How competitive are you with your system?

@devinplombier Why do think or speculate that the system audio recordings of my systems and of others don’t sound like trash? What makes our simple videos/audio recordings different than yours or anyone else’s? I assume that you have a current cell phone, but you can also use an external microphone with it if you want to. the BelieveInHifi guy uses expensive high-end professional studio microphones and equipment to make his system videos and to be honest to me the better equipment doesn’t tell me much more than the iPhone videos he posts first for comparison. We will never be able to make all variables equals so recording devices do not need to be, and usually never are, the same. The only thing that is crucial is that the audio recording/video be captured/shot from the listening position, or otherwise all comparisons and assessments are off.

carlos269

Why do think or speculate that the system audio recordings of my systems and of others don’t sound like trash?

They don’t sound like trash to you because many people actually prefer the sound of compressed lossy files, which is what you get from YouTube, Spotify, and mp3s. And you are watching a video of the system as you listen, so confirmation bias creeps in. It's pretty simple.

@isellgoodgear 

@cleeds

If you make a recording, it should be true to the original direct transfer, regardless of what you are listening on.  This is your point of reference and you are not comparing it to ANYTHING else.  This is also what your recording should sound like.

So, it doesn’t really matter what you listen back on, as long as it is of good quality and "full range" so as to be able to capture the nuance of the original direct transfer.  In fact, you really want to be using nearfield monitors.

toddalin

If you make a recording, it should be true to the original direct transfer, regardless of what you are listening on.

Of course. But if you use lossy media (YouTube, Spotify, mp3 files), the recording will not be "original" at all. Rather, it will have discarded data for the purpose of reducing file size. Fidelity is also lost in the process - even though many will find the result pleasing.

Making a truly high-fidelity recording is not as easy as some here believe.

Several years back I attended an audio demo wherein the system did sound excellent. The dealer asked the attendants how the system compared to real ’live’ music. Some folks came out and stated this system sounded better than live to their ears! 

I thought this reply was not correct and showed that those who made the point were perhaps not listening enough to live music, even though it was probably in the top 5% of systems I had heard. Now, if we took a canned version of this system and listened to it via video online, i believe that a few things would be evident. 1) the system would sound only a fraction as good as when heard live and 2) the ability to really determine its quality would be severely diminished. Therefore, personally i give very little credence to the SQ on videos on the web as to how any particular product or system sounds.