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Aging and Treble and Income?

I'm in my late 50s; been listening to, and playing, music for most of my life. I still occasionally haunt the salons, but these days not to buy new gear; more just curiosity about developments in our wonderful hobby. These days I just buy music; records, CDs and the odd download.
I was listening to a very expensive system recently, a combination of an excellent digital front end, feeding an exotic tube array of components, and outputting via a beautifully constructed set of English high-end speakers.
A very impressive sound to say the least. Not like real music though: very very good hi-fi, but not real.
One of the obvious oddities was the frequency response above maybe 4k. Just incorrect. Very clear, very emphasised and incisive, no doubt, but not right.
And it occured to me that this isn't unusual. And then a set of questions came to me. For the purposes of this debate I will exclude the 128k iPod generation - their tastes in listening are their own, and as much driven by budget as space constraint as anything else. I prefer to concentrate on the generation that has increased leisure and disposable income. It's a sad fact that this generation is plagued by the inevitability of progressive hearing loss, most often accompanied by diminished ability to hear higher frequencies. But it's this generation that can afford the 'best' equipment.

My question is simply this: is it not possible (or highly likely) that the higher-end industry is driven by the need to appeal to those whose hearing is degrading? In other words, is there a leaning towards the building-in of a compensatory frequency emphasis in much of what is on the shelves? My question is simplistic, and the industry may indeed be governed by the relentless pursuit of accuracy and musicality, but so much that I have hear is, I find, very difficult to listen to as it is so far from what I believe to be reality. Perhaps there has always been an emphasis in making our sytems sound "exciting" as opposed to "honest": I can understand the pleasure in this pursuit, as it's the delight in technology itself and I see nothing very wrong in that. But, all this emphasised treble....I just wonder if anyone out there in cyberspace agrees with me?
57s4me
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,341 posts
 
" HI-FI is simply an attempt to fool you into thinking you're 'hearing' something live. "

Agree with that. WHy else spend so much dough? But its all an illusion. You either have bought into it or not. That's what most music lovers seek with their home playback gear I think.

Of course many live performances at many venues have a lot of rough edges sonically. That goes with the territory. THere are some excellent venues out there though and I have heard excellent live sound in all kinds of venues recently from large football stadiums, to small nightclubs, larger performance halls to smaller intimate rooms.

I want my recordings to convince me I am at an event similar to the better ones I have witnessed live, even if that might include all the rough edges. IT goes with the turf. As long as its a result of the recording/reproduction and not my gear in use to play it, I am a very happy camper.
pops
2,275 posts
 
The problem with live music is it comes with....live people in the crowd..someone interrupts the show or is rude in my room I just smack em!
csontos
1,311 posts
 
But that's just it, Mapman, it is your gear that is responsible for mimicking the original recorded event. How well it achieves it is tantamount to reaching the goal of a realistic facsimile. It's only after you've reached that goal that you can attribute success to the recording.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,341 posts
 
Audiophile would be a much happier bunch if they had control over how things are recorded. But we don't, so better to just forget about it and enjoy the music. Recordings are what they are. I gotta say thought that these days, I find the huge majority of recordings in all genres enjoyable. There are very few that make me wince enough to be unhappy. Thats not to say they are all near perfect....far from it. Each is what it is. Most are average. But average is sounding pretty good to me as a whole these days and that's a good thing. I could not ever have said that prior to my most recent round of system upgrades. But, now that I feel my system is well above average, it is hard for me to relate to those who constantly complain about recording quality. To me its more likely due to unrealistic expectations (audiophiles live by that which is why #s are dwindling and I suppose some esoteric vendors that promise the world thrive) and/or deficiencies during playback.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
I don't care how good or bad the recording is. To me the fun of it all is to reproduce the recording as faithfully as possible. One of my favorite test cd's is the Monkees greatest hits. Very compressed so also very taxing on the gear. I wonder how many of you can say it sounds great. IME, all recordings have the potential to exhibit a satisfying level of reality. How you get there it seems is this site's age old question. Probably every other site's as well. The secret is not in...wires,cables, and MD.., if you get my drift. But that's another thread, already exhausted.
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