WHY are high-efficiency speakers are better at conveying emotion of music vs. audiophile vocabulary?
- Thread starter caesar
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I answered your question in post 320 of yours. You said prove my statement in post 277. I said I can not, just as no one can prove a high efficiency speaker yields more enjoyment per the title of this thread.
But I still remain confident that a low distortion system allows one to listen longer without fatigue. I would argue that is a good metric for enjoyment. Both system topology do as such.
What is your point????? Do you disagree with my premise that efficiency has nothing to do with enjoyment?. Or were you just spouting off.
I don’t think this thread asks about enjoyment. It asks about conveying the emotion of music. What do we mean by the emotion of music? Is it the emotion of the listener resulting from hearing the music? Or is it the emotion embedded in the music by the composer and then interpreted by the performer? Is it the intent of those who bring you the music?
If it is the latter, I would argue a system that presents the most information as uncorrupted as possible, is the one that is more successful at conveying the emotion of the music. And if this is the case, we must ask ourselves what types of systems are able to present the most amount of uncorrupted information captured by the recording.
If it is the latter, I would argue a system that presents the most information as uncorrupted as possible, is the one that is more successful at conveying the emotion of the music. And if this is the case, we must ask ourselves what types of systems are able to present the most amount of uncorrupted information captured by the recording.
I am conjoining Emotion and Enjoyment by incidentally using either word. Hyper focusing on a singe word is deflection from the overall topic. The topic being, does a high sensitive speaker bring higher emotional engagement or enjoyment during listening.
You first paragraph is on spot, but you misinterpret what you wrote. Read it again. In all instances you are saying, the music and the performance are capturing your attention. I agree. Last night I was watching a Netflix on Led Zeppelin. During the full takes of them as young men playing in clubs on albums 1 and 2, I was into it. I was amped up and into the music. I am watching this on my laptop on the sofa. The music, the performers and the interpretation at a live performance hooked me. My laptop speakers were obviously not benefitting the performance. I literally clapped and said Heck yea at the end of some of the clips.
Your second paragraph is total speculation and based upon nothing but a personal opinion that I believe is wrong. Especially when we are now talking about playback systems that cost over $100,000 and up to 1,000,000. If you think your going to tell me someone's 1,00,000 stereo, playing DIGITAL files is less apt to bring emotional enjoyment than someone else's SET and horn or single driver or whatever. No. I don't buy it. I'm glad you like what you like. And like I said earlier, I gravitate more to what you like than other types of systems. But I don't in any way think you are onto a better path than the guy that has Wilsons or Magico or some other difficult to drive speaker powering it with their Gryphon, Dartzeel, Boulder, D'Agostino etc amp.
And didn't you pen multiple paragraph how this isn't about you and Natural Sound and that you never said Natural Sound was superior to other topology. Yet paragraph 2 seems to say exactly that. You extoled your natural sound topology and claim it brings the highest level of enjoyment by its design.
That is untrue and confirms my assessment.
I've not said squeak about efficient speakers and enjoyment or otherwise. You seem to think I have. You are not reading what I wrote.
You did not answer my question and I never asked you to prove anything. Here was my question to you after your negative "maybe this maybe that" rant:
At this point, it is best to drop this. You appear to take every response within the narrow focus of whatever is on your mind at the moment instead of what is written to you. That is not dialog. There's no point in further engaging.
A qualitative comparison of being in the concert hall for a poor performance versus being in your audio room listening to a top notch performance. I think I understand this perspective. The 'virtues' brought by stereophony are not or not always found in the concert hall even if the listening room is but a shadow of a live visceral performance with real musicians in a real space. We do get pleasure from our systems.
The problem with this thread is Caesar inserted the word emotion, which makes any debate pointless. The question is not asking what is better.
Are women as emotional about overweight men as they are about fit men? Of course. As many of you would know, you have wives, daughters, mothers, emotional about you.
However, this is quite a different question from asking, Is it better to be overweight than fit? The answer is a resounding no.
Choose wisely - it is tougher to be fit than overweight, and building a good efficient system is tougher (takes more research) than buying a system on your doorstep (it is on your doorstep because it has a high margin, intended to make you see it and stop you from looking further).
you can then be emotional about whatever you buy, chances of it sounding like you wanted are 1%, so emotions will be plenty.
And as the videos you try out will not represent how good you wanted it to sound when you bought it, you can get emotional on that topic too.
Are women as emotional about overweight men as they are about fit men? Of course. As many of you would know, you have wives, daughters, mothers, emotional about you.
However, this is quite a different question from asking, Is it better to be overweight than fit? The answer is a resounding no.
Choose wisely - it is tougher to be fit than overweight, and building a good efficient system is tougher (takes more research) than buying a system on your doorstep (it is on your doorstep because it has a high margin, intended to make you see it and stop you from looking further).
you can then be emotional about whatever you buy, chances of it sounding like you wanted are 1%, so emotions will be plenty.
And as the videos you try out will not represent how good you wanted it to sound when you bought it, you can get emotional on that topic too.
The only way, by listening. I answered that question for myself when I directly compared a suite of Lamm electronics to Pass electronics. One clearly presented more information from the same recordings with less corruption. The Lamm conveyed more emotion of the music.
This was not my emotion, but the emotion of the performers. There was more insight to the performance because it presented more information in terms of nuance and dynamics and this was increased further when I replaced the Magico speakers with the corner horns.
You are funny! You are a walking contradiction. You are ok using audiophile vocabulary when it suits you, yet feel the need to criticize anyone else who does.
But to get back to my question - your Lamm amplifier with your current speakers could offer more resolution and less distortion than your previous system, but still be very far from offering an unadulterated picture of the recording. Also on some aspects it may actually perform worse, which is why some people who may share the same objectives as you could end up preferring the Magico system (and some do).
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Hey only one person has a truly disappearing system
Maybe Caesar is actually Ron or Steve trying to keep the forum active?
The connection was summarized in a simple sentence in a known book:
We can't ignore the system - we need a good one. And the audiophile language is needed to address it. The sonic cues, as you say, need a proper language to be discussed. Other wise all we say is that our goosebumps and tears are more intense than those of another audiophile.
Enjoyment is the general term used to refer to the objective of sound reproduction. But surely people listen differently - e.g. emotionally or intellectually - is a common subject of music magazines.
Audio debates have used both terms (emotion and enjoyment) indifferently, but surely high-end marketing prefers "emotion" - it sells better, although most people simply look for enjoyment.
Are you suggesting that high efficiency speakers are better emotion carriers and less enjoyable?
Sorry, stereo needs corruption to be enjoyable. But I surely agree on "the most amount of information"
In the first century BC, Cicero explained that in any oral argument, the single most important task of the orator was/(is) to invoke emotion in those listening. Emotion was far more important than logic, factual summary, or even truth.
When asked which was more important, the content of the argument or the delivery (performance) of the argument, he unequivocally argued in favor of the delivery.
These ideas associated with effective persuasion via auditory interaction seem very relevant to both the high performance stereo hobby, and the stereo “what’s best” argument hobby.
When asked which was more important, the content of the argument or the delivery (performance) of the argument, he unequivocally argued in favor of the delivery.
These ideas associated with effective persuasion via auditory interaction seem very relevant to both the high performance stereo hobby, and the stereo “what’s best” argument hobby.
Enjoyment is the general term used to refer to the objective of sound reproduction. But surely people listen differently - e.g. emotionally or intellectually - is a common subject of music magazines.
Audio debates have used both terms (emotion and enjoyment) indifferently, but surely high-end marketing prefers "emotion" - it sells better, although most people simply look for enjoyment.
Are you suggesting that high efficiency speakers are better emotion carriers and less enjoyable?
Sorry, stereo needs corruption to be enjoyable. But I surely agree on "the most amount of information"
You and others keep assuming what Caesar means by the emotion of music. He did not write the emotion of listener. I am going by the very title of this thread. To me, it is an open question and the uncertainty is creating arguments between the posters. I do think emotion of music is very different from enjoyment. He did not write enjoyment. Surely words have meanings.
My music mentor in Vienna told me a great story about what various conductors have told him over the years. He told me that the genius of the music is in the composer’s mind and is corrupted the moment he puts his thoughts down on paper. Those thoughts are further corrupted by the conductor who interprets the markings on the paper. The original thoughts are further corrupted when the musicians interpret the movements of the conductor and they perform accordingly. The passage of time and interpretation corrupt the original work.
To me, the emotion of the music is what is created by the composer, the conductor, the musician. The emotion of the listener is the result of what he hears from the performance and whatever else his mind brings to it.
It would be nice for Caesar to clarify this point, which I think is critical to furthering the discussion of a very interesting topic. I’m not aware of books where this is discussed.
The emotion of the music is in the eye (ear) of the beholder. The composer did not write a manual how composed emotion needs to objectively and optimally be represented upon either performance or reproduction. Nor did any performer write a manual how performed emotion needs to objectively and optimally be represented upon reproduction.
Every system corrupts to some extent. It is up to the individual listener to choose which system brings him or her closer to the perceived emotion of the music.
Some choose high-efficiency speakers with what they perceive as appropriate amplification, some choose other types of speakers also with what they perceive as appropriate amplification.
...corrupt is such a loaded word. If a composer doesn't commit the internal music to paper, I believe it's called a thought. If a composer doesn't want work to be interpreted, why put it to paper, since interpreting and performing are all we have...until the Vulcan mind-meld is perfected beyond cinematic depiction.
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