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Isn't it really about quality of recording?

Are most of us just chasing our tails?

I mean you listen to a variety of recordings and some sound a lot better than others. Your system has limited impact on how good recordings can be. I am awestruck how some music sounds and clearly my system has nothing to do with it, it all occurred when the music was produced.

We talk about soundstage and imaging and I am not sure all the effort and money put toward a better system can really do that much for most of what we listen to because the quality is lesser than other recordings.

You can walk into a room and hear something that really sounds good and you say wow what an amazing System you have but no!!! It's the recording dummy not the system most of the time. Things don't sound so good it's probably the recording.

The dealers don't wanna talk about Recording quality no one seems to want to talk about it and why is this? Because there's no money to be made here that's why.

 

jumia
petg60
1,486 posts
 

Mediocre, bad, or not so ideal recordings, for various of reasons, can sound confused, lacking in life and in some cases are barely listenable in lesser systems.

Still they will never sound ideal, but how many times have you heard the phrase from a friend or dealer saying that his or her system does not play well because of a bad recording, skip or be cautious.

Same material on a well balanced and better system is transformed to something with a meaning, easier to follow and the  performance has more juice.

Compared to the majesty of what a great recording can offer, these ones are more than lacking but at the same time you realize that your music collection has grown considerably.

mapman's avatar
mapman
22,308 posts
 

It’s both actually but the dead end is thinking a hifi can transform a particular recording into something it is not. A very easy trap to fall into especially since no two setups ever sound exactly the same.

hilde45's avatar
hilde45
4,974 posts
 

The idea is to get your system sounding it’s best for the music you like to listen to.

This is clearly the right answer. The alternative would be...what? To pay no attention to you system, I suppose, which is ridiculous.

aewarren
658 posts
 

A good system will not make a bad recording sound good. In fact, the better the system the more it will reveal the flaws in a bad recording and pinpoint what those flaws are.

ghdprentice
7,051 posts
 

@aewarren

It depends. There are systems built on the basis of more details are better… in that case correct. But there are systems based on musicality and natural presentation: for those recordings will sound much better.

Two or three decades ago I realized systems could be too revealing… with the loss of musicality. I remember correctly choosing between a Sim Moon 650D and 750D DAC / CD player… where the 650 balanced detail/musicality and the 750 scraped every last detail off of a disk or file… but would completely ruin a less than perfect recording.

The trick is to balance detail with musicality… like a knife edge… one step too far in either direction and you either end up with overly revealing non-musical music from all but great recordings or warm lacking in details presentation.

My personal view is that Audio Research has nailed the balance perfectly at their highest level Reference Series.

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