Why do different people like different styles of presentation?

Here's a query for you chaps.
Why is it that we do like different styles of presentation? Personally I have no idea, but I see plenty of it.
On a personal level I've seen the following very recently:
- A thread by myself about my NOS DAC outperforming a Meridian 203. Yet someone else prefers the Meridian approach
- A chap who likes a Naim 112/150 combo to a BC Evo2i. Yet I bought a 2i in preference to my old 82/hicap/200
The point is that neither side is wrong. If someone likes the 203 to a NOS, then good on him.

Quite clearly the issue is bigger than my examples above. MF don't design their kit to sound different to say Naim just for the hell of it. I assume it's because MF "like" the way their kit sounds, as do Naim. Again, neither side is wrong, because people actively chose to buy the kit in question.

I see from the latest issue of Hi-Fi plush, that the same is true of reviewers, with very few of them having similar kit, and therefore similar preferences. Which makes me wonder about whether every review should come with a comment of "and my own system includes blah blah", so you have an idea of the reviewers personal preference.

So this thread is NOT about which kit is better, as that simply isn't true. What I'm curious about is why they have different sonic preferences.

Any thoughts?

 

some would say that there can only be one 'correct' way for hi-fi to sound. i.e. that it accurately portrays what the arist / producer / mixer put onto the media. however as this is often compressed ****e a little 'rosy tint' or 'massaging' makes things sound better - some would argue it's not hi-fi though.
personally i enjoy the sound i have at home but also enjoy listening to friends hi-fi that shows the music from a slightly different angle - like walking round a sculpture to fully aprieciate it.
cheers


julian

 

you could apply the same argument to women...

 

Couldn't agree more.
So why do we have different preferences? That's the key question.
Clearly it's a good thing or there would be a seriously mad scramble for that particular blonde.

 

yeah, with HiFi - I guess it's down to the particular listener and the vast combinations of setups - some obviously sounding better than others too...

 

For me it's a 3D soundstage, with a warmish inviting sound but not at the expense of detail. I like to be able to isolate individual instruments in the mix, but appreciate them as part of the mix, if that makes sense.
Timbral accuracy is also important, as is vocal believability.
Finally, I like a sense of rhythm (PRAT)
For others, detail rules, and a neutral sound balance.
As has been said, nobody is right or wrong, though I accept that my preference is for some form of colouration.

 

Hi,

There are no conclusive answers. Some pointers....

First, recordings are by definition incomplete and severely imperfect representations of real music. Reproduction gear (especially speakers, but also Amplifiers, Soures and eve Cables) introduce further errors.

Second, by education, experience, strongly held convictions and believes and indeed physical and physiological differences in hearing individuals are sensitive to different degrees to different imperfections.

So what more less reliably "destroys" the illusion is a personal thing. Once you get past a certain basic level of performance you will find that certain imperfections stand out more to you and you seek to alleviate them.

So, if recording and reproduction where "perfect" in all ways (basically G*d's recording and playback system) we all would equally react to to this, what makes us react differently are the imperfections.

Ciao T

 

First of all, who are you to dictate what the definition of a perfect representation of music is !

Is the idea of a perfect recording, simply your opininon , or is it a matter of fact ?

 

Hi,

I do not dictate, I observe. Past that, who am I? I am god, a god that is.

A perfect recording is a concept in the same line as any other perfect item. It exists in the mind of G*d, what we make are imperfect reflections of that perfection. Reflections so to speak made via a mirror made from straw and mud, as Rumi so eleoquently puts it.

L8er T

 

It's just like food. Why do I prefer one dish to another? They may measure the same (temperature, weight, calories, etc.) but taste very different. It's a function of me and my learned response to the stimulii in the world around me, shaped by experience over my whole lifetime.

You could also say, "Why do I like the sound of one style of music more than another", or "Why do I like the colour orange more than green" or somesuch...

 

To say that you are god is an insult in itself, regardless of what your intentions were.
To discuss anything with anyone who persists in claiming black is white has little attraction to me.

 

it would be a pretty boring place if we did, wouldn't it?
i like cyrus. other people don't.
i also like other hifi. i could probably live with chris' system i heard on the wkend. maybe it was the amp, maybe that would slot into my system very nicely.
was saying this on the wkend. in some ways, the hifi we end up with at home might be partly influenced by our local dealers. a few years ago, i demoed cyrus along with other amps. i liked it. i've stuck with 'em. got lots of those little shoe boxes now. what if the local dealers didn't stock cyrus. would i have travelled far and wide to demo cyrus? possibly not. and so i would have found something else.

it might even have been atc.

 

There isn't much point, that person would get killed at the next zebra crossing

 

Having read a number of Johnnys posts, I do find it difficult to understand how he gets through the day. Why is everything so confrontational?
I saw no problem with the post from 3D sonics. Surely it is uncontroversial to attest that recordings are imperfect. This is not to suggest that the poster has some magical notion of what perfection is, or any desire to impose it on others.
I have to conclude that Johnny is a deeply unhappy individual, who can only communicate by attacking others.
Rather sad really.

 

Seems to me that "perfect" would be if what is contained in the recording is absolutely identical to what was played by the musicians.

Years ago I used to play regularly in orchestras, so in my head I have an image of what "real" sounds like. If what I get from my system matches that image then I am on the way to being happy. However, we actually know that even acoustic material was recorded in a room / hall and I don't know what that was really like. And if I am listening to rock, or other amplified instruments then the sound has been "treated". If the artist heard themselves through headphones then what they heard while playing was different (potentially) to what goes into a mike, or directly to a mixing desk.

So in the end, it's a subjective decision, sometimes known as a question of taste. All systems are compromises between many variables. Whatever "perfection" is, it can't be done, only aimed for. So it's down to whether your idea of "excellence" might be biassed towards really good bass, or incredible resolution of detail, or a feeling of warmth in the sound, or really good soundstage or............

And when you hit the bottom line, if you don't find that you are listening to the music, then imo the hifi is in the way. My goal is a hifi that I can forget about - where nothing interferes with my (feeling like I'm) getting the experience that the artist was trying to lay down. I don't feel like I am missing things, and I don't feel I am getting stuff that shouldn't be there, it feels as if it's as it was meant to be.

Jon

 

Hi,

Funny. To cite thebible on the sayings of jesus is an insult? Well, whatever....

Absolutely, you may have noticed that for that exact reason (namely that you have so many times claimed and presented things patently and provenly untrue as fact) I have long stopped to discuss anything with you. You might notice that most others, even the most friendly inclined have been taking the same line.

I have tried to extend you the benefit of doubt for a good long while and attempted dialogue when others privatly mailed me suggesting I was wasting my time. I had to sadly note they where right.

L8er T

 

Well, if and when we meet, then we will be able to discuss things in a more formal way.

So let me know when you are free to meet.

 

Hi,

Sorry, I have really no longer interrest.

L8er T

 

Is Jonny the white rabbit?

 

The state of one's hearing should be taken into account as well methinks. My Dad after the best part of three decades in the army, very clearly doesn't have the upper hearing register that someone who hadn't spent years around firing ranges would. What is bright and a bit forward for me is pleasingly insightful to him .