In my case, I'd estimate that it's roughly 99.999% about the music itself. The Gershwin piano rolls and Benedetti wire recordings of Charlie Parker (solos only!) will always be more significant and worth listening to than the finest recording of an elementary school band.
Isn't it really about quality of recording?
Are most of us just chasing our tails?
I mean you listen to a variety of recordings and some sound a lot better than others. Your system has limited impact on how good recordings can be. I am awestruck how some music sounds and clearly my system has nothing to do with it, it all occurred when the music was produced.
We talk about soundstage and imaging and I am not sure all the effort and money put toward a better system can really do that much for most of what we listen to because the quality is lesser than other recordings.
You can walk into a room and hear something that really sounds good and you say wow what an amazing System you have but no!!! It's the recording dummy not the system most of the time. Things don't sound so good it's probably the recording.
The dealers don't wanna talk about Recording quality no one seems to want to talk about it and why is this? Because there's no money to be made here that's why.
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I agree with your @petaluman. |
There’s a lot of truth to the OP’s post. As my system got better I began to hear wider variations among recordings. This is true both with digital and vinyl. With vinyl the variation is greater. Too much vinyl gets issued in crappy shape whether it be from source, mixing, plating, pressing, you name it. When I relied upon CD’s the sound variation was noticeable but now with Qobuz it is more pronounced. I have no way to prove it but it seems Qobuz is affected by variations during the day and week in internet service. Music ripped from CD to my Aurender W20 never varies day to day but the identical album streamed on Qobuz does (or seems to). But all that said, can a great recording make a compromised or mediocre system sound greater than or as good as a so-so recording on a great system? Doubtful. Someone mentioned Flim and BB’s "Tricycle". Now that is a blast from the past. If you Wiki the band you will see that "Tricycle" was one of the first all-digital recordings-the second by the band with the first being more of a digital demo-and that Flim and the BB’s were studio musicians with a side-project bar band. Their albums started with an effort to show off the dynamic range of CD’s. From that point forward for 30 years we audiophiles who ditched vinyl thought DDD was superior thanks largely to "Tricycle". Now for the 15-20 years we same enthusiasts that came back to vinyl are looking for AAA. Strange (some would mis-use the word "ironic"). My dad would have been in his mid-50’s when CD players became affordable. He mothballed his Thorens TD124, gave all of his records to Goodwill, and went with CD’s (only). At the same time he ditched his tubed Scott preamp and amp and bought a Marantz receiver. One of his first acquisitions- Flim and the BB’s "Tricycle". It all ended well. I got his TD124.
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