In reply to:
To me, if refers more to the midrange and top end than the bass. Not that bass can't be transparent, it's just that bass transparancy comes from cues that are higher in the frequency range (skin of the drum, fingers on strings, etc.)
In reply to:
Tig
What i meant was the people behind HDCD have said (and I'm para-phrasing here) Don't worry if you see the HDCD label on a CD and you don't have the hardware that decodes HDCD format. The disc will play on machines that decode 16 bit and you won't hear any difference. The disc I played at Billy's sounded thin and almost anemic. Yet when I play that disc or any of my HDCD's on my Music Hall they sound great.
When I think of transparency in terms of a speaker I think that nothing about the limitations of the speaker,cross over,enclosure,grill or for that matter the mastering during the original recording session etc. etc, gets in the way of the sound. We all have our perception of what an instrument or a live show sounds like. If we want total transparency then we want the sound of our speaker to have... well no... actually we don't want our speaker to have any sound at all. We want no color or brand characteristic whatsoever. When I listen I want to close my eyes and have the speaker box disappear. That is transparency.
What you were referring to, skin of the drum and fingers sliding across the fret board are what I refer to as detailed. The M60's to me are very detailed speakers. Transparency on the other hand is (to me anyway) an absolute lack of detail. It's an absence of anything at all. I don't know if that even makes sense. Transparency in a recording or in a CD or HDCD player I can only explain this way. Let me take classical because it is the best example. You know when there are extreme quiet passages or long pauses where there is no music or a slow build up of music. Most electronics wil have noise audible in those sections. It can be very noticeable if you use good headphones. I have heard those quiet passages referred to as black space. The darker that black space is the more transparent the recording or the components are. The noise I'm referring to is unwanted noise. A live recording that contains the sounds of the hall and the occasional cough or foot kicking a mike stand can still be be very transparent.
That said, I love transparency in my speakers and I love detail in them as well. Axiom has both. Anyway I am not an authority on any of this. This is strictly my take on things.
oz
