THIS ISSUE: Some components are better than others at conveying music’s life force, but none are quite as good as a great saxophonist playing live in your listening room.
Ever notice that the language we use to talk about sound can be pretty aggressive? Reviewers often write about amplifiers “taking control” of a speaker, possibly “ironfisted control,” especially if the amplifier in question happens to be a “juggernaut.” In this particular linguistic trash fire, we also find “razor-sharp transients,” “hair-raising dynamics,” and that ickiest of descriptors, “bass slam.” If words could smell like hair gel and drugstore cologne, these might.
All this verbiage is describing brute force, which we might use to push open a heavy door. But there’s another kind of force that we encounter in the world, and consequently in audio, captured in the expression “life force.” It denotes a sense of vitality and presence that isn’t readily perceived by the senses—something lingering just out of reach of our rational minds. This force can be experienced in the terse saxophone solos of the young Sonny Rollins, the eerie abstract paintings of Mark Rothko and Pat Steir, and the deceptively quiet poems of Elizabeth Bishop. If you’ve ever been drawn in by one of the squat, gouged, lopsided jars made by a traditional Japanese potter, you know what I’m talking about.
One way that force—in both these senses—manifests in audio is in the phenomenon of drive. Generally speaking, drive tends to feel good. Lots of drive tends to feel better. A system with plenty of it has the first kind of force: a sense of shove, juice, volition. It’s likely to make you dance. And it leaves you reassured, in the way you might be by a full tank of gas or a flush checking account. But it also possesses the second kind of force: With lots of drive on
