I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/109">As We See It</A>," where I asked a representative group of <I>Stereophile</I> writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the <I>nature</I> of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the <I>level</I> of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.

I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/109">As We See It</A>," where I asked a representative group of <I>Stereophile</I> writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the <I>nature</I> of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the <I>level</I> of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.

I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/109">As We See It</A>," where I asked a representative group of <I>Stereophile</I> writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the <I>nature</I> of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the <I>level</I> of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.

I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/109">As We See It</A>," where I asked a representative group of <I>Stereophile</I> writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the <I>nature</I> of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the <I>level</I> of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.

I've been musing much of late on what enables some hi-fi components to sound natural while others always seem to add an edge of artificiality to their sound. This dichotomy was examined in last month's "<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/109">As We See It</A>," where I asked a representative group of <I>Stereophile</I> writers to discuss the fact that many high-end components regarded as being neutral in their sonic character, with apparently little wrong in their measured performance, can actually sound quite unmusical. This would seem to suggest that the <I>nature</I> of what a component does wrong is of greater importance than the <I>level</I> of what it does wrong: 1% of one kind of distortion can be innocuous, even musically appropriate, whereas 0.01% of a different kind of distortion can be musical anathema.