When is "too detailed" a bad thing?

Detailed: don't confuse that with enhanced high frequency playback coused by Class B and transient distortion of solid state amp's.
Valve user since the fifties, never could adapt to a solid state amp, can'
t stand the fake brightness.

 

Yes, I agree. I'm not sure it's the OP's question, but still a good point. Many expect music to be "relaxing." When the adagio second movement of a concerto gives way to the allegro finale, they don't like it.

I am happy to find someone else who appreciates Sun Ra.

 

I agree that technically it is impossible to have too much detail, or more detail than was present during the performance when the music was recorded (for example).
But I do think that it is possible to hear what sounds like too much detail, which is most likely something in the recording or reproduction chain that is exaggerating or compensating in an attempt to sound more appealing.
For example, the Ortofon 2M Black phono cartridge (no offense). It sounds very detailed but unfortunately it is adding unnatural air, presence and sparkle. It sounds great until you experience a more natural reproduction that is appropriately detailed.

 

When I hear that an audio system or equipment is "too detailed" I think that it actually lacks something fundamental to the music, usually harmonic richness. You can hear all the individual parts of the music in such a system, but the parts don't gel together into a convincing representation of music. The system/equipment has you focusing on all the individual parts, i.e. the details, instead of the music as an organic whole. There are some high-end equipment I've heard that can be described in this way.

 

Tom Littlefield [treadstarter (where R U)]

If U haven't gotten UR answer:
"too detailed" isn't bad.
Unfortunately, recordings R issued promoting 'more detail' sometimes have boosted treble. More high frequency EQ can fool people into thinking they R hearing more 'detail'.
Mastering in such a way, can also B fatiguing. Hence the 'harsh' 'earbleed' 'sharp' audiospeak associated w/'detail'.
Marketing & Modern Mastering have given 'detail' a bad name. Not 'detail' in a recording, that's good/great.
Hopefully hopeful.

Yep, to the 1st part.
Yep, to the 2nd part, if Strat-Mangler means super 'detail' can sound 'dry'. Therefore leading to a LoFi sounding sound ('tinny').
LoFi can also B associated w/rounded off frequencies tho; so...
YMMV

 

I think it is a big factor. So many people do not sit and listen in a chair to their stereo for say 2 hours. Nothing else, just listen. Listening for those details. Most putz around and listen to say a Roger Whitaker and some other easy listening, while doing other things. They are not sitting and staring in their living room concentrating on sound. Deciphering. They do not want any sort of details because it takes concentration and they listen strictly to music as background filler. Go ahead and try some say 150 bpm electronic songs and see if they can handle it for say 5 minutes. Or some Phillip Glass efforts that are not soft melody based.

Most people are like this. I have had what could be considered high end gear for pretty much 40 years now. Most people--but not all--do not like any type of highly detailed music going in 4 different directions at once or highly dynamic music at all.

In that scenario, having a system capable of producing high detail is detrimental and a big negative & they leave the room. Personally, I've been told headaches. To their way of thinking, spending big bucks to get that kind of detail is 7 kinds of stupid.

 

Music with a lot of simultaneous notes or parts -- "where a ton is going on" -- is not the same thing as audio detail -- audio detail is low level information on a recording, like the very small change of dynamics in solo line or things the extra musical detail you can hear in certain recordings (the piano pedal dampers going up and down, the flutist taking breaths before lines) that when a system resolves them than further the illusion of presence that great hifi can deliver.

No one ever said, "that MC cartridge is TOO detailed," meaning, "I don't like Sun Ra," the two are completely disconnected. I mean I adore Sun Ra, but play an original Saturn pressing of When Sun Comes out (or even the Evidence reissue) and then compare it with then new Michael Anderson remaster -- on the latter you'll hear the old Choreographer's Workshop space brought to life, you'll make out the horn voicings in a way that you never have before, it'll be like listening to music you've never heard before, it's that different. That's the kind of thing we're talking about, not he music itself, which in the above example is identical, but the audibility of detail in the specific recording and the equipment's role in revealing or masking that.

And frankly, with this '50s crooner comparison and notion of "a ton going on" in the music, I don't know that, say "Atlantis" has more simultaneous musical information going on in it than a Nelson Riddle arrangement on Only the Lonely or Songs for Swinging Lovers or something, and certainly with Phillip Glass, almost nothing happens for long stretches in a lot of Glass' music, it's great, but there can be a lot more stuff going on in a couple of bars of one of those Riddle arrangements, including not only musical notes and multiple parts but also more variation in the micro elements of performance, than in a couple of bars of "Music in Fifths."

 

Like I said earlier---lots of folks do not like the details. They do not like sophisticated in any form or way. Too detailed for them is out---what you don't acknowledge or seem to get is that is not the bunch of folks that are on this forum. Or are audiophiles in any shape or form. Don't you know people like that?

 

I just think when you bring in the music of Sun Ra or Phillip Glass or something, you're talking about a completely different subject than the issue of hearing low level sonic detail on a hifi system. The OP was talking about a very specific thing: "I see many comments regarding speakers, carts, amps etc as being too detailed," a kind of thing you do sometimes hear, someone talking about a piece of gear being "too revealing." Hell, our host once started a whole thread about one of his systems being too resolving. But it doesn't have anything to do with the music. Maybe they were listening to Sinatra with the old cart, and the same Sinatra with the new cart. Those people saying "this cartridge is too detailed" are audiophiles -- non-audiophiles aren't having that kind of conversation. I don't really think it's at all analogous to musical sophistication or something (nor to I think that, say, Sun Ra's music is more sophisticated than Frank Sinatra's for that matter). Sure, most people don't care about the things we audiophiles care about. Those people probably aren't even noticing the kind of detail we're talking about that. My wife is like that, she's lived in an audiophile household for 30 years, she loves music, but she doesn't sit an listen to the details, I could even get her to focus on hearing the different resolution when switching cables of the sound of the sound dampers going up and down on Monk Alone in SF, for example, and it wouldn't matter to her even if I could get her to focus on it. It's almost like Magic Eye op art, some people see it, some people don't. But I think the people who don't care about low level audio detail just don't care about low level audio detail. I don't think you'd hear them say "that cartridge is too detailed," that's something that someone paying attention for low level detail says.

 

Some recordings and playback system are intentionally made to put an emphasis on the detail, which is wrong, IMO. For example, I often read in some hi-fi reviews how great is some component or recording, because during a choral singing the listener can clearly hear the different voices in the choir, and this is laughable, because the idea of the choral is an uniform sound. Same enthusiasm is shown when testing with orchestral recordings - how the system (or the recording) distinguish every single instrument, even during the forte's...(if you think of the many great conductors, spent amounts of time, and endless rehearsals, in order to achieve an uniform orchestral sound...) It's just one of the many "audiophile" nonsense's, IMO.

 

"Too much detail" - to say that there is too much of something implies unbalanced sound. So what is "detail"? I'd say it lives in the upper midrange/lower treble where our ears are most sensitive. Generally speaking I find that "too much detail" can be alleviated by just turning the volume down a bit!

I am fine knowing that a lot of recordings have recording/mixing/mastering approaches that I am not crazy about, and will not spend my life chasing amps/source/speakers that somehow magically "fix" this.... the same system presenting this detailed music also has to deal with some music lacking detail, and I don't want to make the latter sound worse by having a system that is too "mellow".

I prefer "too much" detail over not enough, I guess you could say.

 

At this point we must assume the hardware has been qualified.

 

I usually listen to music on an iPod through headphones at night when I go to sleep (EQ on Hip Hop setting for bass). My BeyerDynamic DT770 Pro 200 ohms are too crisp to listen to while trying to relax and sleep. I use the 80 ohm model for that.

However, when finalizing mastering or doing other critical listening, I use the BD 200 ohms and my Altec 604(e) system as checks on each other.

 

I came across this quote by Robert E Greene. As many of you know, he is a professional mathematician, professional audio reviewer for TAS (for decades), and a semi-professional musician (violinist). His view seemed relevant to the topic.

"That an increase in perceived detail is an improvement sometimes seems to be virtually an audiophile article of faith. But to my mind it is important to realize that detail as perceived can be increased by errors, rather than by resolution as such. Small deviations in frequency response and/or certain types of distortion can give the impression of more detail without literally increasing resolution."

(Follow the link for the whole article, his review of a colored, expensive tube amp.)

 

Lets look at it from another perspective (or two).

Listen to a solo violin playing, that's detail. Now add eleven more violins playing, can you still hear the detail of that single violin playing, no.

Are we meant to, no. With all twelve violins playing, of course we can't make out the detail in a single instrument, but that is a good thing, it smooths out the music.

That is why there are so many violins in and average orchestra.

Next, take the sound of a hundred piece orchestra, listen to a piece of music. Now, take away ninety of the musicians, leaving you with only ten musicians. Have them play the same piece, how does the orchestra sound now? Not so good!

The sound is now thin and small, not full and big, but you can experience better "detail".

It is just that the entire purpose of an orchestra is to produce a huge, full sound.

With a stereo, having two modest size, but quality bookshelf speakers, you can get detail but you can't get the large full sound that big floor standing speakers, will bring to the table.

Detail in a small speaker, like the Kef LS50's, can more accurately enable one to pick out specific locations of instruments within the sound stage. But it would have limited application, if the intent was to produce a large full sound.

In order to reproduce a larger and fuller sound, larger speakers having more surface area, are required.

It also helps to have either more speakers, more reflected sound, or both.

If you were in a city, standing on a third story balcony, with a thousand voices singing in the streets, the sound will be both loud and full. But it will also appear to be coming from everywhere, because it is. The sound is coming directly from the people, the sound is bouncing off of the streets, off the other buildings and bouncing off the building behind you.

In real life, most of the sounds we here are reflected sounds. So listening to reflected sounds, is both natural and desirable. Listening to point source speakers, with the sound directly reaching you, before reflecting off other objects, is not really a natural way to listen.

If you listen with more speakers and more reflections, you will get a larger, fuller and (IMO), a more realistic experience.

With sounds reaching your ears at different times and directions, it will blur the "detail", but, if done properly, can be a nice listening experience.

Just a different way to listen.

S&G