WARNING!
- VAROITUS!
If you walk into a shop
selling loudspeakers and they immediately ask you 'what kind
of music do you listen to?' - and - you are looking for
'high fidelity' speakers - you would be best to say 'thank
you, I'm in the wrong place' - and leave!
'High Fidelity' means
'high faithfulness' - faithfulness to what? - to the
original signal.! A real high fidelity speaker will play ANY
signal according to what the original signal was - classical
music, jazz, pop, bird calls, train whistles, news
broadcasts, dynamite blasts, WHATEVER!!!
So there is NO 'high
fidelity' speaker that is a 'jazz music' speaker, 'folk
music' speaker, etc.!!! An excellent high fidelity speaker
will reproduce ALL signals CORRECTLY - as per the 'Original
Source.' It is NOT the function of a speaker (or an
amplifier) to have any particular sound of its own! Anytime
you hear someone describing a piece of equipment as 'warm'
sounding, etc. you can hope they are referring actually to
the original recording - NOT the speaker or
amp!
In actual fact, a large
number of speakers seem to be designed and manufactured as
NON 'high fidelity' speakers. Extra 'phony, artificial' bass
is seemingly deliberately added to the mid-bass range (80-
125 Hz) - probably so that quick shop listening will make
almost any source sound like it has bass - and 'impress' the
listener and close a fast deal. (This unnatural bass not
only causes real physical 'headaches' but also camouflages
upper frequencies and 'separation and
detail.')
It also is so that very
often upper frequency response areas have enough peaks and
valleys so that these speaker are not high fidelity in those
areas either. In these cases - one speaker may be more
suited to jazz than classical or piano - or whatever -
depending on how BADLY the respective speakers make their
mistakes! So - yes - brand 'A' may be better for 'jazz' than
'classical' - because it doesn't sound as BAD on that kind
of music - and another speaker - Brand 'B' - that has
different faults may sound better on OTHER music. A real
'high fidelity' speaker will play a great recording so that
the recording does indeed sound 'wonderful' - but also will
play a BAD recording so that recording will sound bad, as it
should! Speakers CANNOT correct BAD recordings! Nor can they
correct BAD rooms. (There is always that one in a million
chance that bad (non-high fidelity) speakers will just
happen to compensate for bad recordings and/or bad rooms
with ONE particular song or piece of a sound track - but
don't try for TWO!)
If you are interested in
getting the ORIGINAL SOURCE, please realize that an
excellent speaker should be NEUTRAL as to what 'kind' of
music is being played - we think the Acoustics of Finland
speakers meet this criterion.
Come have a
listen!
Acoustics
of Finland Loudspeakers