NORMAL EQ OR ADVANCED EQ ?

[♔Chello]

I think I have been missing out on this discussion .. watching too much tennis at Queens Club! And doing a jigsaw.

Having listened to all three versions .. I like Version 1 way ahead of the other two. It somehow is crystal clear .. and makes you feel you are there playing with the band.
Version 2 is very 'hollow' to me, sounding 'over the top of your head'. This is the effect I get when listening to something in MONO. Can't pick out where the instruments are playing from.
Version 3 .. the drummer sounds as if he is playing in a room with a thick carpet and curtains, which absorbs all the 'echo' one would normally get off the walls when playing in a hall.

Maybe all this is because I always listen using headphones .. so anything playing eg. into my right ear is not heard at all in my left. And vice versa. With speakers, both ears would hear sound playing from both speakers.

⚖Hugh


Thanks for your interesting opinion.
Sound is subjective, and is also very dependent on the speakers/headphones and amplifier used.
Very few headphones can reproduce reverb like my STAX can, and regular ones are not particularly well suited for this purpose.

My horns provide extra reverb (ambience, more correctly) than regular speakers.
My edits are based on MY listening room, which is free of standing waves and well acoustically damped with minimal acoustic addition - almost like a recording studio.

I absolutely DO NOT like version 1, because the different instruments are difficult to distinguish from each other, and have far too much reverb.
I perceive version 2 the opposite of you, because the instruments here are very easy to place in the sound image (with MY speakers and STAX).
Version 3: I have deliberately used minimal reverb so that tendencies to echo do not exist, to reflect the acoustics in my room.

Version 3 is very close to what I want to achieve, and is very reminiscent of the PSR 9000 Pro, which is the best I've heard in terms of lifelike reproduction.
It will also probably work best of all on a stage with a lot of acoustics or in a poorly acoustically damped room.

Sound is subjective..!
But I'm a HiFi obsessed person, and probably have a different perception of what sound should be compared to others.