[gammi]

Most confusing thing about timbre is the pronunciation, why is it pronounced "tam-ber" lol

Timbre, as others have already said, is effectively how much it sounds like the real thing. Big issue with that is none of us really know what the real thing is supposed to sound like unless we literally recorded the album. Even those extremely familiar with an instrument aren't going to know how it sounded in the exact room it was recorded in. We just have to do our best approximation of what each instrument sounds like in general.

I actually like testing using youtube videos of live music sometimes for this reason. If something is not realistic your mind will immediately pick up on it because it won't match what you expect to hear based on what your eyes are seeing.

 

[Exekuhtor]

supposed to sound

In my opinion this term is dumb anyway. Nobody knows how it's truly "supposed to sound".
As long as it sounds the best way to my personal preference it's the best for me. I don't care anymore for "supposed to sound".

Tubeamps have certainly no place in "as it's supposed to sound" since they introduce additional distortion, but i would never go back to a solid state amp...
And i would say that my Susvara sounds "more lifelike" on the Envy than on a topping A90.

Immanis thread btw, so don't derail it too much.

Also: the brain can be deceived quite easily.

 

[SolarCetacean]

Most confusing thing about timbre is the pronunciation, why is it pronounced "tam-ber" lol

I actually like testing using youtube videos of live music sometimes for this reason. If something is not realistic your mind will immediately pick up on it because it won't match what you expect to hear based on what your eyes are seeing.

Timbre's odd pronunciation comes from French, as often happens in English.

That last point is pretty interesting, and I've never heard of that method but it makes sense.

 

[jlbrach]

In my opinion this term is dumb anyway. Nobody knows how it's truly "supposed to sound".
As long as it sounds the best way to my personal preference it's the best for me. I don't care anymore for "supposed to sound".

Tubeamps have certainly no place in "as it's supposed to sound" since they introduce additional distortion, but i would never go back to a solid state amp...
And i would say that my Susvara sounds "more lifelike" on the Envy than on a topping A90.

Immanis thread btw, so don't derail it too much.

Also: the brain can be deceived quite easily.

envy vs topping...like a high end mercedes vs a kia...

 

[number1sixerfan]

Based on everything I've read, I'm actually expecting the Immanis to be the greatest contender to the Shangri-la Sr. I've seen thus far (although very different), which I'm really excited about. Only the Stax x9000 to date has been able to rival it while falling just a bit short. I actually have hopes that it's slightly more impressing than it was, but we shall see. I'm very welcoming to the idea of it and I do know for sure that Raal products all punch above cost.. very exciting times.

 

[Aleksandar R.]

What amplifier can be used with Immanis ??
Will the ENLUEM 23 R be powerful enough?

Absolutely.
Use 32 Ohms Interface with 23R.
If you will plug at the front TRS output, just turn the gain to max for the front output, as by default, it is 18dB lower, IIRC and it would seem underpowered, while it is actually more than is needed.

 

[Frankie D]

ABSOLUTELY agreed. Several years into this hobby, this is still something that perplexes me. At this point, I take it to mean "if I close my eyes, can I believe that what I'm hearing is a real instrument and not a reproduction?" But that may change as I honestly am not convinced I know what "timbre" means.

Ha! Funny as I was just asked this in a different conversation. Timbre means the unique sound of an instrument or voice. Put most simply play the same note on a Piano and a trumpet. Both will be at the same frequency, but you will never confuse the sound of the note on the trumpet vs the piano.

I bet you have never confused the voice of Adel with that of Celine Dion. Each voice has a different Timbre.

 

[nfandi]

If you make a recording of those piano and trumpet notes and then edit out the initial transient at the start of each note it becomes much harder to determine which is which.

 

[SolarCetacean]

Hence why timbre also has to do with the envelope of the note, which I've read described as "ADSR" for attack, decay, sustain, release. Is each element of the note in line with what you'd expect a note of that instrument to have? Is the leading transient rendered in a plausible way? Does the note decay in a plausible way? If a headphone smears that initial transient, it makes it harder to differentiate notes and instruments, and thus timbre - along with detail - suffers.

 

[simorag]

Timbre is a key subject when it comes to reaction to reproduced music, perhaps even the foundational one when dealing with acoustic, unamplified sound. We may have a hard time in defining what it is with words, but our brain-ear is able to detect 'weird' stuff from our audio equipment, and very often this weirdness is tightly related to timbre.

The easiest 'acoustic instrument' to compare with is the human voice, or - for example - another very humanly sound, like the clapping of hands. We are exposed to these since we are born, and after innumerable repetitions, each time different from each other for pitch, venue, our own feeling when listening to them, a large database of realistic samples of vocals is engrained into us. So when we hear yet another (real) voice, even in its new-ness / uniqueness, we automatically recognize it as valid, and our reaction to it is not impeded by any kind of filtering / processing overhead, going straight to the emotional (like in a beautiful voice) or intellectual (like in the meaning of what that voice is saying) level.

With reproduced audio, unfortunately the whole chain of events and equipment, from the recording stage to the loudspeakers, alters the original valid sample of sound in several, very subtle (or not), irreversible ways, and our brain picks this up as something which is not real and tries to rebuild / repair the audio signal in order to accept it for what it is meant to be (a voice, a guitar, a violin etc.). This process, while subconscious, is not as effortless and automatic as when listening to the valid sound, thus producing listening fatigue and a number of other collateral damages which detract from the experience of listening to these sounds in real life.

So on the one hand an ideal audio chain would eliminate all these impediments would seem to be the best option by default, right?

But then on the other hand there is the question of taste. For example, I like darker sounds and of all real violins or cellos I have heard in my life (all perfectly valid of course, by definition) I happen to like the ones with a meatier, darker character the most. Therefore an audio chain that adds a certain degree of coloration in the direction I like, would increase the probability that when I listen to a reproduced violin I will not only accept it as credible, but also as something that strikes my emotional cords more effectively.

Now, let's take the Immanis, the Susvara and the Valkyria in the context of acoustic music, whose center of gravity is notoriously in the midrange. All three are great at portraying timbre in a credible way, only that the Immanis would depict a cooler picture with the most treble energy content, the Susvara would be the more linear / neutral, and the Valkyria will deliver a more burnished color palette.

Due to my subjective tastes, the Valkyria would typically produce the most engaging connection with the timbre of the instrument, although I may recognize the coloration, which I accept not only as valid but also as benign.

All this said, timbre is not everything, so the overall enjoyment from experiencing reproduced music does not end with midrange-focused timbre credibility as meant in the above, expanding to many other essential aspects of reconstruction of real sounds (spatial cues, visceral dynamics, ...), making room for several more layers of trade-offs and subjective evaluations. Assembling a system which is closest to render the holistic musical experience at (subjective) absolute best is the crux and the fuel of this hobby for me, and the impossibility of the task negates the end of the game. Acceptance of which makes the journey even enjoyable.

 

[nfandi]

In my opinion this term is dumb anyway. Nobody knows how it's truly "supposed to sound".
As long as it sounds the best way to my personal preference it's the best for me. I don't care anymore for "supposed to sound".

Tubeamps have certainly no place in "as it's supposed to sound" since they introduce additional distortion, but i would never go back to a solid state amp...
And i would say that my Susvara sounds "more lifelike" on the Envy than on a topping A90.

Immanis thread btw, so don't derail it too much.

Also: the brain can be deceived quite easily.

This term is not dumb for people who play real musical instruments in real spaces. MokhaMark played violin in orchestras so knows exactly what a violin is supposed to sound like individually and collectively within an orchestral setting. He told us in the early days of the Raal SR-1a that he’d never heard a headphone so accurately portray the timbre of a violin and its place within an orchestra. And @Torq told us of listening to recordings made of his own piano in his own home and that they’d never sounded so accurate as when he listened to them with the SR-1a. Even to the extent that he could clearly hear the difference in the sound when the curtains were open and closed. People who attend piano recitals can tell you the difference between a Steinway, a Bechstein and a Yamaha, for example, and will hear those same differences on a good recording via a good transducer. So, timbre is very relevant to people who attend live shows of unamplified musical instruments or voices. It has far less relevance to those of use who listen to a lot of amplified electronic music for which there is no ‘reference’ timbre, and then it is much more about personal preferences and whatever sounds good. Unless of course you know the timbral differences between Gibson and Fender electric guitars and then it might be more relevant.

 

[Exekuhtor]

Sure, i get that. Maybe i overused the term "dumb" from that specific point of view. I know there are people where it is very critical for them to have the best representation of a sound one can get.
But for the end consumer, especially with extremely close and good reproductions, it's more of a preference thing, like @simorag perfectly explained. The Immanis, the Susvara, and the Valkyria have all three amazing lifelike timbre. I don't have an Immanis here, but the other two, and those sound very different, but both extremely good and natural.
We just can't ask the person that made and played the music on which of these headphones it sounds the most natural. That's what i meant with the term "dumb". I just don't like when companies advertise with "the way it's meant to be" and as a consumer it does not matter that much anyway, the reason we listen to music is to have fun. That's why i also like coloured headphones with specific strengths and weaknesses and not neutral ones.

Edit:
After a bit of thinking, i probably want an exaggeration of the core aspect of the instrument (as long as it sounds awesome). Drums should sound extremely weighty and forceful, violins should sound very airy and voices should sound very soft.
I think that from a technical aspect we have surpassed what we can hear in the real-life scenario anyway, listen to something live, and then go listen to it on a Susvara or so. It's not possible to disect every instrument in a big orchestra as much in real life as with some gear. Maybe if you would stand up, and walk around the whole orchestra, but none of us ever did that. That's why i also think that technicalities don't matter that much anymore up to a certain point, especially if you lose another thing.

 

[BassicScience]

From a technical perspective, timbre is the quantitative relationship of the harmonic overtones of a note relative to its fundamental, which obviously varies significantly between instruments. If the frequency response of a transducer has audible peaks and dips at fixed frequencies, that will affect the harmonic series (timbre) of different notes from the same instrument in an inconsistent way. (A similar phenomenon occurs with intermodulation distortion in electronics.) My theory is that the attentive listener may pick up on unnatural variations in timbre (same instrument, different notes) as a tell that they're listening to a reproduction, without needing to have heard the original performance.

Another thing to consider is that we can often pick up unnatural skin tones on a poorly-adjusted television picture, without the benefit of actually having seen the people in real life. Here the analogy to music reproduction becomes more apt with listeners who've played musical instruments seriously and/or attended a lot of live music events.

Just my perspective on the topic, FWIW.

And by the by, I found the Magna/Immanis to be superb at reproducing convincing timbre, per my (admittedly brief) auditions of them!

 

[nfandi]

Sure, i get that. Maybe i overused the term "dumb" from that specific point of view. I know there are people where it is very critical for them to have the best representation of a sound one can get.
But for the end consumer, especially with extremely close and good reproductions, it's more of a preference thing, like @simorag perfectly explained. The Immanis, the Susvara, and the Valkyria have all three amazing lifelike timbre. I don't have an Immanis here, but the other two, and those sound very different, but both extremely good and natural.
We just can't ask the person that made and played the music on which of these headphones it sounds the most natural. That's what i meant with the term "dumb". I just don't like when companies advertise with "the way it's meant to be" and as a consumer it does not matter that much anyway, the reason we listen to music is to have fun. That's why i also like coloured headphones with specific strengths and weaknesses and not neutral ones.

No problem, I know where you’re coming from. It’s mainly marketing crap when they say “just the way it sounded to the artist”. Though I will say I don’t want my phones to be coloured. I want my phones to be neutral so that I can choose if I want to add colour elsewhere. Once the phones are ‘coloured’ it can’t be removed. This is where the Raal’s excel.

 

[nfandi]

Sure, i get that. Maybe i overused the term "dumb" from that specific point of view. I know there are people where it is very critical for them to have the best representation of a sound one can get.
But for the end consumer, especially with extremely close and good reproductions, it's more of a preference thing, like @simorag perfectly explained. The Immanis, the Susvara, and the Valkyria have all three amazing lifelike timbre. I don't have an Immanis here, but the other two, and those sound very different, but both extremely good and natural.
We just can't ask the person that made and played the music on which of these headphones it sounds the most natural. That's what i meant with the term "dumb". I just don't like when companies advertise with "the way it's meant to be" and as a consumer it does not matter that much anyway, the reason we listen to music is to have fun. That's why i also like coloured headphones with specific strengths and weaknesses and not neutral ones.

Edit:
After a bit of thinking, i probably want and exxageration of the core aspect of the instrument (as long as it sounds awesome). Drums should sound extremely weighty and forceful, violins should sound very airy and voices should sound very soft.
I think that from a technical aspect we have surpassed what we can hear in the real-life scenario anyway, listen to something live, and then go listen to it on a Susvara or so. It's not possible to disect every instrument in a big orchestra as much in real life as with some gear. Maybe if you would stand up, and walk around the whole orchestra, but none of us ever did that. That's why i also think that technicalities don't matter that much anymore up to a certain point, especially if you lose another thing.

I think what you’ve picked up on there are the differences between listening on a speaker system v. headphone system and on the impact the recording engineer has on what we hear. We hear far more micro detail on a good headphone which may or may not be a good thing if the Lead Violin player has a microphone placed disturbingly close to his left nostril.