Jaw dropping enhancements in sound quality

oops sorry just read the title.

Moving from Rogers LS4As to Quad 57 was a mind blowing experience.

 

Yes, it seems like spending a large amount on older speakers seems the way to go....however, my room will have to be "upgraded" before I can get any of those big ol' beasts in

 

Of course you can. Much of the finest music ever made is relatively poorly recorded. Listen to (for example) Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and if you mainly notice that the recordings are not the best then you're completely missing the point of the exercise. OTOH, listening to (for example) Diana Krall because it's well-recorded without noticing that what she does is utterly derivative and uninteresting, then you are also completely missing the point. Recording quality is the least important question in listening to music. Good recordings are a bonus, of course, but not the point of the exercise.

-- Ian

 

Would you still listen to "hot fives" irrespective of who was playing it?

Mastering quality can have a similar effect. The reason we have to listen to those poorly recorded versions are becuase there arn't any other not because recording quality is irrelevant

You are citing an extreme position ( of choosing music on the basis of recording quality alone) to make your point. No one has proposed selecting music solely based on recording quality, however, given the choice most would choose uncompressed recordings

 

Well, yes, most of the Hot Fives tunes have long been standards. But nobody has ever played them as well as Armstrong did, and the records are matchless, so I will always take the originals over anybody else's versions.

It's completely irrelevant to a judgement of musical quality. Quality of recording and reproduction have nothing at all to do with musical importance/interest or other aesthetic considerations. Nothing, nada, zilch. It's nicer to have a good recording than a bad one, yes, but that's as far as it goes. One of the many mistakes of audiophilia is to persistently lump together sound quality and musical worth, which is why so many people with expensive hi-fi only listen to pristine recordings.

-- Ian

 

I think this thread entered the twilight zone about 5 pages ago.
I have a particularly large Motown collection on vinyl and cd.
The recordinds in the 'hifi' sense aren't that great but what they did is capture the groove the essence of the Motown sound.Take a digitally remastered version in cd format with broadband compression pilled on top of the already heavy 'artistic' compression of the originals and you have shite-that isn't a problem with me or my system-the original has been f****d over and is in now way a pleasant experience when compared to the original ie the earlier unadulterated one is far more musically rewarding because the 'production' is part of the sound..Ditto early reggae and ska remasters.

 

Has anyone said that it does. You are arguing against premises that have not been stated.

 

and to conclude from the above that you chose music based on recording quality alone would be a case of a "dicto simpliciter"

 

Well yes, you have, actually:

You seem awfully defensive, we're having a discussion, cheer up. All I'm saying is that compression, although A Bad Thing, is not the be all and end all. I simply don't believe most decent hi-fi systems make lesser recordings unlistenable, as some have suggested. Instead this is mostly down to some listeners being sensitive to things that are not, strictly speaking, important to appreciating the music on a record as opposed to the sound of the recording, and that too much of audiophilia is obsessed with the latter to the detriment of the former. Uncontroversial, I thought.

-- Ian

 

As I said right at the beginning, I don't think you can separate things as easily as some here imply. As Kenan was hinting, if the performance was poor (say a poor pianist playing Gershwin) then would you say it doesn't matter because you can still hear the music? Of course not. Good music but poor performance means you can't enjoy the subtleties of the music.

In my mind it is exactly the same when the recording is poor. The music is good, and the performance is good, but if the recording is poor it means I can't enjoy the subtleties of the musical performance as much.

Maybe it has a lot to do with how you listen. I find that I listen mainly to music as a whole sound. I don't really even listen to the words of the lyrics, I usually just hear the expression of voice and the emotion they were getting across. I don't actively listen, I just go in to the rhythm and the effect the sound has on me.

On the other hand I know of people who listen much more to the melody, the notes that are played and the words of the lyrics. I think they listen more to what is being played rather than the sound that makes. I would call this more 'active' listening as it has a greater mental component than the former method.

In the case of the latter, I can see why recording quality doesn't matter as much to that person.

 

I think the point is, its not the sound of the recording as much as the sound of the music - and that is ruined by a poor recording. Which is different again to the music on the record, which doesn't even have anything to do with the way it was performed.

 

You've got it bad

I don't disagree that good recordings are preferable to bad ones, and that a good recording can make listening more enjoyable. But I don't think a bad recording can "ruin" great music to an extent that I would ever prefer to listen to a better recording of a lesser performance. But a lot of audiophiles routinely seem to do just that. There's no other explanation for the frankly execrable close miked easy listening that dominates so many audiophile record label catalogues.

Well, that depends entirely on what kind of music you listen to. Most of the records I listen to are fairly unadorned recordings of improvised performance, with very little studio arsing about and minimal overdubbing.

-- Ian

 

the music on the record has nothing to do with the way in which the artist performed it?

eh? I think I must misunderstand - I can't get my head round what you mean..

 

A big round of applause for this gentleman, please. He has hit the nail right on the head. Audiophoolia is obsessed with the technical reproduction of music, not with the music itself. The people who say "it's all about the music" generally don't mean a single word of it.

 

Then why buy a decent stereo at all?

 

I think you guys are at cross purposes here. Some of the posters earlier in the thread were talking about modern rock and pop recordings that have had the life squeezed out of them with dynamic compression with a dollop of clipping for relish to make it sound proper nasty.

I don't think its fair to assume that if such fare makes you go eeek, you are some smelly, beardy audiophool with no friends who only ever listens to the ghastly wibbling issued on the NAIM label. Or even that such a person is obsessed with the way their equipment sounds. Some such recordings really do sound a bit crap ... I think its fair to wish that they didn't.

 

If it results in NOT playing half your record collection, then I think not buying a decent stereo at all is a very good move.

 

I shall resist that open goal...

I can't think of any modern but badly recorded or mastered material I have that I would want to listen to more if it sounded better. I have access to the first K T Tunstall and to a recent RHCP CD. Neither hold significant interest independently of their sound quality.

A decent stereo gives you more of what is on the recording. Most systems really don't try very hard at this, so a decent one makes everything better, if the technical flaws are clearer then so is the lyric or chord sequence.

Paul

 

Think classical... you can have the same piece of music performed by two different orchestras. If you say that you don't care how a record sounds as you just care about the music, then by the same token you shouldn't care how well it was performed or if the orchestra were crap. As long as they play the right notes at the right time. The only difference is in the subtleties of the performance - just as a good recording brings out the subtleties of a good performance.

Better recording = more music.



The idea that anyone who cares about recording quality must have a record collection full of plinky crap is plain silly. I own very few truly good recordings, most are just average and I enjoy them a lot. However, at a certain point the recording can be bad enough that is does seriously reduce the enjoyment I get from listening because there is so little music getting through.

The attitude some have of denying they care about sound quality and only care about the music is rather snobbish. If you are on this forum at all you are a hi-fi nerd, so accept it. I think Tones is probably the only exception! That doesn't mean you are not a music lover as well, though.

 

Wrong,

Some are music lovers first and foremost - the hifi bit only appearing because they would like to listen to their favourite music with the best possible fidelity, not choose their music based on it.

Keith, if your system is stopping you playing some of your favourite music, it's shit. Simple as that. Ian has it spot on as does Tones. Recording quality is nice but as important as hundreds and thousands on an ice cream sundae.