Focus on the music, and accept the fact that recorded sound quality varies. What's the alternative, to be miserable? 
Quality of recording while evaluating speakers
Melody Gardot, Diana Krall, and others.
The above recordings are done so well they sound absolutely Great in most systems. And then there are recordings that are not as open and have trouble filling the room enjoyably and yet the melodies are very good and it's unfortunate they didn't do a better good job in the recording studio.
So how do you evaluate a speaker other than to be familiar with a recording on how it sounds in your system versus how it sounds in another system. Basically we are at the mercy of Recording quality when we listen to our systems.
Even more painful is home theater streaming when the music is wonderful but the quality sucks and once in a while it sounds really good but this can be rare which is sad.
So speaker manufacturers have to deal with these issues and we put up with poor recordings and how does this factor into your decisions when evaluating new speakers?
So we end up buying really nice speakers knowing that so much of what we will eventually listen to Will not have been recorded very well making things a bit frustrating at times. There's only so much that can be done to make things sound better given these limitations. So how does one cope with all this?
50 responses Add your response
It was more of a concern before streaming. Now I’ve got more well-recorded music — and much of it in hi res — at my fingertips across all genres than I could ever possibly listen to. If something’s not well recorded I just listen to it on my earbuds or on a Bluetooth speaker where its limitations are not as much of an issue. @immatthewj Heh heh. |
A great question. You have probably noticed that the same recordings are often playing at shows and in showrooms. Often they are music with lots of silence. Speakers / systems often sound their best when only reproducing a single sound or few. They can start tripping over themselves when complex music is played. I mean I don’t blame them, they want their equipment to be heard in the best possible light (ok, sound quality).
So, putting together a system / buying speakers is all about this… it is about assembling a system with the gestalt as the objective as opposed to a couple of variables. Listening intently on how much minute detail you can hear is a great way to head down the wrong path… slam also. To do this you need to take in the music and not listen to the system. The music to choose makes a big difference, as well as how you listen. Easy to say, hard to do. In my opinion a great system is musically compelling and very immune to sounding a lot better with great recordings and conversely bad with bad recordings. To get this you need to pick music you like (not necessarily great recordings) and a couple great recordings… but some music you used to like or kind of like, and maybe a couple not so good recordings. Then with this kind of play list listen to the music, and not the equipment. You do not want the dealer or salesman choosing what you hear… they are going to have (or should) a mental list of great sounding stuff. They should, but you want to either listen to random stuff or your own list to see how different kinds of recordings sound.
This is even more important today because once you start streaming ant the entire world of music opens up, you want everything to sound great so you can enjoy as much of it as possible… for the value of the music… not the recording. I have brought this up before, I had assembled a spectacular “reference system” that instantly made the mastering and venue obvious… stuck it in my face. Only the very best recordings sounded fantastic… most just sounded bland… although incredibly detailed. My system now sounds great, is compelling and musical. Only the very worst… I’m talking 1960’s Yardbirds… must have been recorded with tin can microphones on a 3” portable tape recorder sounds actively bad. Nothing you can do with those.
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I was just listening to Yes Indeed by Elan Mehler from the Being There, Here album. The tune is really compelling… in the background are plates clinking and people talking. I have noticed i am captivated by the music and almost don’t hear the racket in the background. It would not surprise me if that would have driven me crazy on earlier versions of my system. The next tune starts with lots of racket. |
I think that one should audition speakers with the music that one listens to at home. So if that is thrash metal, rap, ambient or jazz lite vocalists, anything goes. No need to overthink it. If one listens to lo fi recordings (guilty here, I listen to 78s and 45 singles) it would make sense to audition using those same recordings. IMHO, too many owners allow recorded quality to dictate their musical taste, YMMV.
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It is a good question that been ask alot. In my prospective to this is that you should evaluate with music you like and familiar with. The reason why music with limited instruments is because space between frequencies. What I mean by this is that like vocals and guitar in a recording, there is that much space so it is easier for the engineer to mix which does not require ant processing. In the other hand, music with alot of input is a little more complex to mix and may require processing and EQing to sound right. Rock is good example of this since alot of instruments like guitars and vocals have a very strong midrange frequency band. It is the way it is and that is ok. I have to admit that I don't like harsh sounding but when I am in the mood, does it matter? Just enjoy the music |
Maybe to clarify the point a little, it's like when you're listening to music and something doesn't seem right and you wonder if it's the speaker or the music quality. Another recording it sounds great. Life is like that. If only God worked on that final seventh day think of all the problems this would have solved. |
Use as wide a range of recordings as possible. Some "audiophile approved" records do not reflect what one might ordinarily listen to. I have a thing for ’70s era post bop- not exactly a high point in vinyl quality. But nonetheless revealing since many of those recordings were done without a lot of production. They will allow you to hear acoustic instruments in what are typically small groups. Of course, if your diet consistent of highly produced rock, pop, or the like, you should use those too, since that is what you will be listening to, presumably. Punchline for me: choose a wide range of different recordings. You want to hear strengths and weaknesses of what you are evaluating. The biggest hurdle is often translating that into what you’ll hear in your system at home. That’s why I like to audition gear in my system. I can pretty quickly get a handle on what it is doing, good or bad. |
J Gordon Holt (founder of Stereophile) recommended his readers do as he did: make your own recordings. I did so, recording my son’s speaking voice (a brutal test of loudspeaker coloration), my drumset, and my band playing live in a club. A pair of small capsule omni mics plugged directly into a Revox A77 Mk.3. That recording captured an inebriated patron bellowing out "How’s your boogaloo? Git it on RIGHT now!" Priceless. Gordon also proclaimed this timeless truth about recordings: "Often the better the performance, the worse the sound quality. And visa-versa." An unfortunate truth. Lots of my favorite music suffers from mediocre or worse sound quality. I’d much rather listen to, say, Hank Williams, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Walter, and Big Joe Turner than I would to, for instance, Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell. But that’s just me. Fortunately, lots of Baroque-era Classical and Bluegrass recordings feature excellent sound quality. My number one priority in reproduced sound quality is how real singing voices sound. Get that right, and you're at least halfway there.
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@ghdprentice has reached the pinnacle of this hobby, having built a system that plays pure music. I just hit a new plateau this year turning over the majority of my system and moving to a new room. I am getting closer, but I still have some work to do to reach that level. All that said, I am not ashamed to admit I like listening to my system, rather than music, just because I am a gearhead. One day the system will disappear, and it will just be music. |
I listen to a wide variety of music and in different media (streaming, CD, vinyl) all the time. I happen to own Calexico's latest release on vinyl and high-quality digital format. The two iterations sound vastly different on my system. The streaming version via Spotify sounds better than the vinyl! Yet the high-quality digital copy on my HD sounds the best whether listening via speakers or my headphones. I'm a music-first audiophile so for me it's really about having a great-sounding copy but also not fretting about having multiple copies in the search for the best. My wife wouldn't understand why I would need 4 copies of DSOTM or Astral Weeks. I find my vinyl copies of certain recordings sound better than the streaming/digital versions and vice versa for other recordings. At the end of the day, I want to enjoy my music and not stress myself out about it. I plan to upgrade my speakers later this fall and will try and not let myself fall into the trap of searching for newer/"better" copies of my favorite albums. The step up in my speakers will be such that my entire collection should sound much better but won't change at all during headphone listening sessions. I'd say find a handful of your favorite recordings and do some listening tests with headphones and the speakers you want to evaluate vs the speakers you have. The headphones can act as a neutral control session and give you a listening base to reference when evaluating the new speaker choice. |
Fascinating to hear from all these wonderful souls and everybody seems to be in the same predicament. Makes me thankful for what I have put together because it actually does sound pretty good overall. It can be a very frustrating process putting together all these complex mystery boxes to allow sound to come through speakers in an enjoyable way |
I really like your system and the rack is very nice looking. Looks like a really nice room too. Truth is I’m not really happy with my system so I’m reluctant to share the details. As I evolve maybe I’ll become more comfortable with it and be willing to share it. You would think it would be great living in Malibu on a beach, but I'm not happy about that either. |
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Isn't this thread about evaluating speakers? I assume that means at the showroom since you can listen to all of your own music at home. I bring my favorite music that doesn't play well on my current speakers in order to evaluate a potential purchase. For example if something sounds sibilant at home, I'll bring that CD to the showroom to see if the speakers I'm interested in are better at handling that recording. I don't understand the comment about streaming music rarely sounding good. That would be the case if you are on Spotify rather than any of the lossless services. That is just a matter of getting a better service and with it higher quality source material. Very odd how there are some posters here that get all up in arms about their perception that certain threads are manipulative. Fine. Don't respond. Done. |
FWIW: When I do serious seat-time listening to speakers, I bring music with me (i.e. various cuts) that I'm very familiar with. I bring a mix of different genres (i.e. rock; classical, folk, jazz; etc.), good recordings, mediocre quality recordings, female voices, male voices, harmonies and music I've seen/heard live. I make a point of bringing recordings that will tax speakers' abilities (i.e. low bass tones; high frequency; mid-range; etc.). I also make a point of bringing recordings that have brushed cymbals and other instruments that speakers have difficulty reproducing accurately or realistically. Depending upon whatever's available at the various shop(s), I bring CDs and vinyl in addition to the streaming that most shops want you to listen to these days. Some speakers are more forgiving than others with regard to poor or less than stellar recordings and some are very revealing and not forgiving at all. My ears tend to gravitate toward those who are unforgiving and let you hear exactly what's on that recording, good or not so good. |
These two statements of yours are examples of why it is hard to take anything you post seriously @9:47 am "Makes me thankful for what I have put together because it actually does sound pretty good overall." @11:26 am "Truth is I’m not really happy with my system so I’m reluctant to share the details. " +1immathewj
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@bdp24 +1 |
I think most people on this forum are interested to better understand what they have as well as to improve their systems, and also to learn a lot. Within our systems we identify weaknesses, and recognize limitations and are unhappy with certain things while being happy with other things. Overall I’m happy with my system, however there are certain things that I wish were different. Making moves to change components is a financially serious issue and that adds to the frustration. As well as the procurement/ decision process which makes it even more difficult. I am looking for new speakers and wish my speakers made me happier than they do. Overall I’ve got a nice system. And I wish recording quality would not complicate my ability to understand weaknesses within my system. Unfortunately I don’t have much to compare things too. I don’t think alot of people are in a position to compare what other systems are doing because not too many people have Systems like a lot of people on the forum. If you go to audio shows as crappy as the sound in those hotel rooms is that’s helpful but they usually mix in so many different things it’s hard to evaluate what’s really going on and it’s all reference grade stuff and who knows what it all is doing when mixed together. Audio stores have a limited offering and the variety to consider is not very good. So this really complicates understanding all those things that are out there that most of us will never be able to experience and that really sucks. So you take chances and you buy stuff and maybe it just doesn't work out. |
Krall & friends are indeed well recorded, but not so much as to be an outlier. Mainly it’s such simple, sleep-inducing music that it seems to magically avoid exposing most systems’ major problem areas - and this is why it’s such a popular choice in gear demos. To me - it’s not good choice. I have a large collection of vinyl plus a decent digital / FLAC library. This is comprised of a lot of hard rock, heavy metal, pop, alt rock, new wave, & soundtracks - not much "audiophile approved" material. I’d say at least half of it (a bit more than half) sounds "really good" or better (with some real stunners), and I try to pick from here where when I get new gear. The other half...is unfortunate. It’s hard for me to enjoy that material, even if I love the music :( |
Kind of like @emergingsoul, I can only compare one speaker to another. So I find it best to rule out as many variables as I can. So comparing speakers using different recordings is a non starter. I use a recording I know well, and have heard on many systems. One example is on Hope by Hugh Masekela, Stimela. The best sound I heard with this song was on a system at a dealership with Wilson Shasha speakers and Bel Canto Ref 600 Mono block amps I think. I heard a very dynamic sound that sounded very obviously like the live concert that it was. I've heard that song on many other systems with different speakers, but of course the other equipment was also different. And I only hope it's the same mastering. Plus different rooms, and on and on it goes. But I do my best. BTW I listen to all kinds of music and recordings in regular sessions. |
nope. evaluate using recordings that you know personally and know exactly what they should sound like. I had a friend come over to listen to my stereo. he put on a song I didn't know and in 10 seconds said "your channels are reversed". I had just swapped out a component before he arrieved and he was right. Evaluate that the recording sounds like you expect it to on the best system you've ever heard. As I upgraded my system, using the same songs, I was always amazed when an upgrade would reveal things i'd never heard before. that would not be revealed to me on a track I didn't know very, very well. Now most of us will tend to listen to tracks that are well recorded but that is for a different reason. One track I like is Sympathy for the Devil, not known to be well recorded. but most of us heard it over and over on bad systems, probasbly spinning worn out vinyl on a cheap player with a junk stylus, in our youth. Put it on with a good system and there is a lot of detail in there you never heard before. oh yeah, you no longer need to turn it up to enjoy it. Jerry |
@tkhill Yup, +1 |
An aside re: boring Diana Krall. FWIW this is my take on DK. Sleep-inducing, indeed. However...recently a jazz -piano-playing friend turned me onto her third studio album: "All For You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio." On it, Krall actually swings and plays a mean piano. Sounds pretty good, too. |
"It's amusing how you put together all these cryptic threads posing hypothetical questions, but you are very close to the cuff when talking about what actually comprises your own system. I guess you just like to keep people in the dark." So true. And what are those fantasy $50K speakers from your other thread that you also refuse to identify, despite making an entire thread about them? Notwithstanding that, I think that you are trying to ask some thought-provoking if hypothetical questions, which is fine, I guess. And as far as not being happy living in Malibu on the beach, perhaps if you kicked out your brother and his 10 year old son, you might enjoy it more! OK, on to the hypothetical at hand. I test all equipment, including speakers, with a range of material. I usually start with excellent quality recordings like Patricia Barber's Companion and DSOTM (50th Ann. remaster), Jazz At the Pawnshop, and Gary Burton and Ralph Towner's Matchbook. That shows what the system can really do with both excellent studio and live recordings. Then I try some recordings that are not well-recorded and see how the system sounds with those. Different systems handle poor quality recordings differently. Some make mediocre quality recordings sound OK, some make them sound horrible. Who's Next is one that immediately comes to mind. Finally, I put on a Led Zeppelin bootleg or two (usually a soundboard tape and an audience tape) to see how the system handles those. The end result is that no matter what the new component or cables I am checking out, the foregoing gives me a pretty good idea of the good/bad of that new component or cable. Then you know, based on what you like to listen to, whether the speaker etc. is a good fit for your system. Going through that same testing on a completely different system will only let you compare that system to your own, obviously, which makes it more important to test a speaker in your own listening room with your own equipment. |
You want something that will test your record recordings and sound listen to DISCO, people hated it but it will drive your system to the fullest extremes....most people hated it then in the 70s and now 50 years later...but man,I was a rocker From Beatles to Stones ,Led Zeppelin....but now I listen and I enjoy it ,just listen and enjoy..... |
Generally speaking, the quality of a recording is not very important for comparative evaluations as long as there are good dynamics and extension in bass & treble. The key is to use the same recording for the comparisons. OTOH, I was comparing my 32-bit 384kHz recordings to the same recording saved as 24-bit 384k. They were close, but the 32-bit music has slightly better resolution in the upper treble audible on B&W 805 D4 Signature speakers and Meze Elite headphones. There would be value in using the 32-bit recordings when comparing speakers or other components to understand ultimate high frequency performance. |
Interesting points. I'm impressed you can tell the difference between 32 and 24 bit. Maybe more so using headphones which I'm not really familiar with that much. I have a tube of amplifier and I am milking the benefits of using better tubes to see if that helps improve speakers before I decide to buy new speakers. Solid state amplifiers provide no means to do this clearly, although changing bit rates can influence how a speaker performs. So many variables |
