i figured this was where you were going with this. of course the listening session would have been more enjoyable if the tonality was there. what im getting at is that for the listening session to be totally enjoyable there has to be a comporomise of the 3 things that we are talking about, image, stage and tonality. to tune for tonality but with a "substatial" sacrifice in the other 2 seems counterproductive. now i know dukk likes to read between the lines so i will clarify, im not assuming he or anyone else makes substatial sacrifices for tonality. but in my tunig experiences if you try to get the best tonality out of a system, the compromise in image and stage, for me hasnt been worth it, in my experiences, i sort of disagree with dukk in that image can be made up in your mind if you want it to, using that same logic can your mind not convince your ears that the piano that you are listening to is the way it should sound, even if it isnt. how many times have you sat in 4 or five different cars listened to the same track and found that they all sounded tonally correct yet all sounded tonally different. i did it in kansas, i listened to all the cars that won the advanced pro class and expert, with the same tracks. all sounded tonally right but all sounded totally different

 

Actually your mind will compensate for bad tonality. But it takes time. That is how 90% of the population thinks their factory stereo is "good enough". The human mind is an amazing thing. I have heard about people putting "dots" onm their windshield and then getting better SQ scores in competition, or everyone has heard of the fake grilles where speakers aren't even located but getting points either deducted or added to their scores, with judges even making comments such as "your high mounted tweeters raised the stage pretty nicely" when in fact they were just grilles with no speakers. I agree that cars can sound right but different from other cars that sound right.

 

I never intended to give the impression that I ignore imaging. As it is the hardest to achieve it generally gets the most time spent on it. That's just how it is.

All I meant to say was that if I have to sacrifice one of the three to the benefit of one or both of the others it would be imaging. I would never say **** on it though just for ultimate tonality. I'm not Earl Zausmer here... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

And Dave - what I mean with the mind thing - when I listen to, for eaxample, a car with a good set of KPs, I find myself able to hear two experiences: I can hear a nicely laid out stage across the dash but if I focus on it I can flip that to hear the sound off the floor, right out of the KP with the corresponding disasterous results to the soundstage.
Maybe it is a mind trick but I know individuals that claim they ALWAYS hear the sound off the KP (IMO it is because they want to) and it is disturbing to think that someone like that may judge my car.. [img]graemlins/dunno.gif[/img]

 

brandon i see you point, but what you have to remember is what sounds right to one doesnt to the other, so to say that if your guitar is out of tune it may be to you but not to others, just like dwvw saying that alot of people say their factory system sounds fine. here is an interseting way to look at image and stage compared to tonality. when listening for tonality you listen to hear, but when listening for image and stage you listen to see as well as hear. the way you listen for the 3 things is different. when listening for tonality you listen different than when listening for stage and image placement. and brandod nobody here is absolutley right, its impossible because the experience of listening to music is highly personal subjective to the individual

 

staging isn't just height though. It also includes the attributes of depth etc. Of course I am going by IASCA's definition, not the average Joe.