Beyond horns, this description also matches some kind of bass response as well. I don’t know how or why exactly, but there is a distinct difference between more impactful and dynamic bass hits than other systems where the low frequencies are still there but the impact feels more like bass from headphones than bass impacts you feel through your entire body.
Well put. That's just what I hear sometimes in terms of the sensation of bass from some systems vs others.
One example of this was when I was traveling and eating dinner at a restaurant which I didn’t at first realize had a live music performance on the other corner of the place (not visible to me). The way the bass drum distinctly had a physical forceful impact feeling I could tangibly experience initially struck me as very interesting, since at first I thought it was music played through speakers. I kept listening, but thought to myself that there is no way this is music being played through speakers, unless they have massive woofers or something capable of that tangible visceral “impact” from the drum I was feeling (even thought it wasn’t actually all that loud). Sure enough, I discovered it was in fact live music from real instruments I was hearing.
Yeah, the difference between live instruments, especially drums, and music through most hi-fi systems, is fascinating.
My father was a jazz musician and music teacher, my mother taught piano, and I grew up in a house filled with instruments - 4 pianos, drums, electric bass, electric and acoustic guitars, tenor/alto sax, trombone, trumpet, keyboards, clarinet, flute...my dad played them all and we played several instruments as well. I grew up sitting in our big basement in front of my brother's various bands playing music, so sitting across from live drums (and then I played in the bands too). The sensation of sitting in front of live drums seemed etched in to my consciousness. There is that "whap!" you can hear of the drum pedal hitting the bass drum skin, and a sensation on the chest and clothes as if a blast of air (sonic or otherwise) is hitting you in the chest and almost blowing your clothes. Accompanied by the deeper "wider" room filling resonance of the lower frequencies. It's just a huge, complex and very physical sound.
I still hear exactly this whenever I stop closely and listen to live drums. Most hi-fis sound like a sonic joke compared to the real thing.
But I have heard the occaisional speakers that remind me more of real drums. Like the old Waveform Mach 17 speakers (photos here):
https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/det...ange-speaker-system-13000-new/images/1102384/
Tri-amplified, beloved by Peter Aczel (The Audio Critic). I heard them at the proprietor's home and they sounded so "alive" it made most other speakers sound like they are just trying. I reviewed (a long time ago) the passive version of the speaker and it was the first time I'd experienced something so familiar with kick drums: that papery "whack" accompanied by that burst of air hitting my chest feeling, and a solid sense of acoustic power. There was a similar feeling to electric bass, more like what it was like to feel bass standing near the bass player's cabinet. When I played live recordings of my band, from down the hallway there was an uncanny sense of what my band sounded like rehearsing.
The speakers were very lively and dynamic sounding in the midrange up too, but NOT quite in the way I hear in horn speakers. Transients sounded really solid which gave it some dynamic life, but the body of the instruments sounded less so, less dense, more hologram than solid, where horns seem to be more consistently solid sounding.
When I think of the recording and mixing process the sonic differences I usually hear between bass and drums on a good high end speaker vs real life makes some sense. Typically a bass or bass drum is recorded isolated from the rest of the instrument. And in mono. And then that mono signal is steered to the middle of the soundfield between the speakers. As it was captured in mono, and artificially located, it doesn't have the "bloom" of the instrument in terms of exciting the room. It's very isolated sounding. Hence, what you get with kick drums and bass guitars, on an "accurate" system is more a sense of the drums and bass appearing in a tightly focused spot typically set back between the speakers. It can be dense and focused, but it is "occurring over there behind the speakers" and yes can have impact, but it doesn't have that big bloomy room interaction of the real thing. It sounds recorded.
Some speaker designs may not be strictly neutral, but to my ears replicate a bit more of the live feel I hear with instruments like drums. So going back to the Devores, kick drums not only had that thwack of of the head hitting the drum skin, but there was a bigger, richer, bloomier bass quality accompanying the hits that sort of rolled across the floor and filled the room, more like the real thing, rather than some lazer-focused thing that sat only between and behind the speakers. I've rarely heard drums sound so damned convincing with my eyes closed. Not saying they aren't outdone in various aspects - the Waveform speakers for instance did the hit-the-chest feeling of acoustic power more convincingly. But as a set of compromises, to me it's an interesting combination that gets at some characteristics I hear in live sound sources.