"Rob" wrote in message
...
Don Pearce wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 15:53:45 +0100, "Wally" wrote:

Don Pearce wrote:

And sound from an audio system differs from this... how?
In that there is an original to which it may aspire. ...
What does aspiration to an original have to do with getting the
emotional
response you want from what you hear?


If you believe that the musicians, singers etc have a clue what they
are doing, and publish a product containing the emotion they want to
impart, then a system that delivers that without overlaying a load of
other stuff is a very useful aspiration.


I think you're absolutely right - a system that conveys emotion. If your
system does that - gets most of that message across as you
remember/interpret it, then so much the better. I think we'd agree that
'emotion' can't be bottled, much less measured.

Agreed, absolutely. One of my seniors at Decca used to talk about
the *mf* (musicality factor) of a performance or a system. Music is
all about emotion, and I applaud people like Keith who are taking
the trouble to find the elements of an audio system which can reveal
the audible emotion embedded in so many performances at so many
levels.

I feel there is no one type of system that can be all things to all
music and all people. Perhaps a good SS amp is a fairly satisfactory
all-rounder? For small classical ensembles, a good SET with a pair
of Lowthers is an incredibly good combination. The high sensitivity
of the speakers is such that only a few mW of power is required to
fill most listening rooms, and at that level a good SET amp has very
low THD figs. Some people who are not accustomed to this kind
of sound talk about what they perceive as light bass. Go to a
concert, and listen to a string quartet. Not much bass there either:-)

I don't think Keith has a different set of aspirations, although I do
think his approach is unorthodox and out of the box (so to speak). It's
certainly changed my way of thinking about reproducing music.

Iain