Sterile sound
by Paul McGowan
Sterile means devoid of anything extra, free of unwanted life. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? Distortion is extra–and we want less. Jitter is extra–and lower is better. Noise is extra–and none is best. And it's good when bandages, scalpels, and mouthwash are stripped of extras. But when it comes to music, sterile should be avoided like the plague. We want our music infected with as much life as possible.
To those of us in high-end audio, sterile means stripped of the life that was supposed to be there vs. stripped of life that's not. And, what does this all mean? How do components strip the life from music? And what is that life being stripped?
Perhaps over the next few days we'll take a look at some examples and see what we come up with.
Paul McGowan
Founder & CEO
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