How to appreciate fever music and HIFI audio?

                       How to appreciate fever music and HIFI audio

1. Sound quality. "Quality" is an innate nature, sound quality refers to the quality of sound, many people confuse it with "timbre". What is the quality of sound? Let me use the simplest analogy: when you say that a pair of shoes is of good quality, you must mean fit, comfortable and durable, not whether its shape is good-looking or not fashionable. Similarly, sound quality refers to the inner quality of sound, while timbre can be understood as an external image.

2. Timbre. Timbre refers to the color of sound. Tone quality (TONE QUALITY) and timbre (TIMBRE or TONE COLOR) are not the same thing at a glance. We often hear: the tone of this violin is really cold, and the tone of this violin is really warm, which refers to the tone of the violin. Sound, like light, has color, but it is not seen with the eyes, but heard with the ears. Generally, the warmer the tone, the softer the sound; the colder the tone, the harder the sound. Just like cloth, cloth quality refers to its material, while cloth color refers to its color. There is still a clear boundary during this period.

3. The distribution and control of volume sense in high, medium and low frequency bands. This project is easy to understand, but it is also easy to misinterpret the text. How should I put it? Everyone will say: The treble of this pair of speakers is too strong and the bass is too little. This is the volume distribution of the high, middle and low frequency bands. The problem is that if the bandwidth from 20Hz to 20KHz is divided into three segments, it will inevitably cause "not accurate enough" confusion. Therefore, a long time ago, someone referred to the bandwidth of musical instruments and the name of the sound of the orchestra, and divided the frequency of 20Hz-20KHz into seven segments: extremely low frequency, low frequency, medium low frequency, intermediate frequency, medium high frequency, high frequency, and extremely high frequency. .

4. Sound field performance. What exactly is "sound field"? In the United States, "Sound Field" and "Sound Stage" are two nouns. "Sound Field" is the space filled with sound; "Sound Stage" specifically refers to the arrangement of bands on the stage (including width, depth, height, and low). In China, what we call "sound field" actually refers to "Sound Stage"; as for "Sound Field", we have already replaced it with another term, which is "sense of space". So when we refer to "the shape of the soundstage", we mean the shape of the orchestra arrangement that your equipment reproduces.

For the performance of the sound field, we can listen from the following points: 1. The position of the sound field; 2. The width of the sound field; 3. The depth of the sound field.

5. The density and weight of the sound. The density of the so-called sound is like a kilogram of cotton and a kilogram of iron. Of course, the density of the iron is much greater; therefore, although the weight of the two is the same, the sense of weight given to people by the iron is much greater. The sound density is high, what does it sound like? Strings have a sense of stickiness, winds are thick and full, and percussion instruments will have the feeling of air vibration when struck. In the end, instruments and vocals sound more stable, solid, More like the real thing.

6. Transparency. Transparency is almost a term that can only be understood but cannot be expressed in words. Some records and equipment sound very clear, while others are like a layer of fog, as long as people with certain fever experience have this feeling. The sense of transparency is a very important link for enthusiasts, because if the sense of transparency is not good, it will also affect the judgment of other items. The best transparency is soft, and it sounds like the ear will not be tired; the poor transparency is like sunlight that hurts the eyes, although it can be seen clearly, it is very annoying.

7. Layering. The sense of layering is easy to understand. It refers to whether the intervals of the musical instruments from front to back can be clearly reproduced. As far as TV is concerned, if dark gray and black can be distinguished, it has a sense of hierarchy. The same is true for the sound system. If the arrangement of the orchestra does not mix together, there is a good sense of hierarchy. What's more, we need to hear the space between the instruments, so that we can have the best sense of hierarchy.

8. A sense of positioning. As the name suggests, the sense of positioning is to "fix there" the position. If the gathering is not accurate, the sense of positioning will be poor, and if the image quality is not good, the sense of positioning will not be good. If the recording process is not handled well, it will also lead to the drift of positioning; even in our listening space, the ratio of direct sound to reflected sound is not good. It will cause inaccurate positioning. In short, the poor sense of positioning may be caused by many reasons. We don't care how it is formed. What we require is that the musical instrument or human voice should be raised and clearly "fixed" there, and don't move when it shouldn't be moved. When there should be chaos, there should be no chaos.

9. Liveliness. The so-called sense of liveliness can be said to be the other side of instantaneous response, sense of speed, and contrast between strength and weakness. It makes your music sound lively, not dead. This is an important factor for whether the music is good or not, just like an excellent conductor can make the music full of vitality; while a poor conductor often makes the music lifeless, this is the sense of liveliness of the music.

10. Imaging and physical sense. As the name suggests, imagery is the ability to condense ethereal audio and video into entities; in other words, it is the ability to make the shape of a voice or musical instrument show a three-dimensional effect. Many enthusiasts tend to classify this into (sense of body), but we think it can be more specific with the combination of imagery and sense of body. Audio equipment with good image quality will make the audio image more embossed and more three-dimensional, that is, the shadow of the outline of the audio image we often say is clearer.

11. Resolution. This term is the easiest to understand. Anyone who has played with a camera knows the difference in the resolution of a lens; people who watch TV also know that their TV can resolve a piece of black hair without any confusion, which means good resolution. Good audio equipment can clearly express even subtle and complex things, which is the analytical power. But it must be emphasized that the resolution does not represent all the reproduction of details and layering.

12. Sense of speed and instant response. In fact, the sense of speed refers to the result of instantaneous response, and it is also a concrete manifestation of the rise time and slew rate of the equipment. Foreigners usually refer to this as a reaction rather than a sense of speed. For Lao Zhong, the sense of speed is easier to understand than the instantaneous reaction. Basically, these two nouns refer to the speed of each response of the equipment. I think there is no need to explain further here.

13. Strong and weak contrast and dynamic contrast. The contrast of strength and weakness can also be said to be the dynamic contrast that foreigners call, that is, the contrast between loud and soft. Generally speaking, the strength contrast can also be divided into the strength contrast of "strong contrast" and the strength contrast of "extremely small contrast". We often say that the great dynamics of classical music means that the contrast between the loudest and the quietest sounds is great; what is the dynamic contrast with minimal contrast? That is, the subtle contrast between strong and weak. In the most simple terms, the contrast of strength and weakness should be like this: the contrast of great strength and weakness is the waves hitting the rocky shore; the contrast of extremely small strength and weakness is the fluctuation of the lake water under the breeze.

14. The size ratio of instruments to vocals. What kind of instrument and human voice ratio is reasonable? Idealists believe that it should be scaled down according to the actual orchestra size and placed in the listening room at home. In fact, this is impossible. Let's take the simplest example: when the piano and the violin are playing a sonata, the shape of the piano does not know how many times larger than the violin. If the volume of the violin is not increased while recording, the violin is often overshadowed by the piano. The correct size ratio between musical instruments and vocals is not blindly reduced according to the rules, but the size ratio is made according to reasonable music requirements. As with instruments, so with vocals. We often hear this phenomenon when we hear some DJ music. We only hear a strong rhythm, but the voice is very small, which feels unpleasant.

15. The texture and air of musical instruments and vocals. What we are talking about here is not the texture of the sound quality, but the texture of the moment when the instrument is played and the impact is touched. So, when we say, "The violin has a nice grip on the strings", we mean "It records like a violin". As for the "air sense" what is it? In fact, it means the feeling of blowing air. To put it more clearly, "air sense" is the feeling of sound waves vibrating. The so-called texture refers to the "fax degree", most of which is the feeling immediately after "contact".

16. Details regeneration. Details probably generally refer to the details of musical instruments, the subtle reproduction of hall sounds and all the noise in the recording space. The amount of detail reproduction of a piece of audio equipment can be easily compared through AB Test. Why do some devices reproduce more details? We think this is related to low distortion, high signal-to-noise ratio, high sensitivity, resolution, transparency, etc. Equipment with less detail sounds flat and boring; equipment with more detail sounds interesting.

17. A sense of space. We often say that if a sound system (including equipment, records and space) can "make the sound field float", then it must also "see" the sense of space. Please note that it is "seeing" rather than "hearing". The sound field and sense of space that are really well performed can definitely be "seeed", not just "heard". What is the sense of space? That is the three-dimensional physical size of the recording place. To be able to fully express the sense of space, excellent detail reproduction is absolutely necessary, especially the reproduction of "Tang Yin".

18. Overall balance. Any record and audio equipment should be like a conductor controlling an orchestra, and an overall balance should be sought. This is like in an orchestra, everyone is a master soloist, but if everyone is in the limelight and does not listen to the interpretation of the conductor, even though individual performances are of high standard, the overall balance of the orchestra must be poor. A good band. Regarding this, we can’t use a scale to measure it. To judge the overall balance is like listening to more concerts to judge whether the orchestra is good or bad. We can only judge by our own rich listening experience.

19. Equipment personality. Records and audio equipment are just like people, with their own personalities. Some sound like gentlemen, some like hot prodigal sons; some are gentle like ladies, and some are warm like Carmen; Just like a big marriage, take it seriously. The combination of two hot-tempered equipment will definitely make you unbearable. Conversely, two pieces of warm swallowing water and slow doctor will make you anxious to death. Therefore, the cognition of equipment personality is absolutely necessary.

20. Equipment collocation. As mentioned earlier, each record and each piece of equipment has its own personality, and improper equipment collocation often has a greater impact than the quality of the equipment itself. It is a pity that not only ordinary enthusiasts, but also some experts often misunderstand the true capabilities of the equipment itself because of improper matching. Therefore, when configuring the equipment, it is necessary to rationalize the collocation according to the music performance characteristics of the equipment.

Written by : Davecl Audio.

www.davecl.com