Tear Drop:matthewpiano:I'm inclined to agree with the points that IDC has made elsewhere - that rather than searching for some holy grail of 'fidelity' we should perhaps be searching for a solution that enables us to simply enjoy listening to all and any of the music we choose to play
Basic enjoyment of music can be had with next to no fidelity - I can listen to any portable music player with a pair of cheap earphones and enjoy the music, I can listen to a 'boombox' with the EQ settings all over the place and enjoy the music, etc etc. However, since we are supposed to be interested in hifi - high fidelity - when it comes to music reproduction, simply saying that basic enjoyment is the only consideration doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Music has so much depth, and has so much to offer beyond simple enjoyment, and it is my experience that a true high fidelity system will convey all these aspects of music to the listener (just like live performances do), but a system of poor fidelity will totally obliterate these qualities of music. If all you are seeking is basic musical enjoyment then hifi is a rather expensive, time consuming and, frankly, pointless way to go about it.
I disagree. I believe a certain level of fidelity is necessary for basic enjoyment of music, or at least it is for me. I don't enjoy music played on cheap earphones or a 'boombox' because I can't hear what is going on in the music. For me, being able to hear that is essential for my enjoyment of the music, and that is why I have a very good hi-fi system.
However, I also believe that, beyond a certain point, equipment tries so hard to find extra depth/detail that it can make less decent recordings virtually unlistenable and/or flatten the listening experience. I have no doubt that technically the Arcam A70 and Cambridge 740A amps I've had were superior to my current Pioneer but, to me, the A400 is quite simply the best amplifier I've ever had because it gives ample detail without becoming so hi-fi that the listening experience becomes concerned with electronics rather than the music. It gives music the space to breathe and, to quote a review that was written at the time of the amp's launch, it sounds 'ineffably right'. In all my auditioning and listening I don't think there is an amplifier below £1000 I would prefer to have.
Music is the single driving factor in all this for me. I am a musician myself and it is from this angle that my interest in hi-fi and technology stems. The simple fact is that some of the more expensive kit I've had has actually negatively effected my enjoyment of the music. The three systems that I've enjoyed the most, without losing any sense of atmosphere or musical information, are my present one, a Sansui-Mission system my Dad had in the 90s (CD-X111, AU-X111, 760 speakers), and an early system I had as a teenager (Sony CDP-110, Sansui AU-2200, Mordaunt-Short MS15 II).