What does it mean?

Hmm, a bit of distortion and 'grunge', live style, is good, I quite like it actually and yes, Oasis albums are good test records IMHO, Definitely Maybe for me as I know it very well, and Whats the story as it is a challenge to make it sound good!

I listen to a lot of bands which, even on their studio albums, still sounds 'live' with a fair bit of distortion and so forth, for example the ramones, some nirvana stuff, some stuff by the pixies, the sex pistols, AC-DCs Live album etc...I could go on.

I still find 'Whats The Story' to still sound substantially 'worse' than the other Oasis albums though, and other similar bands records, in the respect that the distorion seems much more overbearing and you can't tell what the guitarists are really doing to the same extent, at least on every system I've heard it on.

I'm with you that a better system will make it sound better, but I know of many other recordings where the guitars are still audibly distorted, the amps still hum, and all that which you mention, but you can still tell what the guitarists are actually doing, rather than the mire of buzzing guitars and distortion that seems to drown out the notes they're actually playing as appears to be the case for some parts of the tracks on 'Whats the story..'.

 

actually i've just 'spun up' erase / rewind and it sounds bloody good. so good call james. it did sound kaka on my nait / cd5 though.
cheers


julian

 

Ok so an example of what I'm on about would be Disintegration by The Cure, to me it sounded thin and lacked bass although the dynamics of the percussion and the vocals sounded very good indeed. Also bear in mind that I am talking degrees here and even poor recordings sound OK but compared to some others I can hardly believe the difference.

I know it's a bit of a Audiofool recording but Muddy Waters, Folk Singer sounds so good it makes me shiver whereas, relatively speaking, something like the cure album I mentioned sounds shite.

I think one of the main issues is dynamic contrast, certain recordings I have need much volume to get going whereas others have me jumping out of my seat at much lower levels.
I have heard lots of systems that claim greatness and this issue seems evident in all of them.

 

I think a major problem is to my ears 80s pop vinyl,like the cure for example,sounds very thin and fizzy,I have alot of 80s singles, 12",LPs, and very few are on quality vinyl,that to me is the problem ,very poor pressing on poor quality vinly.

 

I'll go with Robbo & Chris on this as well, although I do have 3 cd's that really are dire, Oasis WTSMG being one of them (and don't give that crap about winding the wick up either to get it to sound better ), the other 2 are really bad mastering without question.
Mind You Julain obseveration regarding the Naim cdp was spot on though

 

sorry,but there are many dire recordings,particularly of seventies rock/metal,The Devil probably sadly lacks some Samson in his collection,if he did he would change his opinion because 100ft of Mana and the most accurate system in the world couldn't sort it out couldn't sort it out.And the Counting Crows first cd is crap because they recorded it in their lounge,it just sounds awful,etc etc etc............

Its easy to say its the fault of the system,because it can't be proved,so I don't accept that every piece of music ever has been recorded correctly and its just a case that some recordings need a different system to sound great,what nonsense.There must be bad recordings,budget constraints,dodgy equipment,stoned engineers,artists that don't give a shit,there must be a million reasons why some pieces of music sound worse than others,and to suggest its because the HIFI gear isn't good enough is just bollocks.

also,if James is to be believed,that as the end system becomes more accurate and the Mana tower runs out of oxygen,and thus all recordings sound great,there s no room for differences caused by more expensive recording equipment used initially.I can't believe the best sound engineers in the best studios using the best equipment sound no better than a new band cutting a tape in their lounge.It defies belief that this is the case.

 

Totally agree with the sabbs post. I'm convinced that my system sounds consistent and pretty much reveals crap recordings for what they are. I doubt a few thousand more invested would make the most dire ones more listenable as ultimately my experience with ostensibily better systems than mine seems to demonstrate the opposite, the better the system the more recording dependant it becomes. I am sure that a great deal of the appeal with certain brands of audio is the levelling effect they have with recordings.

This is a problem as it's often great music unfortunately recorded badly that I love!!!

I'd like to hear more from those who believe that what I'd call poor recordings are hidden gems accessed only by the very greatest hifi as I don't understand how that stacks up as an argument.. I don't say these recordings are not enjoyable but they don't sound all that in absolute terms.

TBH having bought some re-released jazz on Quiex-qv heavy vinyl I know that vinyl done right is a thing of wonder and the dreadful sound quality of some of my records goes to prove it.

I do like that though... your systems not good enough...yeah right!!

 

Jools you can't polish a turd, although James does try, a crap recording will sound crap on a awai midi or a multi thousand £ system, I have plently of recordings which arn't as good as others, though over the year they have have become more listenable, just a lesser degree of crap, does this stop you enjoying the music of them? hell NO

 

Your right of course but I'm still outraged of Kingston though. After all records aren't cheap and with the whole MP3 thing and can I fit 3000 songs on a cd I fear that recording quality is going down the toilet.

 

I have never liked Abba, but I do now have a Mana stand. Should I bother to borrow one of their CDs?

 

Jools,

I have actually heard crap vinyl now, and yes its as crap as crap cd's, but generally a good vinyl pressing is better than just about most cd's for sure, its all part the hifi experiance, regardless of how much £££ the system costs, but good music is that good music, weather its enjoyed on a tin pot car radio or a multi story carpark of mana, its music

 

btw, I do actually have my kit on a Mana stand, altho its a bog standard 4 tier affair. I first heard Abba on vinyl, or was it FM radio, and haven't tested it on CD.
but enough of that.

perhaps all this is a bit like a novel (or theatre) - the reader brings something to the experience, what we observe is part observer, what we hear is part listner. If the spinning of vinyl is part of the experience then CD will never do it.

 

the blonde ones breasts are easier to see on a vinyl sleeve as well,which adds to the listener experience

on another note,is the Devil chap really having us believe that every master tape has stopped deteriorating,so new releases remastered from master tapes long since past their best,can only be heard on highly accurate systems with a scaffold of Mana?

 

I would not classify the Stones early seventies albums, or those produced by Daniel Lanois for the Neville Bothers in the late eighties (and by the sound of it, the Oasis album probably falls into this category, too) as bad. In each case a sound is being sought that to some degree recreates the atmosphere of a live jam (and as everyone who has jammed knows, the sound ain't necessarily perdy). A good system communicates this atmosphere and you get more of the music, too.
However, there are very real problems with a lot of modern recordings. Many engineers know this and are frustrated by it:
http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=33/

 

re: oasis recordings

well now i know never to bother trying mana either... bunch of worthless w*nkers imho... and clearly never read a book, any book...

 

There ARE bad recordings, I have one or two that the levels were too high, and they produce a kind of distortion, I can detect it on the vocals, some bass is not so good,
I tend to favour enjoyability, that's what its about, make music fun, and if a system does that, then great. Hence my slight leaning towards flat earth, and 2nd harmonics , and horn colouration/transmission bass.

 

Although the Oasis album WTSMG is a bad recording, I find myself still able to enjoy the recording on my system because it is good music. With some of my older kit, it just sounded plain crap, now it sounds acceptable.

For me, a lot of the music I listen to is badly recorded, so it was important for me that I got a system that was forgiving of this material. Despite that, good stuff can still sound good. I think its essential to try some poor recordings when auditioning, especially if it makes up a fair amount of what you listen to, otherwise some of your music may end up never being listened to again. I've had hifi kit that caused these problems for me, and I got rid of them, and never looked back. I'd rather the system sounded *slightly* less spectacular for the perfect recordings and a lot more forgiving of the lesser ones, than the other way around. For me, the very best recordings are the exception rather than the rule - at least with the kind of stuff I listen to.

 

That's not how it is in real life. The magazines reinforce this notion that your system can be too revealing.

If you 'upgrade', and the music sounds less enjoyable afterwards, then that's a downgrade.

 

Yep - track 3 on Garbage's "Beautiful" distorts VERY badly at the start on the left channel, then fades away. Or so I thought. When I put that Naim 32.5/110 in my rig, the problem went away. And no, it's not a "there's no detail, soundstage etc" Naim thing, Henryt's system plays it properly as well. IN FACT, it was him who convinced me of the above quote.

You can't polish a turd, but the Smiths' "Queen is dead" on CD (yuk!) sounded reasonably smooth on a ~5 hours' warmed up 180 last night; my system's getting just the way I like it at last

 

The Devil,

I am only speaking from my own personal experience, and am not assuming that all good systems make stuff sound like crap. I have had stuff more expensive (which I wont go into detail about) than what I have now and although better for the best recordings, and also "technically" better, it made some stuff sound like absolute cack. I know not everything is like this, but it cannot be denied that some hifi gear makes bad recordings sound awful.

BTW, I have never bought a hifi mag, so what you are saying there is news to me