Why colored music is preferred over neutral / natural sound

[Thad E Ginathom]

Should I do the speaker-buying thing again, I am going to look for something that is fairly modest in its bass output, but has a powerful tweeter. Never mind the room: my ears need correction! I'd love to get a "flat" sound when it arrives at the brain cells, but such a sound arriving at my ear drums will be severely diminished by the time it gets inside the head.

Before all this hearing-loss stuff, I progressed from liking a warm sound (because I grew up with a boomy radiogram playing 78s?) to taking an interest, and trying to better appreciate, flat sound. Yes, it can be a bit like learning to drink your tea without sugar, if you have always drunk it with, but it seemed to me that truer flavours of tea emerged.

Fidelity is truth. High fidelity is a flat sound. On the other hand, warmth gives, well, warmth.

If there is a theoretical answer to this (within 100 pages ) my suggestion is...

Give us neutral-sounding equipment ...with tone controls

 

[hemantwaghe]

What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

Morpheus in Metrix

 

[hemantwaghe]

Jessep ( Jack Nicholson) : You want answers?
Kaffee ( Tom Cruize): I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns


A few good men

 

[Nikhil]

It's hard to know what is neutral. In the last couple of months I've had the chance to hear some amazing setups and each has been great but different. The differences are due to each setup's unique combination of various individual components. I think we all understand that. It all gets complicated once we encounter others opinions of the same sound that we hear. That's where things start to diverge. Understanding this goes a long way when getting into a discussion like this.

I liked the analogy to our sense of smell. It's just a fact that we like things to smell good. There is bad smell which we all know and avoid. That is clear. However when it comes to a good smell - which perfume do you like to use? I haven't changed my perfume in almost 20 years (Fahrenheit by Dior if you're wondering). To me almost nothing has come along that is better. I have a feeling that if I had the resources to similarly tailor my music setup there's a good chance I might lock onto something that fits my senses similarly. I think that's reality.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

What is real? How do you define real?

I define real, in this context, as going to a concert. But still one has to live with the hall and the PR.

Otherwise, the best we can do is accurately reproduce the recording we have without changing it any more than the people up the chain already did.

 

[Santy]

If someone has never been to a live performance (unamplified) like me, I wonder if they can still enjoy music at home? But how would they know what is accurate?

 

[arj]

If someone has never been to a live performance (unamplified) like me, I wonder if they can still enjoy music at home? But how would they know what is accurate?

if you hear live Amplified Music, then what you enjoyed there was not the music but the ambience

Most of the folks who have used Live music as a reference are talking of Classical music ..especially in western countries where the Opera House/Concert Hall was accoustically designed to have No Amplification.

There too, the same music played in 2 different halls would sound different..but that feeling Of Music with its Harmonics can never be replicated in any music system.(I believe there are folks in this forum like Prem, Asit, Bhagwan, and more i guess who have had the occasion to hear the same in india too..)

Comparing Live Rock performance with a Hi Fi system , IMHO is just like comparing 2 different systems at very different decibel levels in different Accoustic environments

so all you can do (like 99% of us) listen to the sound which sounds the most natural and good to your ears..somthing which plays across all Genres you like and you can listen to for a long time. (less than 30 mins to test is usually a bad idea !)

 

[jls001]

Please listen to some of your favourite tracks on a neutral studio monitor, and decide if you like "neutral" sound. By "neutral", I refer to not adding anything to what is in the program material, and not taking away from the program material (within reasonable limits, of course).

My personal preference is for some amount of colouration. I would call it euphonic colouration. And I believe most home audio devices strive for some amount of euphonic colouration. A flat and neutral sound tends to be univolving (at least to my ears).

 

[Hari Iyer]

I also do not feel your observations are universal Mr Hari Iyer. I have striven to put together as neutral a system as I can given my real life experience. I also actually hate saturated colours on my projector (Sim2), which does a good job of being fairly neutral....and I even LIKE bland food

How do you identify whether the sound is colored or not? Can you elobrate on this. Also what do you mean by a neutral system. As per me a neutral sound is one where no part of the FR is dominating (read bass, mid & treble) and all the frequencies are in balance. Usually i have seen that most of us enjoy the music if there is more bass and treble and a little laid back mids. Is this something to do with our hearing sensation too where our ears are more tuned for mids than for lows and highs. Can measurements of speaker FR play trick so that a flat FR curve on a screen may not actually be flat to our ears as our ear response is already having a increased sensitivity at the mid-range. Does that mean for a neutral sounding speakers to our ears in the FR curve of the speaker, we need to reduce the mid-range by a certain level to make it neutral?

 

[arj]

How do you identify whether the sound is colored or not? Can you elobrate on this. Also what do you mean by a neutral system. As per me a neutral sound is one where no part of the FR is dominating (read bass, mid & treble) and all the frequencies are in balance. Usually i have seen that most of us enjoy the music if there is more bass and treble and a little laid back mids. Is this something to do with our hearing sensation too where our ears are more tuned for mids than for lows and highs. Can measurements of speaker FR play trick so that a flat FR curve on a screen may not actually be flat to our ears as our ear response is already having a increased sensitivity at the mid-range. Does that mean for a neutral sounding speakers to our ears in the FR curve of the speaker, we need to reduce the mid-range by a certain level to make it neutral?

Hari Iyer, the problem here is the reference..there are so many artifacts (like Boosted bass ) in the recording itself where a Neutral system will make it sound Boomy while a recessed/rolled off system may make it sound "Neutral"

the problem is most recordings today are "Cooked" to make it sound good on the Sony's and Ipod earbuds.. much like puttin Chillie on Good Risotto to make it palatable to those who like spicy food ! (May be a bad example)

the only neutral recordings are the "Audiophile Labels" some of which are also cooked to give an artificial souondstage

 

[Hari Iyer]

It's hard to know what is neutral. In the last couple of months I've had the chance to hear some amazing setups and each has been great but different. The differences are due to each setup's unique combination of various individual components. I think we all understand that. It all gets complicated once we encounter others opinions of the same sound that we hear. That's where things start to diverge. Understanding this goes a long way when getting into a discussion like this.

I liked the analogy to our sense of smell. It's just a fact that we like things to smell good. There is bad smell which we all know and avoid. That is clear. However when it comes to a good smell - which perfume do you like to use? I haven't changed my perfume in almost 20 years (Fahrenheit by Dior if you're wondering). To me almost nothing has come along that is better. I have a feeling that if I had the resources to similarly tailor my music setup there's a good chance I might lock onto something that fits my senses similarly. I think that's reality.

All our sensory objects (eyes, ears, nose, tongue) just pick up the senses and the processing happens in our brain. So do brain influence the way we perceive the senses. For instance when some one tells us that the food at a particular restaurant is bad and so in our sub-conscious mind we might believe that the food is bad before we even taste it. Can our mind too play tricks with our perceptions. Some companies (read Bose) use this sub-conscious hype and even are able to convince many buyers to influence their decision. Same about all our other senses. Do masses do their own study and judgement of what is good or bad before getting influenced by other decisions? Or do they find the whole exercise too boring and time consuming that they rely on someone else judgement. I have seen these happening everywhere be it a car, TV, Bike, Camera, Mobiles etc. etc. How does our brain process sub-conscious information?

 

[Hiten]

Coloration is preferred by any sense organ.

There is no point in trying to build a system with unwanted coloration in mind, for that any decent system will do. Achieving linearity in a system is 'the objective' because experienced amp/speaker/turntable/cd player designers know at speaker-room-listerner point things would change drastically. Since achieving live sound from electronics is impossible overcoming major hurdles is the priority of high fidelity. In recent Pass F6 amplifier design nelson pass referred to psychoacoustic research material on the subject of which distortions are preferable and which are not without affecting linearity of the amp he was making.

We do not like a coffee or tea if its natural. We wanted the addition of flavor and sweetness to be more acceptable to our tounge.

Some people are interested in 'tea making' to 'ingredients used' to 'different tastes' of well made tea.
Regards

 

[Santy]

I think that is why technologies like DSP probably exist. With technical limitations in sound recording, processing, amplification and sound generation in achieving 100% accurate sound coupled with environmental factors affecting the FR, it may be extremely difficult to get the purest sound as it was generated when instruments and artists were performing.

If you cannot get perfectly neutral sound from an audio system, then force it to sound neutral by calibrating it. I am referring to something which I have experienced. The Genelac monitors with DSP. They make good speakers sound better by reading how the signals react in the room before reaching our ears. Then the sound is adjusted such that the net FR is flat. Now I do not know if it qualifies as purist sound since it 'processed' but it must be certainly neutral & natural according to me.

 

[matbhuvi]

It is hard to say there is anything called pure flat music. A setup can be tuned to show flat response for pink/white noise using RTA. But, that won't sound neutral. Because human ear is more sensitive between 2kHz to 5kHz. This is based on ear canal and it varies from person to person.

And then there is Equal-loudness contour. Where humans 'percieve' the loudness even when presented with purely steady tones.

Now tell me how to create a perfectly flat music

 

[arj]

thanks Matbhuvi..had forgotten about the Fletcher Munson Curves..Yes each ear also has a response hence the same speaker/room/music combination can sound different to 2 different people as their hearing itself is different !

 

[Nikhil]

If you cannot get perfectly neutral sound from an audio system, then force it to sound neutral by calibrating it. I am referring to something which I have experienced. The Genelac monitors with DSP. They make good speakers sound better by reading how the signals react in the room before reaching our ears. Then the sound is adjusted such that the net FR is flat. Now I do not know if it qualifies as purist sound since it 'processed' but it must be certainly neutral & natural according to me.

I think you have a contradiction here. When you are in any way altering the sound (in this case the frequency domain) it cannot be called natural. Which brings up the (already discussed) point of "What is neutral". Obviously there is something in your mind that you are calling neutral. Problem is that the same identical sound may not appear neutral to another person. The act of altering sound with DSP itself shows that in the end we tend to adjust or color the sound as per our taste.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

If you cannot get perfectly neutral sound from an audio system, then force it to sound neutral by calibrating it. I am referring to something which I have experienced. The Genelac monitors with DSP. They make good speakers sound better by reading how the signals react in the room before reaching our ears. Then the sound is adjusted such that the net FR is flat. Now I do not know if it qualifies as purist sound since it 'processed' but it must be certainly neutral & natural according to me.

Yes, I have experienced that, albeit briefly, too. In this instance, should we say "processed," or "corrected?" (Oh, and Genelec=I want --- I can use their control processing software to correct for my hearing as well as the room)

Some people are interested in 'tea making' to 'ingredients used' to 'different tastes' of well made tea.

I habitually drink masala chai. I buy tea accordingly: it would be a ridiculous waste to make this sweet spicy drink, in which tea is only one of the flavours, with fine, subtle, (and expensive!) Darjeeling!

On the other hand, when I eat fish (at least, white fish) then I go for neutral and lack of colouration. I check the response curves with the fish seller (well, to be honest, she is a bit too old for curve checking ) and take care not to introduce colouration when cooking

Now tell me how to create a perfectly flat music

Because our ears hear with the same loudness curves when we listen to live music, so, excepting the good point that hearing differs from person to person, we don't have to take account of those curves. They do explain why good low-volume listen is so difficult to achieve.

I think you have a contradiction here. When you are in any way altering the sound (in this case the frequency domain) it cannot be called natural. Which brings up the (already discussed) point of "What is neutral". Obviously there is something in your mind that you are calling neutral. Problem is that the same identical sound may not appear neutral to another person. The act of altering sound with DSP itself shows that in the end we tend to adjust or color the sound as per our taste.

This is why correction is the right term here. Your room has un-naturalised the sound. This specific kind of DSP, which has its design roots in professional use, simply aims to correct that. Even the acoustics of the recording studio may not be perfect.

 

[jls001]

... and take care not to introduce colouration when cooking

How do you know that the thickness of the bottom of pot doesn't "colour" the food?:lol:

OK, this thread is losing colour:lol:

 

[keith_correa]

OT, but food for thought - if 2 [or more] of us are listening to the same music, how do I know that what I hear is the same as what you [or others] hear? And vice versa. How does one measure ones ears? Or brain.

 

[Jams4znik03]

Everything is coloured. No matter how much something is said to be accurate, even that accuracy is a type of colour.

We just have to find which colour we like

Even live shows or the source are coloured in the sense that the sound engineers actually boost or attenutate either the vocals, lead or the base or the drums,etc as as per their needs. I believe only a "true" unplugged instrument and vocals play will portray an uncoloured sound to reproduce.