Personal music styles and favorite music genres like classic, house, EDM, folk, pop etc. might change over time. Would one need to change, up- or even downgrade the originally installed and tweaked audio-system and its quality-level accordingly?
I am wondering if eg. a top-line system would be needed to listen to ‚normal‘ electronic (and AI generated) music? And vice versa … System ‚overkill‘ and music-style ‘mismatch’ possible?
Curious about your thoughts and experience, thanks
As we upgraded our system one thing we noticed is how it flourished with ALL genres.
There will be exceptions of course, mainly around loudspeakers. If you buy a very laid back pair of loudspeakers based solely on a love of vocal jazz for example, then those might not respond well to high energy EDM…
I’ll try explaining the concept of having multiple systems for listening to different musical genres and swapping components in and out during a listening session to Mrs Ebor and let you know how I get on.
On an unrelated note, I’d like to be cremated and my ashes scattered on Southampton Road, Salisbury.
I suppose that if speakers, as the system component having the greatest influence on sound character, significantly modify the sound in a way that appeals to listener with one type of music, some other types of music might sound falsely bad.
If instead one has a full range system of minimal colouration then all music has an equal chance. I always audition kit using a range of music covering quite the different styles I like, from rock and prog to opera, from dramatic orchestral to chamber music to solo piano. (Getting acoustic piano to sound natural is a particular challenge with hi-fi.) Unfortunately speakers that can do all music well tend to be on the expensive side because of the need to do bass properly - and then of course the amp has to be good enough to have adequate control over them, etc…
I feel that way myself, and something that markedly distorts the sound away from the sound as recorded certainly doesn’t fit my understanding of the meaning of high fidelity. However if someon listens only to music that sounds good to them through their system, and is happy with that, and has neither interest nor desire to listen to any other music that doesn’t sound good through it, then that surely is not a failure or wrong for them. However, if they seek to advise other people on system components and setup I feel they should clarify the limited suitability from which they are coming.
I was interested when auditioning turntables a while back how each did better on some tracks than others. Not necessarily genre specific, I don’t think I’d have listened to enough to work that out. But the three decks I was listening to definitely had strengths and weaknesses and they weren’t necessarily differences that suited every genre. In other words I think I made a buying decision based on the deck that suited more of the music I like more of the time. I did post something similar at the time if I remember correctly.
I’ll also say that none of the decks sounded bad, and I don’t think the differences were enough to want to change deck if my musical tastes change, but it was a point that fed into my buying decision at the time.
On a more serious note I did buy my speakers with a bias towards vocals and acoustic music. Not the greatest with large classical piece but brilliant with the likes of Cohen, Baez, Casssidy, Mary Black and er George Smiley for audio
Whilst I haven’t heard a Nova, I would have thought that it is perfectly capable of playing music of all genres satisfactorily, as indeed is probably the case with the vast majority of hifi sources and amps, combined or not. However, the speakers are critical and the choice can have a big effect on how good the system sounds with different types of music.
Buy a good system, listen to the music you enjoy. Forget about the system and focus on the music has been my approach for many decades and has meant I don’t change my system often. Which means more free money for life’s luxuries, such as food and heating.
As upgrades have landed, my system has improved with all types of music. However, my quest originally was to get something which could do scale and clarity at volume, particularly for rock, metal and big orchestral. However, over the centuries my tastes have grown increasingly eclectic. I now have six capable systems. They all make music, but the better the system, the better the enjoyment, on everything. Some claim that Naim is better suited to rock, but in my experience, Naim just does music, in all its forms.
One thing that has changed, since I bought my first CD player in 2022, is that for quiet, low signal to noise ratio, music I tend to prefer a digital source. That said, Gregorian chant on vinyl and drum and bass on CD can sound equally impressive.
However, since I really can’t abide most rap music, if I had to listen to it at all, it would be on the most rubbish system I could find, with the volume turned off.
No system is perfect. This means that the particular strengths (or weaknesses) of one setup may slightly favour a specific music genre compared to those of another system. But I think this is more common when comparing different brands than when climbing a manufacturer’s product ladder.
Tuning speakers into the room is a good example of a musical improvement that is better across the board. I purposely said ‘musical’ improvement because the end result can upset the balance.
Ah, now that sounds like it would be a great system/setup for some other types of music as well as rap, in particular it should excel with jazz, and would be pretty good with a lot of pop music…
