 or 3 different rooms, every time played on a turntable ... Carreras sung "Senor ten piedad de nosotros" acompanied by the Choir and those enourmous percussions....
Once at home few days ago I was on YouTube looking for a Claudio Abbado in Lucerne video and...surprise!! I found the original video of Carreras who sung Kyrie of Misa Criolla, I suppose the video of the same recording session, as it used to be done in '80ies by Philips, Decca and DG which put in commerce at the same time CD and Video of the same recording session.
In any case....surprise!! All the percussions in that video are two drums, no Tympani or Grancassa, but the same type of drums I had heard in that church near my house!
So here is my own recent experience with two question for everyone who knows this piece: 1) Is the vynil "audiophile version" modified in order to increase the bass extension of percussions? 2) Or all those systems "bettered" the drums made them huge Tympani? Because, at the end of the game, my Magneplanar let me hear the original sound of the drums recorded .....
So please, can you help me to explain this matter?
Accuracy vs pleasing. I am with you Simone
There are been, in High End AUdio circles, a steady rise of the "whatever pleases you" movement and frankly it is a sensible strategy for the manufacturers, . They can continue to raise their prices churning things that please their customers. This has been accompanied by , IMO, a deviation from fidelity to the signal.
Obfuscation is the norm when it comes to discussions about accuracy, to fidelity to the source, the latest retorts are centered around the fact that since it is very difficult to impossible to achieve, we might as well embrace Pleasing ... Bose anyone?
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