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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: My Audio Philosophy
Post Subject: Bad hardware does not kill musicality, ignorance doesPosted by rowuk on: 10/26/2019
Amir,there is simply too much with your posting that I disagree with. Yes, knowledge and experience with live music is a powerful tool when thinking about musical goals for playback - even when considering that they are very much different events.Musicality has NOTHING to do with hardware and everything to do with the performance. A musical message can be adequately conveyed with a Bose wave radio or cheap car system. Musicality is not a feature of a sound system in my world. It is the soul of the performer.
If we are talking about proper playback, I think we need terms that more closely describe what is happening. The audiophool speak is useless when defining goals. Distortion of geometry (placement of acoustic events), distortion of space (the physical size of the instruments and the distance between them), distortion of articulation (the characteristics that make instruments speak - related to transient behaviour and color). Distortion of pitch (when notes are in tune but sound like they are not) is a very big issue for me. Many audiophile systems have a sense of being high on the pitch. Strings need air, trumpets „brassiness“. Voices need „substance“. Proper playback can be soft and aggressive at the same time. An orchestra can create a billowy cloud and have sparks fly from the wind section. All of the factors mentioned are needed to avoid these unmusical distortions.
I do not think that feedback is a problem or that eliminating feedback is a general solution. I use single ended pentodes (connected as pentodes) with Schade type feedback for my amplifiers (RH 307A Super and multiple RH 84). The issue is how the amplifier and speaker work together.  My experiments with pure feedbackless SET amplifiers was not as gratifying (in respect to the distortions mentioned above).
Robin

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