[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomcat To me, detail is a flaw. I do not perceive audiophile-grade detail in a live concert, why should I want to perceive it when I listen to a recording?

While I'm not sure I agree with your statements as written, I ran into the same basic tradeoff this week when I was comparing amplifers. One amplifer was amazingly detailed with everything it reproduced while the other tended to blur musical events together more. I personally preferred the amplifer that did not make each musical event stand out as much since to me it was producing the sound that seemed to match more closely with the level of detail I believed I would hear if I were listening to the music in person. It seemed that the music flowed better to me. I sure wouldn't say that the more detailed interpretation was flawed though. I can both understand what the detailed amplifer is doing and enjoy it's presentation even if ultimately my pesonal preferences lead me to prefer the less detailed reproduction. And I could see other folks being more attracted to the detailed presentation instead. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[halcyon]

TomCat,

couldn't agree more.

Also, let's not just talk about recording artefacts.

One can equalize almost any headphone to give more details than one would naturally hear at an acoustic event without headphones.

Shock horror! Am I saying that our hearing masks sounds?!?!?

Yes, indeed it does.

Now, would one want to hear details that were not audible in a natural acoustic situation?

That's a tough one, and I think it boils down to preference.

Do I want natural reproduction?

Do I want as detailed reproduction as possible, regardless of naturalness?

I think it is a question of preference and utility.

While mixing engineers and sonar operators will surely benefit from additional detail (artificial or not), for me personally it can also diminish enjoyment and make things what I call hyperreal (beyond real).

So I try to strike a balance (for myself): enough detail not to sound (too)artificial.

For me Etys are already on the artifical side. As are any headphones which are equalized to be flat.

If one wants a text book definition of natural reproduction frequency response in reference to headphones, look up measurements done by Henrik Møller (Acoustics Lab of Aalborg University).

regards,
halcyon

 

[markl]

Quote:

Very good comments. I'd like to ask this though... a phone can be detailed (i.e. the information may be there) but you may have to look for it due to the tonal balance. Some phones thrust out this information while in others it's there and you have to focus on it.

IMO, detail/resolution exists totally outside frequency coloration. There is bass detail, midrange detail and treble detail, detail happens across the spectrum. Detail/resolution to me is the ability to distinguish more of the information contained on the master recording, regardless of where that info occurs in the frequency spectrum. Quote:

Getting more sonic events to one's ears can be nice - if they are authentic. I believe that 95 percent of the sonic events audiophiles cherish as detail are artefacts of the reproduction (and of the recording). By and large, more detail is not a sign of superior resolution but of increased grain. Detail means the inability of preserving signal integrity, it means artificial emphasis on higher frequencies, it means subtle phase shifts, it means a lack of cohesion, it means distracting the listener's attention away from the music. It means the listener's inability to follow the musical flow and to perceive an instrument as one. It means focusing on analyzing sound, not on enjoying music.

I don't agree with this at all. What you are desribing is clearly *distortion* not detail. I never understood this argument people make that "detail" only occurs in the treble region, and some phones "artificially" increase detail by boosting treble frequencies. Placing an over-emphasis on treble response will not automaticall boost detail in the treble region, let alone anywhere else in the frequency spectrum. Horns may sound louder, but it doesn't mean there will be additional subtle shadings of tone/timbre revealed or bigger distinctions between notes. If treble quality a certain phone can put out is crummy, i.e. it has hash, grain, hard edges, voicing that driver to boost treble response won't suddenly make it high-rez, clean and clear, all you will have achieved is to make the grain grit and hash *louder* and more noticeable.

Can people mistake "distortion for detail"? I would sure hope not, I find it hard to imagine not being able to tell the difference. I don't see how some people say certain headphones/components add "fake detail", as if suddenly you can distinguish a string section behind Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" with Grados that obviously isn't on the actual recording. Or that with Sennheiser HD650s in line you can hear church choir behind Nick Drake's Pink Moon where it's not there when you listen with Sony CD3000s.

It's pretty easy to spot grit and grain and seems to me pretty hard to mistake it for "detail" but maybe some people do that?

 

[JaZZ]

I agree with almost everything that's been said... aerius, gpalmer, Tomcat, halcyon...

Too opulent detail makes the sound unnatural. As Tomcat has stated, if detail is perceived as such, there's something wrong with the system.

As to the Etys: they indeed tend to be overly detailed, bot there's some tricks to compensate for this issue. Firstly, take the X instead of the S. Secondly, use the foamies instead of the silicon tips, if possible shortened (so that the filter is almost flush with the foam). Thirdly, switch a passive EQ network into the signal path such as described at the Linkwitz homepage. (With my modded ER-4 I can renounce the 2.5-kHz absorption circuit.) Fourthly, simply ignore the analytical part of the sound and enjoy the music.

To my ears the ER-4's bass and midrange are hard to beat when it comes to accuracy. But the microacoustics within the driver/ear-canal system take their toll: in comparison to the ideal shape -- an exact replication of the ear canal -- the ER-4's canal is much too narrow, and the driver innards, the filter and the abrupt expansion of the canal width as well as the fact that there's something blocking the ear-canal outlet create some weird changes of the acoustic impedance with the consequence of audible reflection/resonance effects. Which lead to a somewhat analytical sound with exposed detail. That's why after all it's not my preferred universal headphone. But in its ideal environment, on the go, I can (mostly) easily overhear these shortcomings (the more so with the EQ-network adapter). And the so-called inexisting soundstage is no issue: obviously I've trained myself (unconsciously) not to perceive the sound as coming from inside my head, but from my environment, which makes the soundstage even huge -- sometimes leading to almost metaphysical experiences.

 

[halcyon]

Mark and Jazz make further good comments, imho.

One thing that I slightly tend to look from a different POV is selective frequency elevation or equalization.

It is easy to make more detail come out at certain frequencies by elevating them.

Those frequencies will no longer be masked by your hearing and you will hear more silent sounds on that frequency bands easily.

This will fool some people into thinking that one is getting some wonderful magical detail out of their headphones.

For example, if you measure your outer ears effects to a flat signal, you will notice a significant boost between 2-4 kHz and another significant dip between 3,5 - 7 kHz (these vary based on individual physiology).

It is easy to equalize the headphone flat by lowering the peak and raising the dip.

This way the louder sounds in the same critical band of hearing will no longer mask other adjacent sounds so much anymore. You hear more detail.

Is it more natural? Hell no, it is completely artifical hearing to you, because your hearing is attuned to the frequency response of your physiology.

So, yes I do think that to some degree it is possible to "raise detail" by equalizing headphones, but there is a fine line to be walked in compensating for headphone deficiencies and going overboard with hyperdetail, IF the goal is to have natural reproduction.

Then again, natural can also be boring, which is why some people just choose to ignore it altogether (or so I believe at least myself).

regards,
halcyon

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl ...There is bass detail, midrange detail and treble detail, detail happens across the spectrum...

I know what you mean, but I would call the audible effects of accuracy and resolution in other frequency areas than the treble -- well -- accuracy and resolution. In a drawing, painting or photograph detail is clearly associated with sharp-edged small objects, and the sonic analogy to this are short wavelengths and transients.

Whenever detail seems to appear in the bass or in the midrange, it's most likely overtones, which actually consist of higher frequencies.

 

[lojay]

I guess I'm getting somthing here.
I think if certain sonical information is present inside the master recordings, it doesn't nessecarily mean that you'd be able to hear it on the exact event of the recording, as you might have to pay attention to a particular event outside of the music itself, such as the "scrape of the bow against the strings, the various resonances from the body of the violin, the sounds of the wood, the strings, and everything". (But hey, I usually do hear this stuff on violin solos even on crappy 'phones, such as my 497, so does that make it "detailed"? It'd be amazing to hear the same detail of a solo in an orchestral performance; the scrape of dozens of bows DO exist, am I to hear it all? If I cant hear them all, does it mean that the phones are not detailed, or the scrape of the bow doesn't exist?) Since these slight nuances or sonic information do exist (by the laws of phyiscs, when KE turns into Sound E

), if the cans should reproduce it properly than it would do a good job of recreating the recorded musical event. Lesser cans may simply be unable to reproduce the slight detail while better cans such as my Grados may be able to reproduce them, but you'd need to listen carefully to hear them - just as you'd be able to hear them if you listen carefully during the event of the recording.

Quote:

By JazZ: Too opulent detail makes the sound unnatural. As Tomcat has stated, if detail is perceived as such, there's something wrong with the system.

That's why I agree with you guys who say that exaggerating detail makes music worse, after all the exaggerated detail isn't portarying the recording event properly, anyone who goes to concerts should feel this. But the faithful portrayal of such detail is a must in a good system, as they should really exist in the master recording itself.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomcat To me, detail is a flaw. I do not perceive audiophile-grade detail in a live concert, why should I want to perceive it when I listen to a recording?

Let's stick to comparing apples with apples. Listening to a live performance is completely different from the recording done at one. Why? The mics are generally much closer to the performance and performers than you are. There are at least three mics used to record live, while you only have one set of ears. If your seat is off center the sounds from different instruments will arrive totally out of phase, while the closest ones will be much more in phase. In a live performance where you sit determines everything about what you hear, and the best seats at each venue sell out quickly as they are coveted by those in the know. Microphone placement is evenly spaced for recording, which gives you the best seat in the house.

If you were able to sit in three places at once, with the same proximity and ability to hear that a mic affords, I think you will see that the recording does indeed provide you with what you hear in a live performance. Someone dropping a bow is picked up by a mic, but not everyone in the venue. A good mic job will present this, whether everyone in the venue did or not.

Just my .02, not arguing.

 

[lojay]

In a solo recording, it's sure to be able to hear the detail outside of the music, but with orchestral recordings such as above

, or rock concerts where there are plenty more than one sound source, I doubt that detail is easily percieved, even if an external event such as dropping a bow exists, it may not be loud enough to hear, or maybe you're just too moved by the music. But the question is, if you were sitting next to the mic, and you couldn't hear the dropping of the bow, does it mean that the cans shouldn't reproduce that detail for "realness" sake?

 

[JaZZ]

SiE...

...good points! Actually from a musical (not sound esthetical) point of view I even prefer a good reproduction to the concert because I hear more musical detail which allows me to better follow and understand the composition. Nevertheless, even now I don't want to be forced to pay attention to sonic details.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaZZ Nevertheless, even now I don't want to be forced to pay attention to sonic details.

That's the age old question, "How much detail is too much?" For some people who are not used to how detailed cans are the experience is less enjoyable. For people like me no matter how much true detail you get it's not too much. My saying is, "If it's on the disc I want to hear it." I don't want to miss anything. Why? If it glosses over something I don't want to hear, what is it doing to that which I want to hear?

 

[DJGeorgeT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gpalmer That question has been posed many times in polls around here, I think off the top of my head that the Etymotic ER-4s is usually the headphone that gets picked as the most detailed, ignoring the fact that it's really a canal phone. It's interesting in light of bagraman's comments that many folks feel that part of this detail is a result of certain frequencies on the 4s being more pronounced. In respect to the query bangraman posed, I'm not sure there is a "right" answer though there may be one that is more popular. It would probably make a really interesting poll! I think my feeling would be that they were equally detailed, but I'm betting that most people would go with their first impression and decide that the headphone that had a more forward display of the information was more detailed. I believe they usually refer to these people as the CD3K Liberation Front! (Just kidding, just kidding, stop with the stoning already)

The ER4 does some level of equalization at the top end to compensate for dark recordings. As some have pointed out correctly, the ER4 does boost the top end somewhat. From the etymotic's website, look at the target (desired response), look at the ER4 and ER6. Past 7kHz, the ER4 takes off and at about 10kHz there is about 5dB boost with respect to target.

http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/images/er6-graph.gif

The ER6 is probably the most natural sounding earphone of the two. Too bad it does not have enough headroom.

 

[Tomcat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ServinginEcuador Listening to a live performance is completely different from the recording done at one. [...] If you were able to sit in three places at once, with the same proximity and ability to hear that a mic affords, I think you will see that the recording does indeed provide you with what you hear in a live performance.

If I was able to sit in three places at once, I'd be able to recognize a badly miked recording as natural? Or something? I honestly don't get your point there.

Doug,

Quite often, I sit very close to the performers. A couple of weeks ago, Christoph Eschenbach conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in Frankfurt, Schönberg's "Verklärte Nacht" and Mahler's first. I sat in the first row, the first violins two meters away. And trust me, I can neither hear a scratching of any bow (some darn fine fiddlers in that orchestra), nor can I tell the sounds of individual violins apart (and they didn't drop anything either

). I don't perceive individual instruments separated by clear boundaries and I am unable to tell the position of instruments with pinpoint accuracy either. What I hear are violins being played by very competent musicians and violins played together, as a violin section. Good orchestra's actively prevent one from perceiving instrument separation. I can perceive timbral differences from the violas and the celli, of course, but I can't tell their number or their exact position either. Even when sitting in the very first row, I cannot perceive the kind of detail that audiophiles don't seem to be able to live without.

One-point recordings are very rare, of course, and recordings in the classical three-mike configuration (one left, one right, one centre) aren't all too common either. Which means that this hyperrealism is very often hard-coded into our media due to excessive miking or inventive mixing and processing, but still: natural it ain't. JaZZ has an interesting point that recordings that employ multi-miking, or systems that emphasize detail or instrument separation can give a better view into complex musical performances. But in my experience, this almost always comes at a price: increased listening fatigue. And if push comes to shove, I want my system to facilitate an emotional connection to the music, if I wanted to analyze music, I'd read the score.

And finally, Mark, that's exactly my point (and it's not the first time we disagree about this

): if we perceive detail only as detail and not as related to the musical performance, if detail does not blend into the performance as a nuance of the interpretation, if it does not serve the musical whole, if it doesn't enrich our musical experience, but functions merely as an interchangeable particle of sonic "information", then detail is distortion. Then, detail is a sign that the integrity of the musical signal has been damaged.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ServinginEcuador That's the age old question, "How much detail is too much?" For some people who are not used to how detailed cans are the experience is less enjoyable. For people like me no matter how much true detail you get it's not too much. My saying is, "If it's on the disc I want to hear it." I don't want to miss anything. Why? If it glosses over something I don't want to hear, what is it doing to that which I want to hear?

No disagreement here. I want to hear what's on the disc too. And I don't see detail as bad per se, I just don't want it to sound like detail. Even with a violin next to you, it doesn't sound «detailed», does it? It sounds like a violin in its whole beauty. Scratching bows sound like scratching bows, not detail. Detail is strongly related to artificiality, exposing transients and overtones in a hyperrealistic way. Maybe some recordings are made like this (very-close-miking), but it isn't necessarily the norm.

However, I think it's more up to the sound transducers (and the related equipment) as to how much detail is exposed to an unnatural degree. After all recordings, if they aren't correspondingly equalized, just transport the real air vibrations catched by microphones, even in the case of close-miking, so a certain authenticity is preserved, although possibly at the price of unnatural closeness. But that's not necessarily what I would call the worst case of hyperdetail.

 

[gpalmer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markl I never understood this argument people make that "detail" only occurs in the treble region, and some phones "artificially" increase detail by boosting treble frequencies. Placing an over-emphasis on treble response will not automaticall boost detail in the treble region, let alone anywhere else in the frequency spectrum.

I don't think you've phrased this quite the way it's normally presented. In particular, I have never seen any folks make the argument that detail only happens in the hgih end. I think it's pretty common for folks who have not spent lots of time really listening to the nuances of sound reproduction to misinterpret high end boost as more detail on a first listen. Just as boosted bass may be interpreted as a more powerful sound. It seems that psycho acoustically the treble region being boosted makes folks here more detail such as finders on strings that they interpret as detail since they haven't heard them before. OTOH, with someone like the members around here who have spent a great deal of time critically listening, I would expect them to pinpoint the difference as a treble boost.