Thoughts on the “Absolute Sound” and Perceived Musical Realism (Part 1)
Background
Long before I worked for any of Nextscreen consumer electronics publications (The Absolute Sound, HiFi-Plus, Playback, The Perfect Vision, or AVguide.com) I was an avid music and high-end audio enthusiast, and like many of my fellow enthusiasts I followed the work of those who wrote and edited The Absolute Sound (and a handful of competing publications, as well). I was drawn to the magazine, as so many are, by two things: first, its philosophy of pursuing in-home reproduction of “the absolute sound” * (typically defined as the sound of unamplified instruments and/or voices as heard in a natural, acoustic performance space), and second, its “trust your ears” mentality (which made perfect sense to me, given that measurements and graphs had always seemed to me to do an inadequate job of representing the real-world sonic character of audio components).
* Note that, apart from inspiring the title of our oldest and most famous publication, the term “absolute sound” describes a conceptual reference standard that is used by all Nextscreen consumer electronics publications.
Over time, as I read and enjoyed The Absolute Sound and a handful of other magazine, certain philosophical and practical questions began to crop up.
First, when I compared notes between my own perceptions of certain components with reviews I had read, I found evidence which suggested that while reviewers and I were hearing more or less the same sonic phenomena, we were interpreting or “weighting” our perceptions very differently vis-à-vis our agreed upon standard—the sound of live music. Some examples might help to illustrate my point.
1) A reviewer might highly praise a certain set of sonic qualities in a component—qualities that were certainly audible to me, but that seemed comparatively small in magnitude (and not nearly as dramatic as the review had led me to expect).
2) A reviewer might mention in passing certain favorable qualities in a component, giving the impression that the qualities, while desirable, were not of terribly great importance, whereas I might hear those same qualities and find that they contributed in a huge way to the component’s overall musical realism.
3) A reviewer might mention certain sonic flaws in a component, but dismiss them as being inconsequential when, to my ears, those same flaws were not only audible but egregiously so.
4) A reviewer might damn as fatal certain flaws in a component that I could also hear (if I forced myself to pay strict attention to them), yet that did not—for me—significantly influence the product’s overall realism one way or the other.
Let me emphasize that the discrepancies I noted did not seem to involve differences in perceptual acuity (as in, Listener A can hear a certain phenomenon and Listener B cannot), nor did they involve simple matters of taste (as in, Listener A simply likes components with elevated treble response—because they make music sound more detailed, while Listener B likes components with rolled-off treble response—because they make music sound smoother and more romantic).
Despite inevitable variations in individual hearing response curves, both the reviewers and I seemed to be receiving and processing all (or nearly all) the sounds presented to us—both from live music and from audio systems. Instead, the variances I am describing seemed to occur more on the level where we ascribe meaning, importance, “weighting,” or musical significance to the sounds we heard.
Even though we all use the absolute sound as our sonic reference standard, it seems to me that this fact does not necessarily guarantee we will wind up at common destination points in our quests to reproduce the absolute sound in our homes.
This point came into sharper focus for me when, several years ago, I got to experience a rare treat. Specifically, I got to visit the homes and listen to the then-current reference systems of two individuals that I (and that many of you) regard as heroes of audio journalism: namely TAS founder (and Chairman of the editorial advisory board) Harry Pearson and TAS Executive Editor Jonathan Valin. As an added bonus, I also got to hear the reference system of Atul Kanagat, a man who is a long-term friend of TAS and who works extensively with the American Symphony Orchestra League to help promote more widespread exposure to and enjoyment of symphonic music. Most importantly, I got to hear all three of these reference-grade audio systems back-to-back and within the span of less than 48 hours.
Now the three systems in question were configured by men who are highly familiar with the sound of live music, extremely knowledgeable about high-end audio, and passionate about the pursuit of the absolute sound in the home. Given this, and given that there are some significant areas of overlap between the men’s musical tastes, you might think the three audio systems in question would sound at least somewhat similar (as if converging upon a mutually acknowledged reference point). But that is not what I found at all. Instead, the systems sounded not just a little different, but a lot (and this despite the fact that two of the men, Pearson and Kanagat, were at the time using the same basic reference speakers: namely, Nola Grand References).
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1999 - 2011 NextScreen. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
Comments
This is a very interesting subject to me, and apparently quite topical for TAS reviewers. JV posted along similar lines earlier this year (http://www.avguide.com/blog/lets-call-the-whole-thing), and I commented at length then with observations similar to CM's above. With indulgence, part of that comment is reproduced below:
As I think more about this topic, I find connections to a couple of recent, related discussions. The first is a lecture/discussion with Bob Stuart, the founder and CTO of Meridian, linked as a (badly recorded) MP3 at this address:
http://www.aes.org/sections/uk/meetings/a0812.html
The whole thing is fascinating, but the part I think most relevant to this discussion comes near the end, when Stuart comments on the subject of A/B testing. Trained as both an audio engineer and pyschoacoustian, Stuart makes the point that listening is both a sensory and cognitive process. The ear takes in sound, but the brain objectifies it, based on memory and learning. For example, where an untrained listener hears a pleasantly woody sound in the middle of the orchestra, the trained ear might hear an English Horn, playing D flat, near the back of the stage, directly behind the first Cello. The more we listen, the more we objectify the sound we hear in these ways.
This perception/cognition duality to listening has profound consequences. One of them has to do with A/B/X testing: since our ear/brain mechanism learns as it goes on, it is actually hard to "unhear" something we just heard seconds before. Ears are not oscilliscopes, designed to analyze identical inputs identically from day to day, or minute to minute.
Another consequence bears directly on this discussion: the more live music we hear, the more we catalog the characteristics of live sound, and the more likely we are to respond when a particular component or system highlights some of those characteristics. To sound "real", a component must engage those characteristics we've individually identified most with live sound. Notice: that preceding sentence implies that there is a distinction between the absolute sound, and the illusion of absolute reality. Perfect fidelity to the input waveform will not necessarily highlight those characteristics we most identify with. Further, what constitutes the illusion of absolute reality will change as we listen and learn - there's a whole high-end audio industry built on that notion.
The second related discussion was kicked off by Robert Harley, in his recent editorial commenting that the very best high resolution (24/176+) digital recording systems are now of sufficient quality to be transparent to the microphone feed, at least in the context of all the other colorations in the recording/monitoring chain. This implies that recordings such as the Reference Recordings HRx series, played back through a DAC engineered to the same level as the output section of these recorders, like the Berkeley AlphaDAC, are essentially the equivalent of plugging the live microphone feed from the recording session directly into your system. As I can personally attest, the illusion of reality thus produced is astonishing.
Beyond the sonic results, though, this notion of being able to hear the live microphone feed should have significant consequences for how we think about the whole chain involved in capturing and reproducing the absolute sound, by highlighting the technology and engineering involved in recording itself. I'd wager most audiophiles, me included, are far more literate of the differences between electrostatics, cones, tubes, transistors, near field vs. far field, etc, than we are about omni vs. cardoid, Blumlien vs. spaced, etc. If the colorations imposed by our equipment are indeed becoming smaller and smaller, the colorations imposed by recording engineers are necessarily becoming a larger part of the total equation (and they always were quite important, anyway). The scope of our focus on the "absolute sound" has to become larger, if indeed that is to remain our goal.
What I think makes this an exciting prospect is the availability, finally, of a recording distribution mechanism that is not constrained by the standards of mass market consumer electronics (as even the beloved LP was), nor so prohibitively expensive as to exclude the possibility of distributing multiple versions of the same recording. I speak, of course, of the Internet. We're seeing just the tip of the high-res iceberg right now, at sites like HDTracks, MusicGiants, and 2L. But it is easy to envision the day when we can download several versions of a track, each captured with a different recording technique, and gain a much greater understanding of the true front end of the absolute sound.
"This implies that recordings such as the Reference Recordings HRx series, played back through a DAC engineered to the same level as the output section of these recorders, like the Berkeley AlphaDAC, are essentially the equivalent of plugging the live microphone feed from the recording session directly into your system."
You seem to overlook the fact that between the recording microphone and your Berkeley Audio DAC the recording/mixing engineer and the mastering engineer have both manipulated the audio signal in a virtually infinite number of ways reflecting their aesthetic judgments as to what sounds "best." Often times, neither was present at the actual performance.
Yes, this is absolutely true in general, but I'm assuming not in the specific case of the Reference Recordings, Chesky, and other "purist" recordings which eschew even digital equalization.
It would be a naive and erroneous assumption. The results are often marvelous, but they are not simply a "live microphone feed."
Not necessarily, would it? Don't some of these reference recordings specify their recording/mixing techniques?
However the filters described by Martens must also be applied to the 1) musicians and 2) recording engineers, 3)producers, 4)mastering engineers, etc. In which case a live microphone feed is filtered through those people as well. Which, I guess, why "purist" was in quotes.
And after all the analysis, we are then left with the consumer's choice (and then our "economic filters"). And eventually this dovetails into those recent articles about how 'good enough' is the real world standard (e.g., compressed mp3s on a portable device). What is it kids say - "I reject your reality and replace it with my own"? Would even educating listeners have any effect on their ultimate choice of listening equipment/experience?
I look forward to your further articles on this topic and in particular further elucidations on the role of "personal perceptual subsets of data" and the role of memory in the evaluation of audio equipment against the absolute sound.
What I am particularly interested in is what happens when a musical selection we know well is played. Does the input received through our auditory sensors (primarily, though not necessarily exclusively our ears) trigger a playback in our mind of the remembered music? If this is the case, and I believe to a certain extent it is, how does this relate to the stream of data coming through our audio senses?
For example, I might drive in to work every day, and for a good part of that drive I do not provide the same attention to the sensory inputs resulting from that drive on the 250th instance of the driving event as I would the first. But if something contrary to my expectations occurrs during that drive, my attention is immediately triggered and my senses become alert to the new inputs I am receiving. The same may occur if the weather is significantly different to a normal benign standard, such as driving in heavy fog compared to a sunny day with minimal traffic, when I will then be on full alert, and paying rapt attention to all inputs and modifying my driving accordingly.
In music listening then it will be the differences from my expectations, which are largely based on memory which will attract my attention. What happens then? Presumably, the differences are evaluated against my personal criteria and my baseline memory standard adjusted in accordance with the filtering of the new inputs and personal criteria.
I am sure that there are psychological studies which answer these questions, but how they apply to the appreciation of the playback of recorded music has never been satisfactorally laid out for me, so a discussion on this is quite interesting.
I like this line of inquiry. There are so many variables to what we perceive as the real thing, including but limited to:
1. Hearing (or partial hearing loss in certain frequencies); for example, I have friends who have frequented loud concerts who need the treble boosted to hear details - and the hearing loss is those frequencies are documented in an audiology report.
2. Even if you have an identical recording and system, room acoustics is a huge factor.
3. As you note, (pun intended) each listener remembers a live event differently (memory is not reliable) and what we like most and give weight to differs from person to person.
A possible conclusion then, is that no system will satisfy everyone, and that differences in perception are inevitable. Hence, some like the realism of solid state, giving up some natural qualities, and some will give up some accuracy and punch for a more natural sounding tube system.
Things that make a recording and system sound most "real" or "in the room" to me include:
1. Dynamics. If you listen to your son play trumpet in the LR - one things that tells you it's actually there and not a recording is the dynamic quality - instantly going from soft to very loud and back, with no compression. That's where I miss the horns I had in an early speaker system. This is where either very efficient speakers or powerful solid state amps rule. I think a lot of speakers today have greater accuracy, but sacrifice too much in dynamics.
2. Natural sound: what comes out has to sound textured and full, like the real thing. Midfi gives details in the treble, but the cymbals for example, sound electronic rather than full bodied and real. I'll give up a tad of detail for a rich full bodied presentation of details and instruments that sound full bodied and "organic". This is where tubes shine the most. They carry the sweetness of real music. If the female voice for example sounds clear but thin, and the emotion is not coming through - the magic is lost. Some solid state gear can translate this nicely, but not all.
3. Accuracy (of course), including details.
4. Speed - rhythm - timing. Makes you want to tap your foot.
5. You can hear the space it was recorded in (ie. slight echo or whatever the space creates)
6. You can locate the instruments in space (imaging, focus, etc).
So I know I've missed much, but those are a few things that my memory subjectively associates with "live" or real or "in the room". I can tell you that live classical in a large hall rarely has the dynamic extremes I associate with live music, nor the very low bass notes, so I have to remind myself when listening to a recording not to expect an exxageration of the real thing! With Rock concerts, the DVD experience is usually far superior to the live thing - sound wise.
Thanks for starting this discussion!
Although we may err in our remembrance of a live musical event, there is no question when we HEAR one. I can distinguish between the sound of a live band and recorded music blocks away in spite of traffic noise and crowd noise. Live acoustic music is even more distinctive. The clues that tell my brain that the music is live and not reproduced are the same clues that YOUR brain uses. If and when we're able to reproduce THOSE clues, then we'll have "the absolute sound," regardless of our perceptual filters.
The fact that we may focus on different things in reproduced music doesn't necessarily mean that we're unable to perceive the totality of live. The basic hypothesis of this thread I find questionable.
A good sense of humor makes it ALL sound better!
VERY interesting article.
And the further complication to musical perception is that, in any individual, this is not constant. The reason is simple - our brains do not necessarily function in exactly the same way each time because this function varies with the state of health, degree of tiredness and a multitude of other factors. So the "filters" referred to in the article are not necessarily constant. Enjoyment of any music, either live or amplified can vary quite a lot within an individual with the degree of appreciation not always a function of the music but can vary with the state of mind of the individual.
So, the only really reliable constant in all this are objective measurements but sadly these might not guarantee musical satisfaction in any individual. However the placebo affect can be significant and few would deny the pleasure obtained from owning a component that is particularly well made, is attractive and has been effectively advertised and reviewed well. For many, emotive advertising can be enough as illustrated by the prioe many have in their Bose systems. [And that is not meant as a put down on all Bose systems as some can sound quite good although not my cup of tea].
So it is unsurprising that so many upper level fine systems sound different. Bottom line is for the individual to discover a system which most times suits their musical enjoyment with the caveat not to be surprised to sometimes find that system unsatisfyying. This can happen because the filters in the brain have changed. If those changes become permanent then maybe the brain has become more critical to certain system faults (and every system has them) and it could be time to "upgrade". But this process is fraught with dangers as it is so easy to merely replace one irritating fault with a different one. There is initial delight that the old irritation has been minimised but over time the brain becomes conscious of something else that is less than satisfying and detracts from enjoyment of the music.
When this occurs the individual is in grave danger of becoming paranoid and be never satisfied, spending thosands of dollars on a never ending parade of toys. Each time the musical sounds are different and are initially interpreted as better, when in an overall sense no real progress has been made.
Maybe one "cure" is to have a number of systems in the house and to accustom the ears to accept differences in reproduced timbres. Assemble one major system + at least one other which is very good and listenable. This helps the brain appreciate just how good the main system is.
There is a lot of psychology at play with those of us who take musical reproduction seriously. We enjoy this "hobby" because -
1. We do enjoy music, maybe more so in the comfort and privacy of our own home than in public concerts with their distractions and hassles;
2. It appeals to pride of ownership to have components which look good as well as reproduce music well
3. There is the lego factor where great satisfaction is gained from assembling disparate items together to produce great music
4. It appeals to the collectors instinct to put together a great library of music that one enjoys
5. There is great joy in sharing the fruits of labours with other music lovers and engaging in social interaction at the same time as musical appreciation.
I've been fascinated by the challenge of musical reproduction ever since, as a boy, I discovered an old Edison phonograph in the attic and revelled to the sound of "Bunkers Hill" eminating from an old cylinder. Graduationg to 78's, then LPs and now to digital media has been a long, expensive and sometimes frustrating path but but ultimately a rewarding one.
John
A retired AV nut not looking for any cure for the insanity
http://gallery.audioasylum.com/cgi/view.mpl?UserImages=3758&session=
Chris Martens, you should name this the 'phenomenology of music' as it follows similar logic of how the phenomenoligists of philosophy described their understanding of Being in time and space, through cognitive filters.
ScottB: i appreciate what you state about, the influence of live music on your listening preferences at home and would compliment what your point by stating one's listening preferences change given your last influence of live music. being a person who goes to live classical, rock and jazz quite often, i often find my system to be lacking (or really good) depending on what i listened to last. for example, after listening to rock, i can never be satisfied with my systems bass on the kick drum. That always gets me each time, knowing that something more should be there. i know i could get a system that reaches lower or try to get a sub-woofer which phases in with rest of my system to reach lower (i keep trying but i cannot get a sub to perfectly phase in with my system, despite all the techniques i have read about - also have limitations having neighbors below me). Having said that, the loudspeakers i know that hit those lows without the sub (Wilson Alexandria X2 Series 2) don't seem to satisfy other 'subsets' of my listening preferences.
I think, with ScottB's input added to what Martens is saying is that one will only come to the conclusion that an ideal world would consist of multiple listening rooms (unrealistic, but the point is still the same) to satisfy the subset of listening to the fancy of the critical listener in a specific time and space (i.e. what the brain wants to absorb in the larger set of hearing at that time and in that mood). I think Chris' theory will lead to a realization that no system satisfies all of the iterations of one's subset(s) of listening all of the time and therefore, it is the subset(s) which most dominates our interests most of the time which one should concentrate building their system around.
Here’s a little audiophile blasphemy – There is no such thing as ‘the absolute sound’.
No, not even when attending a live performance of unamplified acoustic instruments. We each bring a physically different set of ears, and a very differentally wired brain to this performance. We probably sit in different seats, with largely different acoustic effects. And we all have different – and very imprecise – memories of what we heard… even just moments afterward.
So there is no common experience of ‘the absolute sound’ which we can share or agree upon.
Furthermore, our brains process sound differently, depending on all incoming sensory input, all other thoughts, our general state of being, and most of all our moods. (That’s also why the exact same recording played back on the exact same system may sound a bit different on different days.)
So there is not even any PERSONAL experience of ‘the absolute sound’ which is 100% consistent and repeatable!!
All that being said, there is nothing wrong with pursuing “realism” in audio. But never expect “reality”! That is the search for a Holy Grail which does not really exist and I think HP knew that when he named the magazine after the ever-receding horizon of ‘The Absolute Sound’.
I realize now that I have a bit more to say on this topic. Part 2 will cover ‘realism’ vs ‘reality’, and the questionable value of the so-highly-revered ‘live mic feed’…
Happy Listening – and Happy Holidays – to all!
PART 2 -- Realism vs Reality, etc.
Picking up where I left off… since ‘the absolute sound’ does not truly exist (i.e. It is an amorphous, variable, moving target, not a bull’s-eye that can be hit), the quest for it can lead to obsession. One can spend all their time (and money) swapping components, applying tweaks, etc. etc. etc. If you are a ‘gear head’ (I use the term affectionately – some of my best friends…), who lives for that sort of thing… Enjoy! But personally, I’d rather spend MOST of my time listening to music.
Most of us think of our audio system as a series of well-designed components which, together, reproduce a pretty good approximation of live music in our home. Turn that inside-out. It’s really a series of imperfect components, each of which ‘does something’ to the original recorded signal. And our real goal is to build a system which does what it must to reproduce sound, while adding & subtracting as little as possible to the source.
In the search for ‘realism’, we are really trying to minimize the distortion introduced by the flaws limitations of our systems. For example, adding a good power conditioner may eliminate noise you that you didn’t even know you were hearing. But your perception of this reduced noise-floor is more likely to manifest itself as increased detail. more natural decay, and greater ambience. These are not ‘enhancements’; They were there all along in the source… but masked by noise in the power supply.
So, how is seeking ‘realism’ and different than trying to achieve ‘reality’ (you may ask)? Well, that takes us back to the live mic feed. According to ScottB, Robert Harley stated that 24/176 digital data is sufficiently resolved to be transparent to the live microphone feed. That, of course, is not exactly true. Once the mic’s output passes through a cable, it has been altered in some (albeit tiny) way. And if we know that each component in our audio system ‘does something’ to the signal, how about each component in the recording chain?
If our home systems were PERFECT, the best we could do is reproduce the sound of the Master, whether it’s Hi-Res digital or two-track analog. And that is already a slightly compromised version of what the mic picks up. (But trust me, we’d all be ecstatic if we could get sound that good at home!)
Speaking of microphones… What kind were used? How many? Placed where? All of that constitutes another big gap between ‘reality’ and the ‘live mic feed’. Ears are all different and all imperfect; much more so for microphones!
So that’s what we’re up against. Microphones don’t exactly record reality. The recording chain does not preserve exactly what they do pick up on the Master. And the final recording – regardless of media – never sounds as good as the Master.
THAT is how far the very best playback on the very best system you’ve ever heard is from ‘reality’ - nowhere close!
ALL THAT BEING SAID… we are now capable of achieving a MUCH higher level of ‘realism’ in our home audio than ever before. Science keeps advancing, and new technology along with it. We are not only finding ways to eliminate the distortion we know; We are discovering sources of distortion we never considered before, and working to address them.
The result is that, if we are still nowhere near ‘reality’, we are increasingly capable of achieving a far more ‘realistic’, and more satisfying, home audio experience. And it just keeps on getting better…
Happy Listening to all!
This article brings up something REG brought up many years ago: should music sound the way it sounds as the microphones "hear" it or the way it should be heard by a listener in the concert hall?
Clearly, up-close instruments will allow one to heard sounding boards, the internal body of an instrument, etc., while the seat in the concert hall still allows these qualities to be heard (in a good hall, not a mediocre one), but to a lesser degree.
This is exactly why I nagged this site to post the reviewer's rooms, size, preferences. For example, I always found that my taste ran very close to Fred Kaplan's tastes. He listens to jazz and also seems to want to hear the "human touch" of a musician as opposed to simply the sound of the instrument. Of course, this includes "timing," not something that is stressed in reviews all that much (Judy Davidson, a former writer for TAS, was exceedingly good at defining components by this one trait. Needless to say, I liked her very much).
I'm not surprised that HP's system and the other gentleman's didn't sound alike despite the speaker. One could then assume that, leaving out the room, the preceding electronics determined how much of certain qualities could be heard, and what could not. HP, for example, never put much empasis on what he sometimes seem to deride the Brits for: pace and timing. At least, not until he eventually wrote an essay on the "fourth" element of sound reproduction: Time. Well, isn't that the same thing as pace and rhythm? Can one have pace and rhythm without "time." I would think not, especially in jazz, where it is a crucial element of "swing." As the song goes, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Anyway, back to HP's systems.
As brilliant as he is -- and he is -- it took me about 15 years before I realized he touted cartridges that were generally "lean" in sound. Anyone who has read TAS knows he has, traditionally, liked the Carnegie, the Spectral, the Parnassus, Lyra Titan and the Clearaudios, which all share a certain leanness to their sound. (Well, yes, he liked the Benz too, but demoted it shortly afterwards. As far as I'm concerned, the Benz' rich (read: tonally "right") sound made brass sound more golden, strings more silvery, etc.) AHC, regarding the Spectral, completely disagreed with HP that the Spectral didn't have a "coloration," a dispute that John Nork (another brilliant TAS writer) cleared up by pointing out that the Spectral was like being in sunlight that was whitish in color (sort of like San Francisco sunlight, which, from living there 30 years, has that quality around noon). The other cartridge (I think it was the Lyra Clavis) was more golden in color.
I'd submit that one needs to know what "lights" the writer's fire, and that's why I can read JV, Fred Kaplan, and John Nork's articles and know I'm not going to end up with a component that is whitish in nature. I still revere HP and his reviews, but find I have to be careful if it's a cartridge, interconnect, turntable or speaker. The Nordosts, in the older line, hew towards a slightly lean sound. In case anyone cares to dispute this, please remember that HP, after receiving the Odins, stated point blank that the older Nordost line was "threadbare" compared to the Odin line. And he's right, although it would be hard to tell without warm components. And do remember that CJ equipment would be warm, and that's been his reference for what -- 10 years, at least?? Now if one had an older Convergent preamp, one would hear that leanness toute suite, unless using MIT cables, which, to me, was perhaps less "fast" then Nordost, but definitely warmer in the midbass. One has only to listen to brass on MIT to hear this trait. Conversely, the (older) Spectral electronics were themselves "lean" (I have no idea what they sound like now). Dave Wilson used WATTS with a Rowland Coherence One and a Spectral 50 (or was that 80) watter amp. The combination of the two ameliorated the early WATTS' tendency toward a lighter midrange (and I had 3 generations of WATTS and heard the sound change between them. Generation 1: lightweight. Generation 2: fuller. Generation 3: back to the lean sound, at which point I sold my WATT/Puppy speakers. I don't like "lean.") and fast but lean bass frequencies.
Unless one KNOWS the reviewer's preferences, one is going to encounter this constantly. I would make a sure bet that the electronics in the HP and Kanagut systems varied quite a bit, not to mention, their choice in cabling and line conditioners.
I've ALWAYS found this to be the case in reviews. Halls vary in their sound as does equipment, although the more knowledgable reviewers can listen "around" this trait, but it would still be hard to comment on the traits of component if person A listens to voice, pop and classical, whereas person B listens to voice,jazz, R&B. Jazz isn't generally played in Carnegie (although I saw Nancy Wilson there. But she was miked and the sound was glassy as hell with bright brass. They were using Carnegie Halls house speakers, which I cannot find in myself to admire in the slightest), but in different venues. And One doesn't listen for the harmonics in jazz: one listens for the soulfulness, and a different kind of musicianship. Besides, jazz, unless it's Basie or Ellington or Goodman (or others of that band nature) has maybe 5 or 6 players, not an entire orchestra. Simpler sound, more direct. (I mean, did Ellington play in the Concertgebouw?? He probably found the jazz clubs and played there.)
I think we need to determine if this is about "realism" or "realistic." A good recording is going to sound more "real" if the components are more "invisible." A "realistic" system might be composed of good components that mimic realism, but don't quite achieve it.
We're talking about the differences in components, as I see it. I could be wrong, of course, but having read audio mags for 25 years, I'm not sure than I am wrong. It's just a matter of what, as Mr. Martens posits, the focus is in the system and how much those elements of "focus" matter to the reviewer.
By the way, I just read the thread referred to by another poster, who pointed out JV's article on "lets call the whole thing off." One would think I'd read it before I wrote this, but I didn't. In fact, I put this in a Word document, thinking perhaps I'd misunderstood the point of the thread. I THEN read JV's musings, and these are mine afterwards. Nearly the same as his.
Unless there is a component that captures every single aspect of music: tonal color, transient speed, rhythm, pace, timing, not to mention the soul of the music IN TOTO, and, on top of that, sounds like the Metropolitan Opera mic feed, NOTHING is going to be "THE BEST." It's only going to be the best for our tastes. That said, there are obviously components that SOUND closer to the mic feed than others. That, I think I can tell without reading this -- or any -- magazine. I know what a piano sounds like (boy do I know) in real life: its movements, or "actions," its harmonics, etc.
I'd just say: whoever has the most points on the checklist of live music (say 59 out of 60 quantifiable elements -- including a completely non-mechanical reproduction, which, I think, is paramount to sounding real) -- is the closest to the absolute sound. Not necessarily completely and totally real, just the absolute closest we have to fooling us into thinking it COULD be real. For now.