Well,
This should be a whole topic by itself. The opinion whether it's better (more enjoyable) for your speakers to be "highly revealing" or colored "just right".
Typically, for those who have not listened to enough speakers with critical thought, highly revealing (high resolution) speakers which produce fewer overtones and you are able to hear deeper into the mix. Speakers that do this well typically don't "image" well (the perception of depth and space within the sound, which is often a 'coloration' from room acoustics and NOT part of the source recording). Highly accurate speakers can many times be described as 'cold' and sometimes even 'bright' (because whether people want to accept it or not, MOST recordings have strong sybllance in the high frequencies.
Speakers which contain coloration are actually more common, even among "high end" speakers than most people want to believe. If a speaker utilizes any 'dipole' dispersion in it's design, it's intending to use room reflections to give the impression the soundstage is much wider and deeper than it really is. A great number of audiophiles pay great amounts of money to get the colored sound they really like (ie, dipole electrostats and tube amplifiers, targeted acoustic room treatments to shape how smooth the reflected sound seems). You know you have speakers coloring the sound when you find everything you play on them seems to sound really 'good'. Truly "revealing" speakers don't sound good unless the source recording sounds good. With revealing speakers, you get what you put into them. With colored speakers, you might actually enjoy music MORE. So, just because a speaker is "accurate" doesn't mean people will like it.
I think most people may be surprised which speakers the ACTUALLY prefer. I say you may want to have a pair of nice sounding speakers with the perfect colorations for those recordings that aren't the best or have limited resolution. Dipole speakers and working to 'smooth out' the midrange with a tube amp & soft room treatments can actually give an illusion of depth and quality that isn't really within the source recording. Also, buy a pair of accurate speakers for those high resolution recordings which need no 'help' and will sound fantastic when put to the test.
This should be a whole topic by itself. The opinion whether it's better (more enjoyable) for your speakers to be "highly revealing" or colored "just right".
Typically, for those who have not listened to enough speakers with critical thought, highly revealing (high resolution) speakers which produce fewer overtones and you are able to hear deeper into the mix. Speakers that do this well typically don't "image" well (the perception of depth and space within the sound, which is often a 'coloration' from room acoustics and NOT part of the source recording). Highly accurate speakers can many times be described as 'cold' and sometimes even 'bright' (because whether people want to accept it or not, MOST recordings have strong sybllance in the high frequencies.
Speakers which contain coloration are actually more common, even among "high end" speakers than most people want to believe. If a speaker utilizes any 'dipole' dispersion in it's design, it's intending to use room reflections to give the impression the soundstage is much wider and deeper than it really is. A great number of audiophiles pay great amounts of money to get the colored sound they really like (ie, dipole electrostats and tube amplifiers, targeted acoustic room treatments to shape how smooth the reflected sound seems). You know you have speakers coloring the sound when you find everything you play on them seems to sound really 'good'. Truly "revealing" speakers don't sound good unless the source recording sounds good. With revealing speakers, you get what you put into them. With colored speakers, you might actually enjoy music MORE. So, just because a speaker is "accurate" doesn't mean people will like it.
I think most people may be surprised which speakers the ACTUALLY prefer. I say you may want to have a pair of nice sounding speakers with the perfect colorations for those recordings that aren't the best or have limited resolution. Dipole speakers and working to 'smooth out' the midrange with a tube amp & soft room treatments can actually give an illusion of depth and quality that isn't really within the source recording. Also, buy a pair of accurate speakers for those high resolution recordings which need no 'help' and will sound fantastic when put to the test.
