So Much "Harshness"

I have some HEXFRED bridge rectifiers going in my Cayin phono stage power supply later this week. Bypassing electrolytics with film bypass caps next week. I have always heard power supplies are critical to maximizing performance, we shall see.

I would argue that there is a good reason many people believe that the best sounding orchestral recordings, for one example, were those made in the 50's and early 60's with just a couple of mikes hung either far out into the hall or far above the orchestra, in the case of Mercury. There is very little mixing on these recordings in comparison to what happens today.

My understanding is that a major reason for that, apart from general mediocrity and mis-indoctrination of many recording engineers and producers, is the very high cost per hour of employing a symphony orchestra or other large ensemble. It is, unfortunately for we audiophiles, simply a lot cheaper to record one take, using a forest of microphones, and "fix it in the mix," rather than to record with purist microphone techniques, and risk having to do multiple re-takes, or risk having to proceed with a product that has unacceptable musical or technical miscues.

Those who listen almost exclusively to electronically produced music are not the ones generally complaining of harshness, in my experience. Rock concerts today are performed at insane volumes, with especially the bass greatly distorted by gigantic subwoofers, and many young people today think that all music is supposed to sound like that, and build systems to suit that taste. Many such people simply play their systems too loudly most of the time, trying to recreate this over-amplified sound. Most movie theaters do the same thing.

The greatly compressed MP3 files also are much brighter and harsher than other formats, and many young people are becoming used to this sound as well.

Sad but all too true. The quality of reproduction of the music that most people listen to is clearly trending downward, given the ubiquitousness of mp3 players, compressed downloads, etc. Which gives producers and engineers correspondingly less incentive to issue high quality material. The saddest part, as you allude to, is that most young listeners are never exposed to, or given an awareness of, what is possible in high quality music reproduction, and so are not able to decide, on an informed basis, to what degree quality matters to them.

Regards,
-- Al

I think its taste. It is so easy to pop in a tube or two and mellow that glare.

Also, people like today's shrill brash ultimately crappy music, which is made with drum machines and electronic samplings and the like. Those who complain might be playing Bach through components designed for crappy disco house music.