Although the LOs moved more air than the GRs, each of the smaller speakers still represents an equivalent swept area to eight 15” drivers, with a diaphragm that’s driven across its entire area. It’s enough! But the GRs also have tricks of their own, when compared to the LO. The smaller units, possibly as a result of their lighter diaphragms deliver more subtle instrumental textures and harmonics, a more definite sense of human agency. They also integrate even more easily than their bigger brethren. Starker’s cello is a single, vibrant body, with weight, volume, presence and tension. The energy generated by his bowing is so explicitly controlled and modulated that it’s almost pictorial. Shut your eyes and he’s easy to see, the orchestra behind, the hall around…
These are not small or musically insignificant differences. They impact not just the layout and presentation of the music, but its intelligibility. Instruments are more natural, the structure in the piece and the conductor’s direction far more apparent. The whole event becomes more natural, more credible: it’s easier to forget the system, that this is a recording and to simply enjoy the performance.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking Golden Age stereo recordings, current mainstream classical or studio generated pop, the benefits of the GRs are just as apparent, if different in each case. With the GRs in the system, the space and layered textures of Michael Kiwanuka’s ‘Cold Little Heart’ (Love & Hate, Polydor 47 83458) are more measured and atmospheric, the track building more deliberately and with greater emotional depth and impact. The vocals are more solid, more heartfelt, communicating more powerfully and directly, making this more of a song than a production, binding the studio artifice to the lyric and the events that provoked it. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Woodland Studios (Acony ACNY-2416LP) takes on an easier, more expressive presentation. Rhythms aren’t as insistent yet the band and the playing is tighter and the whole more affective. The clarity and space between notes makes the phrases and playing more articulate. The songs make more sense and mean more. And that on an album where half the tracks have no bass instrument or drums!
Adding bandwidth to a system is about more, way more than adding instruments or notes that you don’t otherwise hear. It’s about more than power, weight or dynamic range. Done properly its about all that and much, much more. It’s about capturing the space and energy envelope of the original event – an envelope that not only extends way below most audio systems, but an envelope that our ears and brain are attuned to expect. When I say that Janos Starker playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto sounds more natural with the GRs in the system, that’s exactly what I mean. When I describe other recordings as more convincing communicative and expressive, it’s because they are. It’s because my ears and brain are hearing what they expect, that they are fitting a complete jigsaw puzzle of sound into a known frame, rather than trying to reassemble a truncated, edited version with unfamiliar proportions.
