What does it mean?

I was listening to a few records last night trawling through some stuff I haven't heard for a bit.

I got out Debut by Bjork and the sound quality was very good, involving, well projected with nice bass etc, same for a number of other records including some Muddy Waters, John Coltrane and so on..

Then I cracked open some more recent albums and the sound was dreadful.

So my query is, should a sound system make bad recordings worth listening to or does it tend to reveal the flaws/truth and render some albums unlistenable?

Nothing I was listening to was "Test Material" just regular music but I wondered why some stuff sounds truly superb but some is really poor.

Thoughts???

 

Funny that, i had the same experience last night. Not of old vs new but, I put on some beatles rubber sole - re-issue and it was awful, nearly got me checking my TT to see what was wrong.
Then i stuck on an original of david bowie - hunky dory and it sounded great.
Not an answer thos, sorry

 

My take on this is simple - you have your hifi to *enjoy* the music that you play on it, and as such a system should still be capable of playing bad recordings so they are listenable.

To do this, it might not be the most revealing or exactly 'accurate' to the recording, but I'd rather listen to something I can enjoy than listen and think 'yes thats *exactly* whats on the recording, but my god isn't it a bloody row'.

 

As you improve the system's accuracy, the number of 'bad recordings' and 'bad pressings' falls towards zero. I used to think 'Imagine' was very badly-produced, but in fact I now realise that it isn't.

I would recommend some (more) Mana, which tends to turn bad recordings into good ones.

 

:yawn:

 

Do you mean that some recordings don't require an 'accurate' system where others do? Surely a bad recording is a bad recording?
If I stuck my system on Mana would my appalling Stones Out Of Our Heads album become better?

 

Enough Mana will get the speakers so high up in the air, and the tweeters so far off axis of the listening position, that all the painful HF of many bad recording won't show up so much .

 

There are hardly any bad recordings. There are some recordings which some systems can't play properly. The owner of the system generally puts the poor sound down to a 'bad' recording, not a shortcoming of the system.

 

An album that constantly amaze me when I upgrade my system is Madonna's Erotica. I remembered during my schools days with a basic Sony FH system, the bass was overpowering, often distorting the overall song (good example, 'Rain').

More than a decade later, with a way better set up (not to mention with the DAC64 & a REL Storm), the album sounded pretty good, the highs & lows well separated and controlled.

So... is an album like that considered well mastered?

 

Actually, I think James is spot on. IME, the better the system the smaller the list of 'bad recordings' gets. It's even possible to do it without Mana!

 

My belief is similar to that of Robbo and James .

I believe that a better system 'raises the floor' so to speak.

The more the floor is raised, the better the bad recording sounds.

You should still be able to differentiate a bad recording though, and a great recording should still sound great IMHO

 

I also find that the better my system gets, the more I get from my music collection. I have never experienced an upgrade resulting in a recording sounding worse. I think that's because of the Mana though.

 

I would agree that a good system should make bad recordings more listenable, but to suggest that a good system means a recording is not bad?

I can't help but feel that pretty much nothing will be able to rectify the horrific distortion on Oasis's Whats The Story, for example, distortion thats still present on the recording and made worse by whatever you play it through. A good system will make it sound better, but it'll still be a poor recording whatever you play it through. Hardware is still limited to an extent by the software...you can through improving/upgrading the former make your CDs sound better, but the mantra 'you can't polish a turd' still holds true to an extent IMHO

 

Oh, FWIW I agree too, I'm not sure I have any CDs now that sound so awful I wouldn't play them, which was not the case with some of the cheaper setups I've owned. I think Chris' "raising the floor" idea is spot on.

 

Hmm yeah..you can't turn a bad recording into a good recording but you can make it sound better. And so only the worst recordings are left at the back of your collection.

If ever theres a Bakeoff in my neck of the woods I'd love to hear that Stones piece of crap on a decent set up so I could see what level I'm at.

 

In actual fact, the Oasis studio recordings are superbly-detailed with some guitar amplifier distortion, hum and general anti-audiophile 'grunge', like you might hear at a live gig.

They are, contrary to recieved wisdom on these forums, brilliantly-well-recorded. If your system is up to it, it will show you just how good they are.

They are very good 'test records' for hi-fi systems, IMO.

 

for me it's a subtler effect. the cardigans erase and rewind used to be unlistenable to on my nait5 / cd 5 whereas my older technics all in one jobbie it was ok but a bit mneh. now on my current system it's still not very well recorded but it's enjoyable. in general i'd agree with james, robbo, et al with as your system improves so more recordings become more enjoyable. however it's surprising how much a 'decent, crap system' if you'll excuse the expression can gloss over the inadequacies of a recording and make it listenable.
cheers


julian

 

Sorry, but Erase & Rewind sounds absolutely superb!

 

i'm sure it does through your cds2 / 52 supercap. with my abomination of a pc audio system, audio synthesis dax2 / 82 2xhicaps it sounds merely good.
cheers


julian

 

I reckon theres a bit of cross purposes here.
From what I,ve read of Bubs musical tastes (correct me if I,m wrong) is that he doesn,t listen to much "pop" music .
I think if he slapped a bit of JJ72 into his cdp , he,d change his views about quality of recordings somewhat .
I think the best examples of poor quality/good quality recordings can be highlighted on "best of albums"
try the manic street preachers best of .
It,s very clear that some of the music is not too badly recorded , whilst other parts are plain awful.
Or try the James "best of"
Whilst some of you(or all) won,t appreciate my musical tastes , the differences in recording qualities are very noticeable on these two albums.