Can hi-fi be too good?

Walking through the Walthamstow market the other day and I passed a stall selling reggae/dub CDs. Music was being played on an old 80s NAD amp/CD player and a pair of unrecognisable bashed-up old loudspeakers tucked away on the floor.

It sounded excellent!
This big, rich reverberant sound filing that area of the market and it was flattering to what were quite mid-fi recordings.

I've noticed the same thing with the sort of compressed to a pulp chart music played on Radio 1/2 and Capital, which actually sounds better through a decent portable radio than a good hi-fi.

So can a hi-fi system be too good?

 

Have you read Greg Milner? IIRC there is a chapter on the birth of reggae that pretty much explains what you experienced.


Or this here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_system_(Jamaican)

 

I always think that a good Hi-Fi can make good production/recording sound extra special but it can also highlight bad production/recording.

Here's another question:
If your favourite album from say the '70's was mastered and recorded to sound at it's best on '70's kit, does that mean it won't sound as the artist/producer intended it to sound on modern kit?

 

I don't think Hi-Fi can ever be too good. I do think that it can be inappropriate.
With very very few exceptions I can't remember many occasions when I have really enjoyed listening to the radio on Hi-Fi.I have the choice of AM,FM and DAB.I have FM in the car and it always sounds better than the system at home.
I have come to the conclusion that I belong to some kind of niche audience and the transmissions are not meant for the likes of me.
Studio speech I find the most irritating.As soon as the microphone in switched on it sounds as though the fan/air conditioning is on the blink.The speech when it does come is totally dead and lifeless.
It never used to be like this .What went wrong?

 

I think that sums it up very nicely.

 

HiFi must surely be "too good" when the replay chain uses significantly more expensive engineering than the studio recording chain.

 

It can definitely be too good.

The next morning anyway. Bleugh!

 

Currently, the pretty rubbish 6-CD car system (Ford Focus mk1) gets 95% of my music listening. Thing is, the sense of bass impact, if not the quality due to panel 'boom,' is superb. Many domestic stereos tend to have a flabby waffle for bass and I remember being blown away by some mid size JBL's many decades ago, although their midrange couldn't hold a candle to the best of british at the time