Criteria for evaluating the quality of music sound

The first thing I start my weekly music listening sessions with is introducing the criteria by which you can objectively compare and evaluate the sound of music. Therefore, when choosing audio systems and audio material, my clients are guided not by those subjective likes or dislikes; but by specific objective criteria, which, on the one hand, have a scientific basis, and on the other hand, are accessible even to beginners who are just starting their journey in the world of high-quality sound.

Now I decided to describe the key criteria here so that as many people as possible could use them when building their audio systems.

The criteria are presented starting from the basic and up to the highest level of an audio system.

1. The sound of instruments

The first, basic evaluation criterion is the sound of musical instruments and voices themselves. The voice is also a natural musical instrument, and we value vocalists not only for their virtuoso performance, but also for the richness and uniqueness of their timbre.

At this level, we compare the sound of instruments in terms of richness of the overtonal range and aftersound. This is the level when you begin to understand how the sound of a cheap acoustic guitar differs from an author's one, which has much more microsounds and much longer aftersound duration.

Once upon a time, at a friendly meeting with a musician, one of the guests asked why he needed two guitars. And he not only answered: “because they have different sounds,” but also demonstrated this difference in such a way that everyone could feel it.

One guitar had a fairly simple sound, and it was used in those compositions where the musician emphasized the energy of his voice. The second guitar was chosen when he wanted to shift the listener’s attention to the instrumental part, where one single guitar created a fantastically rich sound, which sometimes even several simultaneously sounding instruments could not achieve.

2. Arrangement of musical instruments

The next criterion is practically trigonometry, namely, the arrangement of musical instruments in the studio or concert hall in terms of the premises width, depth and height.

When building an audio system, the most difficult thing to achieve is the reproduction of a stage depth, which means the virtual distance from the closest to you performer to the farthest sounds relative to that performer.

If you compare two components in one audio system and notice that drums 'fly away' to a depth of three meters from a singer when one of the components is turned on, but they are just one meter far from the vocalist when you switched to the alternative component, be sure that you will hear more audio information from all instruments using the first component, where the scene is deeper and the images are more voluminous. This is an unbreakable rule.

3. Reproducing the studio space

The most important indicator of the resolution of an audio system is its ability to reproduce the 'space' of the recording studio around an instrument.

A simple example: when you are talking to someone, you perfectly understand that the sound of your voice and the voice of your interlocutor will sound differently depending on where you are. In an empty room you hear one sound; went out to the balcony - the sound changed, moved into the entrance - the sound changed again. This is because our brain, thanks to the information received from the ears, determines not only the characteristics of the sound source, but also the environment in the audio range.

Good studios are never jammed with sound-absorbing material such as cotton wool, etc., otherwise the instruments will not sound as they should. Therefore, a natural revebration is always present in the studios. Some have more, others have less, depending on the tasks of the studio and its characteristics.

So, listening to music on one audio system you can quite easily imagine in what volume of the room the musical performance took place; but on the other audio system you get the impression that there is a cotton wool or vacuum between the instruments.

With one component of the audio system it seems to you that the musicians are sitting in some small basement room with a low ceiling, and, after changing this component to the alternative one, you clearly start hearing that this is a large philharmonic hall with high ceilings and the corresponding sound.

With an audio component that creates a clearer and larger virtual studio feel, you're guaranteed to hear more nuances in the sound of any instrument. And the sound will be richer, in general, because the information flow in this case is significantly greater.

4. The effect of an empty room

The effect of an empty room is probably the most top-notch aspect of sound, characteristic of branded audio systems costing more than a hundred thousand dollars.

You can imagine how an empty apartment or any room 'sounds', if there is no wallpaper, no curtains, just clean bare walls. You don’t move, and it seems quiet, but you feel all the mini-rustles around you. They are typical for an empty room.

I sometimes advise going to the Philharmonic Hall before the start of a concert, when there is no one or almost no one there. Come in, stand in this silence, and try to remember your feelings. And then compare it with when you are in the same room, but already filled with listeners.

So, if you are able to get the effect of an empty room in an audio system, then you are guaranteed to have a deep stage, open images, a larger scale of audio events, and realism of what is happening on a stage or in a studio.

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These four key criteria give you an idea of how diverse sound information flow you can receive. And the more saturated the information flow, the higher the evaluation criterion you can use, the more pleasure you can get from listening to music.

And even if it seems to you that you are not able to understand and hear all this; if you do not consider yourself a true connoisseur of musical art, it is often only because you have not had the opportunity to hear how music can sound...

So, call me, book your time for a Saturday audition, and learn about the magic of music's sound, which is, in fact, nothing more than the actual professionalism of everyone engaged in the development, transmission, and reproduction of a musical art.