Musicality vs. Fidelity

[Fretless]

Here's a discussion topic for everyone to sharpen your knives and get all opinionated about:

I once had, on an extended loan, a complete Mark Levinson CD/DAC/pre/power combo, after a while I couldn't listen to it anymore; the cold, surgical precision of the sound had me running back to the cuddly involvement of my old NVA, at least I could enjoy listening to music instead of being forced to be impressed by it.

What is better/ more important - that a stereo is musical or informative?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Musical information

[Fretless]

Would you care to elaborate, oh wise one ?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Nope

Oh go on them.

They can overlap obviously, but hi-fi sound information would be detail more related to the sound and its propagation, and is largely brain related. Musical information is not intellectual but emotional content, as insight into the music.

There is important overlap, for example, information from the body and reed of a sax are both sound and musically helpful. So both are important but in all cases musical information is essential as the detail without the musical insight is just plain wrong.

[Daniel Quinn]

the docs flippant answer is correct surely .

is it not a false dichotomy ?

I suspect the problem with the levinson system is not it is more informative , it is that is masks, negates and fails to present the information that makes it musical .

[Fretless]

The Levinson was so accurate that you could hear the mice cleaning their whiskers in the back of the studio, but there was no warmth to the reproduction. The man who lent it to me (very wealthy, very unique and now dead) was not an audiophile but didn't like the sound, he preferred a standard Sony rack installation.

If information is presented as information - then it remains information. Music, hopefully, has an emotional content, but can that be 'lost in translation'? I have heard/read that the transmission of audible and inaudible harmonics carries a large part of the emotional information of music. Would that be a reason why some 'coloured' sound systems are better in providing an emotional impact than more 'neutral'ones?

[Daniel Quinn]

The thing i have found with NVA and doc mod speakers is not a trade off between emotion and information .

There is a harmonica solo at the beginning of Springsteen thunder road , recorded in what sounds like a small basement on the 1975-85 box set . As my hifi as got better , it presents far more musical information , the change in loudness , pitch , the stop and starting can all be more clearly heard and consequently it also far more emotive .

[_D_S_J_R_]

The Levinson was so accurate

I dispute this, as an 'accurate' amp shouldn't shove everything under a magnifying glass - I stress MAGNFYING - OLD black-box Levinson wasn't like this I remember, it just got on with it, and I remember classic early Krell power amps being similar, the perceived soundfield getting bigger as the model went up the range (bigger power supplies again?). No 'etched anaylsis' there I can tell you from memory.

I remain a vintage Quad fan, for better or worse. These products were listened to and designed at the time so that the component shortcomings of the time got in the way as little as possible, power amps especially and what made the solid state amps previous to the 606 out of fashion was the fact that they couldn't drive the 3 ohm loads as presented by Linn 'Brik's and Sara's without severe current limiting. Give 'em a simpler load and they communicate alright to me, NOT as well as an NVA, which treads a higher, very delicate rarefied path, but well enough.

Maybe I'm wrong, but a clinical, 'deeeeetail' led amp isn't neutral or accurate, it's just forensically clinical. I found older Chord amps like this as well as some 90's Krells, as well as more recent Linns as well (Naim is too 'grey' to be even considered here). Amps like the Quad 606mk2 onwards, Krell FPB, Albarry's and NVA's just do the job and allow the MUSIC to come through - in my opinion obviously. As NVA is rather less expensive to purchase, it's a no brainer really.

[Daniel Quinn]

The Levinson was so accurate

This is not my experience , an 'accurate' amp shouldn't shove everything under a magnifying glass - I stress MAGNFYING - OLD black-box Levinson wasn't like this I remember, it just got on with it, and I remember classic early Krell power amps being similar, the perceived soundfield getting bigger as the model went up the range (bigger power supplies again?). No 'etched anaylsis' there I can tell you from memory.

I remain a vintage Quad fan, for better or worse. These products were listened to and designed at the time so that the component shortcomings of the time got in the way as little as possible, power amps especially and what made the solid state amps previous to the 606 out of fashion was the fact that they couldn't drive the 3 ohm loads as presented by Linn 'Brik's and Sara's without severe current limiting. Give 'em a simpler load and they communicate alright to me, NOT as well as an NVA, which treads a higher, very delicate rarefied path, but well enough.

Maybe I'm wrong, but a clinical, 'deeeeetail' led amp isn't neutral or accurate, it's just forensically clinical. I found older Chord amps like this as well as some 90's Krells, as well as more recent Linns as well (Naim is too 'grey' to be even considered here). Amps like the Quad 606mk2 onwards, Krell FPB, Albarry's and NVA's just do the job and allow the MUSIC to come through - in my opinion obviously. As NVA is rather less expensive to purchase, it's a no brainer really.

thats better

[Fretless]

After thinking about this for a bit I realise that I am trying to understand why an installation of which one speaker lead was more expensive than my entire main system should leave me so unmoved. It was a dream come true, as a young hifi fanatic, to even see such equipment that would have otherwise been so totally out of my reach..
For DJSR: The Levinson power amp was a no. 331, as big as a beer crate and extremely heavy, also took an eternity to warm up.
As a sad footnote, the owner had a major cocaine habit (this played a role in his eventual demise) and eventually ran out of money. He reclaimed the Levinson gear in order to sell it to pay for drugs. What a waste.