Bad recordings and high end audio

@gumbedamit,
"Frogman: I respectfully disagree with your statement of a bad recordings sounding better on a good system vs, a bad system. Good/Great systems reveal just how poorly a a recording was created or how well. Garbage In. Garbage out. Lesser systems don’t have the resolving power, thus colorizing the noise making it sound better..."



Agreed.

The 1950s/60s systems that that those beloved Sinatra, Cole, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Beatles etc records were cut for are quite different to the playback systems used today.

Dynamics, tonality and punch seemed to matter much more back then than the obsessive pursuit of increasing amounts of resolution today.

Studio monitors were quite different back then too.

@gumbedamit,
"Frogman: I respectfully disagree with your statement of a bad recordings sounding better on a good system vs, a bad system. Good/Great systems reveal just how poorly a a recording was created or how well. Garbage In. Garbage out. Lesser systems don’t have the resolving power, thus colorizing the noise making it sound better..."

I used to believe this. It certainly seemed to make sense. For a very long time, quite a few years I think, this idea held up pretty good.

The last couple years now it has become increasingly obvious this is bunk. What happens instead is sometimes things we think are improvements really are not that well balanced. When we change something and some recordings sound better while others do not we blame the "bad" recordings. When in fact what really happened is we made an unbalanced "improvement".

I have written about this before. I have plenty of records I was sure were dull dead, lifeless, insipid poorly done recordings. All the Linda Ronstadt recordings with Nelson Riddle, her voice was good and that was about it. Some cuts like Round Midnight just laid there. When I play them now it is stunning how full of life they are. Round Midnight is tense with drama. Instruments were sort of buried in the mix to the point I was sure this congealed sort of sound had to be endemic to the recording. Now every thread shines and sparkles. The sax on some of them is absolutely soaring!

But at the same time there are recordings I was sure were "hot" or hyper detailed with a hard edge or glare that was fatiguing, and again I was sure these were part and parcel of the recording. Wrong. Now they sound terrific, no glare, no fatigue. It wasn’t the recording after all.

Jim James’ guitar solo on Kansas City is so distorted it was hard at first to make out the notes. Now I play it and wonder how it was it ever sounded so hopelessly distorted. Has to be real genuine balanced improvements are now letting me hear both the distortion and the fundamental tone just as the artist intended.

Now at this point I will ask those who think "revealing" means revealing flaws to stop and think about this. These two outcomes would seem to be mutually exclusive, would they not? If the system "makes" the damp dull recording sound more dynamic and detailed, then surely it would also make the dynamic sparkly recording too hot? But yet it does not. Or if it makes the hot record sound smoother then surely it would make the dull one even duller. Would it not?

It would. But yet it does not. Therefore the premise is false.

The only way this makes sense is the definition of what is "good" or "better" in a system is wrong. A truly good system does not "make" the recording anything. In other words the flaws you are hearing are maybe not so much in the recording as you think.

Excellent post!  I agree entirely.  

@daydream816:

There are those who will only play music that sounds optimal on their systems. Perhaps those salespeople you encountered were of this persuasion-- preferring to let the tail wag the dog?

I say, if you can't play the music you like and enjoy it, what's the point of the system? 

The best thing is for you to take CDs/vinyl you like and try it on different systems. If you are spontaneously moved, physically and emotionally-- go with that. Forget about whether it meets person X's or person Y's definition of high fidelity. 

Led Zeppelin sounded best on my 8 track player in my car when I was 20. I recently bought a new vinyl version and it sounds  terrible.