Is Recording quality the real culprit?


We spend Thousands on trying to improve the sound of what we listen to. But isn’t it really more of a problem that we can’t really overcome, eg. Recording quality? It’s so frustrating to have a really nice system and then to be at the mercy of some guy who just didn’t spend the time to do things better when things were being recorded.

Fortunately many artists make sure things are done well, but so many just don’t make it happen.

It can sound really good but just doesn’t have that Great quality we desire.

So why are we wasting our time spending so much money on audio equipment?

emergingsoul

As long as you take a passive approach to music reproduction through your system, then yes. You are stuck with the sound quality baked into the source. My approach to music listening is more reactive, so I do what I can to compensate for poor productions of great performances by expanding the dynamic range of overly compressed material, adding room tone back into overly dry recordings, restoring the bottom octave of commercial releases that have had it whacked out to "fit" the medium, etc.

No, all this manipulation doesn't make a crummy recording sound as great as a truly well-produced release, but it does improve my enjoyment of it, and that's my goal. Before I start catching a ration of shite about altering the musician's intent, let me remind everyone that most release approvals are phoned in, so the musicians rarely have any idea of how the end product actually sounds.

@asvjerry 

Interesting about AI influence on recordings.  is another aspect of AI going to be how it will influence Recording sessions? Since no one really understands AI, probably too early to know but no doubt it will become more common with what we listen to in addition to all the musical aspects of it, and now it's the Recording studio influence.

Maybe AI Will help design better speaker crossovers. And DSP Control of Systems.  Currently I can't stand DSP interfaces being so difficult to work with.

I’m basically done with having put together my system. At this point, I buy the best quality recordings that I can find, and try not to worry about the gear anymore.

I always find it odd that there are so many poor classic rock recordings from the 60’s through the 90’s but so many great jazz recordings from the 40’s through the 60’s. It’s like recording quality got worse as technology got better. 

H%$! Yes. Whenever I've advised a newb regarding equipment, I always begin with that issue. Nothing they can do with that. Plan to set things up for the good recordings. Just live with the rest if you like the music.