By definition "the ideal amplifier is a straight wire with gain".... and, among other things, a straight wire with gain will have a perfectly flat frequency response.
Having a frequency response that is other than flat means that you are
ALTERING the sound rather than reproducing it accurately - it really
IS that simple.
(of course, there are
OTHER WAYS in which you can alter the sound, for example, by adding noise or distortion.....)
Whether an amplifier with a flat frequency response sounds "engaging" will depend on whether the recording you're playing is recorded to sound that way or not.
(And, of course, whether the other components in your system, also have a flat frequency response.)
It's a little more complicated when you're talking about speakers and rooms because energy levels often vary with time.
The sound coming straight from the speaker to your ear may have a certain frequency response....
While the sound that reaches you after bouncing around the room may have a quite different one.
(Whether your brain can separate them depends on a lot of things - including the time delay between them - all of which tend to vary.)
For example, let's imagine you have very bright speakers, but a very dull room - with heavy carpets and lots of absorbers.
The sound reaching your ears first, directly from the speakers, will sound bright.
However, the sound reaching your ears later, after bouncing around the room, will sound dull - because more of the high frequencies have been absorbed than of the low frequencies.
If you measure that combination with a short time windows it will seem bright....
If you measure it with a long time window (sometimes referred to as "a power response") it may sound flat, or even dull....
(And what happens when you apply room correction will depend on which way the room correction chooses to measure and compensate it.)
But what about when you listen to
MUSIC in that room?
Well, things like cymbals, which have a "short sharp attack which you hear quickly" will sound bright, and may sound harsh.....
(Actually, the initial hit on the cymbal may sound harsh, but the "ride" will seem dull, and will probably seem to die down unnaturally quickly.)
But bass notes, which tend to be around for a longer time, may sound "heavy" because they tend to "build up" and don't die down very quickly.....
(Remember that, if different harmonics of the same instrument die down at different rates, then the overall "sound" of that instrument will change over time.)
So, in our imaginary room, the initial hit on a cymbal may sound harsh..... but, overall, the cymbal may seem to have an unnaturally quick die down....
A guitar will probably sound pretty good..... because the initial plucks will sound right, and the short reverberation time at high frequencies will be perceived as sounding "sharp and clean".
And a pipe organ will probably "lose a lot of its air" because, over the first fraction of a second each note is played, the bass notes will build up a bit, but the air noises from the pipes will not.
In technical terms, we would say that the room's T60, which is the amount of time it takes sound to die down by 60 dB at each frequency, varies a lot at different frequencies... which is somewhat unnatural.
(In less technical terms, we would say that you have "bright speakers in a dead room"...... and it would probably sound better if both were closer to being flat.)
Some people find some variations in frequency response to be "exciting"..... for example, a bump in the bass adds "punch" and a bump in the treble adds "sparkle".
The usual problem is that, since you're adding a specific alteration, doing this usually makes some things sound better while making others sound worse.
(And, of course, if your goal is "accurate reproduction" then "making things sound better" is a very subjective term... since, for certain things, "better" is
NOT the same as "correct".)
Obviously, since we're talking about
YOUR music, and
YOUR ears, the goal is to get things so they sound good to
YOU.
(However, it is worth noting that many people find that systems that initially sound "exciting" or "engaging" eventually come to sound "annoying" after you listen to them for a while.
)
Does flatter response means less engaging/exciting audio? or i can temper with it( emotiva 6s) according to my taste?
any speaker/monitor that beats emotiva 6s in price to performance under INR 50k-55k?
)
