Texture

Describe what you mean in plain English, then. What do you mean?

 

naah salty popcorn with lashings of fake 'butter' is the best of the 2 however for the absolute best go for fiddle faddle pecan - like high quality butterkist with nuts mmmmmm. totally forbidden for me now . i'll just have to eat some meat while iwatch it all go off.

 

Why is it impossible to have a debate here free of people rubbing their online hands with glee?

 

Texture James, can't make it simpler than that, sorry!!

I find describing sound like explaining the colourorange to a blindman.

When I get my new speakers you can come over and I'll demonstrate.

PS let them eat popcorn, if it amuses them, I'm not getting into a slanging match, lifes too short.

 

OK thanks for trying. So, if you can't understand 'texture' well enough to provide a description, then how is anyone else going to understand it?

 

I like your first sentence and began to think how to reply. Your second sentence just made me smile, a lot, and I cant think straight to make that reply.

... actually, I am not merely using the term texture as proxy for realism. I prefer to use other terms for that. I want to use texture in an aesthetic sense, to describe the dimensionality of the music. I know I have that with some (live) performers and want to have that with recordings of (live & dead) performers via LPs/CDs and my hifi set-up. When the performer has it, and the recording and my hifi lets me have it, then I want to give it a tick in the box!

... what's the address for them white coat fellas anyway, just in case you are right.

 

dunno, thats their problem, those that ear it seem to understand fine. Bit like PR&T bit hard trying to describe what it is, but if you have heard it, the metaphor seems to fit, seriously please come over and I'll demonstrate, you won't have to endure the expressions, I'll let you know when I get my new speakers whcih will be more to your liking.

 

Rubbish.

 

PS Ditton has it about as right as words can describe, in the absence of actually hearing the effect.

 

most hifi words are bollocks at the crux of them really.

we should stick to stuff like ''has more bass'' or "is louder" etc !!

can't go far wrong!!

 

glad you said that.

Personally, I look to music for different things at different times, depending on my mood and who I'm with. When I'm with other hifi buffs, I'm obviously more conscious of the hifi than when I'm not (generally speaking). But sometimes, its the timing, as in driving Chicago blues, that is more important - and this is true in Chicago when listening to live blues as it is in Edinburgh when listening to recordings. I also enjoy other aspects, and texture is clearly one.

Ever since I had Ncode (which is the propriety encoding of the digital signal used by AudioSynthesis) I've been able to detect in in recorded music reproduction that sense of texture I enjoy. I also did so through the Croft Vitale SC pre-amp - it gave that edge to strings that excited.

We may be looking for different things in music, and in our hifi, so we report things differently. That's not surprising, especially since we (meaning all of us here) mostly listen to different music through different set-ups and [in] different moods.

So, bake-offs may be more than just competition between toys and tweaks. They may be opportunities for [us] to calibrate language.

Analogy, metaphor and simile are all valuable when trying to describe something we do not really understand.

[edits]

 

Anyway...
What does the word 'Timbre' mean in musical reproduction parlance?

 

Wooden

 

Alan, that's for the timbre. Not really a term I have command over, so I reached for the Google:

"The perception of timbre allows us to differentiate among sounds of similar loudness and pitch.** An analogy to colour is often used to describe the different sensations of timbre with characterisations such as "dark" or "light" being used. Another tactile analogy is common with terms like "rough" or "smooth".*

Important physical correlates of timbre include:* spectrum*** transients*** phase*** envelope*"

Another, noted that the way instruments differ, even when at the same pitch and loudness, is down to 'timbre'. That's important in live music and it would be disappointing, to use English-understatement, if it was not apparent in reproduction of recorded music.

Given your ear (which I think is more refined that mine - its certainly younger), has different hifi allowed you to discern timbre differently?

 

AK/Merlin, no need to leave the party, but suggest that you both avoid the same punch bowl.

That said, I'm off for a snooze.

 

Most probably! I wouldn't go getting people to rub things around the room with my eyes shut otherwise!

Even so I stick by my statement. If you can't hear what type of texture a surface has by the sound it makes, I don't know why you are bothering with expensive hi-fi! Its actually quite a good practice for training your ears. Saying that, have you had your hearing tested?

It may all sound like rubbing, but its the micro-detail in the sound that lets you know just what it is. It's the same very low level detail that I attribute to the term texture. When you can hear if the guitarists fingers were dry or moist, or what thickness of plectrum they were using... thats texture! Or do you other people who know what texture is think otherwise?

 

Let's try a different tack. Can words have texture? can the written/printed word have texture. I think so.

Aesthetics is the appreciation of beauty, and we seek that in music and in poetry/prose. Texture is a term for a quality in that which we seek. Fortunately we do not quibble with 'recorded' words, at least in their written form. When they are spoken words, the speaker can also add texture - but then we are back to the 'live' and hifi reproduction debate.

I guess the moot point is whether hifi gear can add texture or just reveal it. I vote for the latter usage.

 

Can we stop the backbiting, avoid the personal, and stay on topic please. Guys look at your posts again and see if you mightn't want to change anything.

It is interesting to discuss some of our preconceptions and even challenge the views of others, but to bring up arguments from other forums is not on. Let those arguments stay there please.


Ditton you are right, hifi should reveal musical texture, but it doesn't create it, I think we all need to remember that hi-fi is the medium not the message itself

 

So ... say I heard your speakers and said "good, but lacking that certain indefinable something", then you'd be OK with that?

Good move on ditching them, btw: no detail, clarity or dynamics. I hope the new ones are better.

 

That surely a contradiction in terms?

I'm on the sceptical side of the fence on this one. It's true that it can be difficult to describe sound, in the same way that it can be difficult to describe taste (hence the gibberish written by some wine writers, for example), but 'texture' does indeed seem to me to be meaningless in this context.