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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?

 

emergingsoul
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,585 posts
 

@tkhill  Yup, +1

ozone46's avatar
ozone46
3 posts
 

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.

emergingsoul OP
1,109 posts
 

@ozone46

Absolutely, Aside from singing traditional songs she is an amazing Jazz piano Player. I’ll check out the recommendation.

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,624 posts
 

Just yesterday, I was at my dealer listening to a pair of speakers I’m interested in and I created a playlist on Qobuz of music I know and like.  Unfortunately, they only have Tidal. However I was able to pull up the playlist on my phone and then use the Hifi Rose app and Tidal and hear my tunes.

moto_man
356 posts
 

@emergingsoul 

"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.

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