Let me try sound.(A tiny attempt).
A perceptually dark sounding note is one in which LF components dominate.
A perceptually bright sounding note is one in which HF components dominate.
Such effects can be measured. Some musical instrument makers do so and know exactly what they are talking about when they use qualifying adjectives.
I don't think there is anything mysterious about auditory perceptual phenomenae and their physical and measurable correlates.
I do think little effort has been made in the hifi world to standardize vocabulary.
into 8 Ohms. If you look at the stereophile plots of some tube amp frequency responses into a simulated loudspeaker there is enough deviation to be able to explain a lot of things.
For example http://www.stereophile.com/content/air-tight-atm-1s-power-amplifier-measurements that frequency response will clearly sound of something. What I am not experienced enough to tell, but sure somebody here is...
For example http://www.stereophile.com/content/air-tight-atm-1s-power-amplifier-measurements that frequency response will clearly sound of something. What I am not experienced enough to tell, but sure somebody here is...
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Not to mention a defective channel with high distortion, which then died. But hey, for a bargain-basement $10k for a 36 watt amp, what do you expect? Reliability?
Big upper midrange dip, rolled off treble, a peak in the bass, high distortion, yeah, I could imagine that it might sound 'dark.'
So this is about accuracy, as in repeatability - for what? The eyes!! The latter are the final judge of "correctness" - the devices are means of making the job of calibration easier, but ultimately someone's eyes will look at a Pantone colour swatch, and say, no, that colour's wrong! And the eyes do it by comparing A with B, and possibly C and D - which is how I got my TV screen to "calibrate" ...
Jay, for me realness gives me enjoyment, every time - realness is a sufficient condition for me getting a buzz from the listening, because all the sounds I hear make sense.
Where people may have difficulty with "realness" - another term for convincing, in my book - is that they mistake that in your face, hyper-detailed, floodlights blazing away highlighting every dimple in the paint on the wall, sound for realness - which of course is nonsense, that's not how we experience the world - unless we choose to do so, for some specific reason. A key part of what I would call "real" sound is that it "works" at any volume level - from almost inaudible, to ear-drum pulverising levels - the subjective take is that it matches what I experience with everyday sounds, on a daily basis.
By the fact that all the effects are readily apparent, audible - another test CD I have is ambient music, where the pedal is been pushed to the floor for "dreaminess" - this makes Kitaro sound like Heavy Metal,
.On a normal system this would be unbelievably boring, instant tedium would set in; yet, musicians being the wily types they are, have "buried" subtle effects way, way down in level, with echo so they sound miles away; when system's is in good shape I can wind it up to a decent level, and experience an ethereal soundscape that's vast in size, full of little surprises - extremely enjoyable,
...
"Red faces and nuclear grass" is the the exact equivalent of "in your face" sound - the "saturation" is overcooked, and clearly wrong - any chance of real dynamics has been lost, for the sake of having the "look at me, look at me!" factor constantly revved up - "convincingness" has been well and truly lost ...
Phew, normal service is resumed. With vision the problem is that what seems natural to you can seem over saturated to someone with more accurate colour vision. I know for example that my colour vision isn't accurate enough to work at the BBC in any form of production capacity. Oddly marv and mary midfi seem even less worried about picture quality than sound. But as long as they are not claiming its 'the best' then you have to let them get on with it.
The trouble here is the potential of confusing timbral qualities with faults - two types of sports cars have very distinct exhaust notes, designed to be such; two examples of one type of sports car have different notes, because a piece of metal has come adrift in one of them - that one has a fault, pure and simple. All discussion of the audible qualities should cease until the fault is fixed, and there is a level playing field.
But if you asked them whether the colour on the faces on the TV actually matched the real thing would they say "Yes" or "I can't tell"? If you got the actual person who was on a recorded show to come into their TV room, stand next to the set while that show was playing, would they swear that there is no difference, on the bible?
Or is it that they are used to TV sets being that way, they expect the fireworks effect, that's what they paid their money for?
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Compression is one example. The real dynamic transient is good and real, up until it excites cone breakup. Or even if no breakup, I can't stand the sound of kick drum from less than 5 meters. I don't know what the sound engineer's intent but often I want to hear my system as if I hear it from certain distance. May be it is what the sound engineer wants, but for sure not as close as me with the speakers.
And I think most of us are used to listening live plugged music, so it depends on the original sound system.
How do you know? You do not see their intent, assuming intent is what you mean by 'try'.
That's why I was impressed with that Bryston/Dynaudio combo at the hifi show - zero compression, even at realistic levels - I got the bloke to put on a drum solo, best ever kick drum transients I've heard!
For comparison there was a full blown TAD demo, with lots of the company heavies in attendance - this was classic "refined" PA sound, lots of thump and wallop, impressive without actually being impressive ... we're back at the "red faces and nuclear grass" type of thing ...
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