Ultra high resolution

my favorite cd labels for classical recordings include the following:

glossa, opus 111, mirare, accent and harmonia mundi.

there are some older london orchestrals that have a mid to rear hall perspective as well. i don't remember westiminster recordings as having a distant perspective. however, i will consider your statement as fact. i have several westminster cds. i will listen to them. i have some lps as well. thanks for the tip.

Seems to me there is a message vs the messenger thing going on here.

If the message is bad news I don't kill the messenger, in this case, the stereo. The message is the music. IOW I won't fault a system for playing it like it is- that is resolution plain and simple. OTOH resolution is **not** 'detail with added brightness'; I call that 'detail with added brightness' :)

IME a system with a bright or clinical quality is obscuring the musical message. That's not resolution!

Actually, Atmasphere, it is resolution and in certain cases some might even consider it ultra high resolution. It just may not be refined or beautiful sounding resolution.

But when you mentioned detail with added brightness, you neglected to include negative sibilance, harshness, glare, hash, grain and perhaps a few other negatives. All of which is also revealed and all of which can be either absolutely minimized or possibly eliminated altogether while maintaining the highest resolution imaginable.

As you probably know a truly resolving playback system should reproduce everything with tremendous accuracy.

Whether it be beautiful music, AC grunge coming from the wall, digital noise coming from the CDP/DAC, time-smearing ics, or a combination of a small host of other shortcomings (pick your poison) a truly revealing system is going to reveal every last shortcoming along with the music.

That is resolution. Albeit, unrefined.
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Hi, Mrtennis. I've enjoyed your posts so please don't take this the wrong way. I couldn't disagree more with your strategy because based on your logic in your posting above and the direction you're heading, you're likely to end up with an expensive transistor radio.

In a similar thread about a month ago I responded with the following comment:

"So if some potential detail rears its ugly head out of sequence or too prematurely in the evolutionary process, then the first thing we want to do is call it evil and squash it rather than nurture it."

I couldn't have said it better myself. :)

-IMO

i don't think it is noble or necessary to suffer withen listening to some cds.

one has two choices, if one finds it unacceptable to tolerate unpleasant sound. one can avoid listening to some recordings or adjust, i.e., voice the stereo system so that what is heard through a pair of speakers is tolerable.

obviously, such a situation implies inaccuracy or coloration. yes, that is what it is.

why object to inaccuracy when a recording is an inaccurate representation of a live performance. consider the microphone, wire, and electronics.

i will leave it to the more philosophically inclined to analyze the principle of trying to accurately reproduce an inaccurate recortding, as compared to editing an inaccurate recording. in both cases, the result is inaccuracy.

MrT, are you saying that you don't like the harsh, shrill sound of many CDs and most CDP? Well, we can all agree on that. There are players that will eliminate that on most CDs (some old stuff from the 1980s just can't be rescued, IME). That's not hi rez sound, IMHO, it's an inferior attempt at hi rez that merely substituted one inaccuracy for another.

As for calling a recording (I'm assuming a good one) "an inaccurate representation of a live performance" consider actually attending a live acoustic performance. It'll sound different from every seat in the house. Those of us that like detail sit closer and you that like a homogenized sound sit further back. Neither position is "more accurate", it is what it is. Recordings are no difference.

Mic coloration in classical recordings, these days, tends to be very small. The Tacet recordings, in particular, are very cleanly recorded. I heard Reference Recordings from the hall and on CD or vinyl and they're very, very close. Played in high resolution, these recordings are simply wonderful.

Hi rez does not include, uptilted highs, high frequency haze or artificial harshness, IME. Many high end (read as expensive) systems DO have uptilted high, high frequency haze and artificial harshness, because there's some failure in the sytem, IMHO. This is not unusual and I'm thinking that this is what you've heard and rail against. I don't blame you.

Also I understand your seeming disgust. There's a dealer here in the Denver area that sells poorly set up Sonus Faber speakers. If you were to listen in their showroom you'd probably wretch at the etched, harsh sounds coming out of the system. When questioned, they sniff and say that's how they're supposed to sound and lots of people buy them because they're so good. I'm frankly amazed that they sell anything. Trouble is, the Sonus are not the problem, it's that dealer's poor setup.

That attitude is fairly persistant in the audiophile world and it's hard to find a really sweet sounding hi rez system (there usually in someone's home) but when you hear it, it can be a revelation.

Dave