Over the following few weeks you’re going to listen to about True Sound right here at Stuff, so we thought we’d kick off by explaining this idea and what it means. So, what’s True Sound?
Effectively, we should always begin by clarifying that it’s not an actual science – not that it doesn’t contain loads of technical and engineering knowhow to attain. British loudspeaker and headphone producer Bowers & Wilkins’ whole design and engineering philosophy revolves round the concept its merchandise ought to reveal the ‘True Sound’ of a musical efficiency, proven by its 40 yr partnership with Abbey Street Studios. So True Sound means absolute constancy to the unique recording and audio efficiency that conveys the artist’s actual intentions.
In fact, speaker designers aren’t in a position to strap Neil Younger, Brian Eno, Thom Yorke or Kate Bush right into a chair and demand to know their particular inventive targets for his or her music – tempting as the concept is likely to be. Fortunately, the supply of data is far more accessible: the recording itself.
Assuming the tune or album has been correctly produced and mastered, it already accommodates the whole lot that’s required for it to sound excellent. To nail that True Sound idea, the {hardware} it’s being performed on must successfully ‘get out of the best way’ with a purpose to let the recording converse for itself. Bowers & Wilkins founder John Bowers summed the concept up eloquently: “The perfect loudspeaker isn’t the one that offers essentially the most. It’s the one which loses the least.”
True Sound isn’t about cranking up the bass to floor-quaking ranges (Beats, we love you – however we’re trying in your route) or utilizing fancy 3D audio wizardry to position the listener in some type of digital live performance corridor (that means no offence to Dolby Atmos et al – we love you too); it’s about taking the knowledge within the recording and expressing it within the purest, most uncoloured type potential.
Eight years in the past, speaker producer Eclipse recruited Grammy-winning recording engineer Jim Anderson to clarify True Sound to potential prospects.
Anderson compares audio system to a pc monitor: in case your display screen skews a bit towards the purple finish of the color spectrum, you develop into accustomed to it over time till it turns into your ‘base stage’, colouring your whole body of visible reference. Once you then see an precisely calibrated monitor elsewhere, it seems to be a bit off. The identical can occur with audio system – all of them have a sound profile, however for attaining True Sound, the profile must be as clear as potential. It’s no coincidence that audio engineers and music producers use extremely correct ‘monitor’ audio system when mastering, engineering and making music.
Bowers & Wilkins isn’t the one firm actively pursuing this objective, after all. It’s not even the one audio firm that refers to ‘True Sound’.
Yamaha, the Japanese large that makes not solely audio system and headphones however musical devices and digital audio interfaces (in addition to motorbikes, however we digress…), is especially effusive relating to the True Sound idea, which it breaks down into three core components: tonal steadiness (which permits the listener to precisely hear all elements of the recording); dynamics (accuracy in the best way during which the quiet and loud elements of a recording distinction and work together); and sound picture (the spatial expression of a recording, usually a two-channel, stereophonic left/proper picture).
So there you’ve got it: True Sound is about accuracy, constancy and serving up music in its purest type. Keep tuned when you just like the sound of that (no pun supposed, sincere!), as a result of within the coming weeks we’ll be recommending key merchandise that’ll allow you to construct your individual True Sound setup at house, in addition to some unbelievable listening materials to profit from it.
