"Bridge Over Trouble Water" sounds artificial

I read BOTW was produced using Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” production techniques. Read up on that and explains a lot.

The first part with just vocal and piano is a much simpler production. It sounds like the piano was closely stereo miked which spreads the keys across the soundstage.


I used an original CD release of BOTW album streamed at CD resolution using flac format to listen to and assess BOTW the song/track. 

For the hit pop release that it was intended to be the recording is pretty good actually overall. Just don’t compare it to a good quality classical recording. Apples/oranges. Though the piano/vocal only first part is not radically different from many.

I tried my 1985 CD of Bridge Over Troubled Water.  It says it's a digitally mastered analog recording CK9914.  It definitley is smoother than the hi-resolution version I downloaded from Qobuz, but not natural music.  There is low frequency bass that does not sound like any musical instrument I have ever heard.  Some of the vocals do sound like real human voice and some vocals are clearly engineered.  Thanks.  I will try the LP next.

From Wikipedia:



“Joe Osborn played two separate bass tracks, one high and the other low.”

Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound approach was not intended to sound “natural”. 

mapman, a good perspective. A song that our familiarity and memory come's from hearing many times (fifty years ago) via top forty station and am car radio, now listened to on our hifi system, is ear-opening!

It is so important to realize that we are listening to productions on our hifi. Every one is different! Like an art museum. Every work is different and done by different people with different techniques for different reasons. How boring if all art is done the same for the same goal of being “realistic “. The reason I can spend countless hours listening to music I might not even be familiar with is I never know what I might hear next. That’s a big part of the thrill of listening to music for me. Sure I have my favorite artists and my favorite recordings but it’s the variety and not knowing what you will hear next that keeps me going. I spend a lot of time using random play off my music server library.  It is my library so all stuff I have some interest in. As long as it is not making my ears bleed when they should not be I am good with it. Some recordings will and some are even designed to do that. I want to hear it all! Just some more than others perhaps.