Sound and Music

Unlike many musicians, we have this bug tha t craves good sound.

How about this take? Musicians produce the sound. Stereos try to reproduce it. Reproductions have inherent flaws and those flaws can draw one’s attention from the music and to the sound.

For reproductions that are "perfect", hi-res system really shine. For those that are not, maybe it’s better to gloss over things a little. So the flaws are not so noticeable.

Second, as audiophiles, attuned to hearing differences in components, we are our own worst enemy. Consider the people who are happy listening to some crap Bluetooth speakers. Ignorance is bliss.

Third, reproduction is subject to interpretation. Tell 10 artists to paint a given sunset and all 10 paintings will look different. Which one do you like the best? Buy does anyone ever complain about a sunset being too washing out, too bright, etc etc.?

You just have to move to Austria where "The hills are alive with the sound of music". Not the sounds of an audio system. Sorry for that...but I couldn't resist. I do think that we often look for the right things in the wrong places. .:-)

OP …”How do you react to musically satisfying LP’s that have sonic defects? ”

I do not react well to bad vinyl. Which is why I have a collection of 2,000 albums largely in pristine condition. So if there is a very good musical pressing with lots of surface noice I will not listen to it.

A note on my system. My vinyl playback and digital playback sound virtually identical. So the variation tends to be around the disk. I believe this variation is due to the fact that the intermediate masters (molds) have a very short life of one to several thousand pressings. I believe the difference is between early pressings from a mold vs late. Because some vinyl of the very same mastering / recording will sound slightly better, some slightly worse than the digital equivalent..

@ghdprentice

I find that records vary so widely in quality I can’t make a blanket statement on the quality of LP’s, especially classical.

I think cdc pretty much hits the nail on the head. For myself I prefer a system that does not draw attention to itself and the recording is part of that system. I don’t want to have sounds coming at me which have nothing to do with the music. Vinyl problems were grossly apparent to me and I couldn’t listen past them on a regular basis although I could listen thru them on occasion for a very special performance. CD’s can have too much upper mid range energy, stuff that I would never hear in concert, and for that reason I put an equalizer in my tape loop to compensate. It works for me. IMHO, a home audio system can’t, and never will, replicate a live performance, not even close, so all I require is a quiet, balanced, system and recording, even if the technical merits of the performance are not superb. With this I can just sit back and enjoy the music.