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Negative Colouration
Since the birth of CD it seems that there have been
moves to justify its sound; emphasized two-dimensional leading edges,
attack and dynamics achieved through forwardness and a lack of body.
In demonstrations, this type of sound initially impresses many customers
because there is a feeling of more detail achieved by means of a stark,
spotlit soundstage. Long term this type of synthetic sound
doesn’t satisfy. Welcome to the ‘brave new world’ of
dry, mind over heart hi-fi, stripped of tonal colour.
A counter-reaction to this was the re-emergence of some single-ended designs
which are initially entertaining with honeyed tones but long term you feel that
you are seeing things through rose-coloured spectacles and missing insight
into the recording especially at the frequency extremes.
I sell Croft amps because a superb balance
is achieved. Their output transformerless designs are a case in point.
With the correct loudspeakers they are fast, open, with a beguiling naturalness
of tone, dimensionality and superb frequency extremes.
The Twinstar
range of power amps has developed and matured into a finely balanced tool,
built like an OTL, more user- friendly and universal in application.
The latest Croft pre-amps have body, detail and a midrange to die for.
They include a superb phono stage which when compared to the vast majority of
non-valve outboard
phono stages on the market, give a feeling of depth and body unlike its grey, metallic-sounding transistorised competitors. The fad for stepped attenuators has evolved into one for passive
transformers such as the Music First. This too is stark, hyper–detailed,
initially impressive but not musical unless used with overly-rich ancillaries.
The
Bluenote range of CD players are free of the
synthetic overtones of the majority of non-valve CD players while avoiding
the veil that many valve CD players place in the signal path to appear `organic`.
Some CD players have switchable valve/non valve outputs and multiple
settings which allow you to account for the sound to yourself and others
by saying ‘you have not optimised them yet.’ 24 bit is not
necessarily better than 16 bit, nor are upsampling and HDCD necessarily
progress.
The use of overdamped MDF speaker cabinets has led to a lack of natural reverberation in most modern speakers. So much so that I feel many pre 90’s classic designs to be still unsurpassed. Emotionless, 2 dimensional detail led designs are the order of the day.
The problem is that the Hi-Fi magazines are inevitably driven by ‘NEW’
products so that there is continually something exciting to report each
month. 99% of this equipment will be forgotten in the following weeks,
thanks to the flavour of the month type of reviewer who tells you to run
naked to your local dealer to buy the latest !£$* (especially if
80% of the budget is spent on all singing all dancing casework
with flashing LEDS and huge, chunky knobs milled from solid platinum).
Anyway, the vast majority of this gear will either lack the all round
strengths to endure beyond the reviewers flights of fancy, or will be
just a passing fad. How many raved about products become classics?
Conversely, excellent products reviewed incompetently slip the net, especially if the manufacturer doesn’t want to donate the equipment in question or spend thousands on full-page advertisements - if you catch my drift.
As you can see, negative colouration can take many forms……
I'm not an angry old man, honest!