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Jazz listening: Is it about the music? Or is it about the sound?

The thread title says it all. I can listen to jazz recordings for hours on end but can scarcely name a dozen tunes.  My jazz collection is small but still growing.  Most recordings sound great.  On the other hand, I have a substantial rock, pop and country collection and like most of us, have a near encyclopedic knowledge of it.  Yet sound quality is all over the map to the point that many titles have become nearly unlistenable on my best system.  Which leads me back to my question: Is it the sound or the music?  Maybe it’s both. You’ve just got to have one or the other!
jdmccall56
deadhead1000's avatar
deadhead1000
720 posts
 
I posted a few months ago that many of my old rock albums sounded pretty poor on my new system - now some I only listen too on an old system I have in my workshop in the garage. I have not heard a really unlistenable Jazz album yet. In fact all The Modern Jazz Quartet albums sound amazing on the new system and have brought me back to listening to more Jazz. I have replaced some of my old rock with 180 gram reissues when available and that has helped.  
jjss49's avatar
jjss49
6,612 posts
 
assembling a system that can deal with the wide wide range of recording quality of the various forms and sources of music we listen to is a key learned skill in this pursuit

that been said, it is still hard to have cake and eat it too... whereever on the spectrum you choose for your system’s tonality

and oh, yes, to the top line question... it is about the music... the brilliant music... they system is there to convey and hopefully not distract
noromance's avatar
noromance
10,194 posts
 
It's the recording. 
It's the sound of the music.
calvinandhobbes
317 posts
 
I have found Jazz to be one of the tougher music genres to reproduce via an audio system. The tone quality of instruments is important with the right balance of smoothness and attack (but without artificial sibilance to the leading edge of notes). But also important is timing and the flow of the music. Systems that lean to much to the side of smoothness (generally tube amps) can sound too slow for jazz. On the other side, solid state amplification that is too focused on resolution can make the tone quality of acoustic instruments sound harsh. My experience is that good equipment for listening to jazz doesn't have to be super expensive, but finding the right blend of equipment to get the right sound personality for your preferences matters. For instance, the quickness of my pretty reasonably priced Monitor Audio Silver 300 speakers seems to allow a lot of leeway for sweeter sounding amplification which will likely be my next purchase (after working on my digital front end.

For me it is all about the music, but how that music is reproduced matters as well. Listening to 'Kind of Blue' right now and it's hitting the spot for me this morning...
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