better gear, worse recordings

From my perspective, I cannot do anything about the quality of the CDs I love (except perhaps re-buying them over and over again, if possible, as they iterate up the higher-bit-mastering chain - which is kind of annoying and expensive - or waiting for broadband to deliver MP3-SACD++ on demand).

Therefore, I feel that the challenge is to construct (with a little help from friends... and you all here at Audiogon, AA, etc.) a system that reproduces real music at as high a resolution as possible, regardless of the quality of the input.

The resurgence of tubed equipment is in direct response to this problem (as mentioned above).

High-end CD players (Linn CD12 was the first, IMHO) are also finally being designed with the goal of playing non-audiophile CDs on audiophile systems.

Forgiving (but still high-resolution) speakers are also helping (especially as they are now often asked to reproduce video sound (TV and DVD) which is often worse than early 80 CDs)...for example the Revel Salon is able to sound detailed but 'never' harsh in the difficult to endure THX treble ranges (though, I believe for other reasons, it is not the most musical of speakers).

All this is to say, with all this good equipment available, I believe it is the system which is at fault if music does not sound musical and is not entertaining for both the analytical and emotional aspects of the listener.

Of course, because I personally do not care if the piano is 12 feet wide (I just imagine I am sitting 1 foot in front of it), or if the other aspects of the reproduction are not true to life (I have hardly EVER heard unamplified music other than a symphony or a guitar/banjo), I am perhaps more forgiving of unnatural effects than others may be (and techno and electronica are by definition unnatural :-).

Great responses to an interesting observation. It's not been a problem for me. As my system and hearing abilities have evolved I'm better able to hear some of the recording techniques on records, but this doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the music. Good music easily transcends the quality of the recording and/or playback equipment. I'm a much happier audiophile since I realized this.

Nice posts, all.
Re People Time: I agree that this LIVE cd is a bit hot.
But that's the best they could do in Copenhagen in a loud club: stick a mike in Getz' horn. It SHOULD sound hot and nearly painful!
Re Piano width: When I play my B it easily fills the wisth of the room, so yes, it seems 14' wide. This is a bit more unnerving on a recoding back in the listening chair, but nothing like as bad as cymbals all over the place or od course the 10' wide violin. But big pianos DO have BIG soundboards!
I remember reading something a long time back about spectral tilt: something like---
Average folks prefer a 1-2 db/octave rolloff above 1k.
Musicians and engineers 0.5-1 db/octave, and of course, audiophiles ZERO rolloff!
So part of me wants to equate analytical processing and psychoacoustic effects with high frequency cues, and therefore it's no wonder that flatter, extended response gets us into trouble with most musical/acoustic flaws.
As no reproduced musical experience can be perfect at BOTH transducer ends, as well as intermediate processing, it's naturally harder to "find" musical happiness when the treble info quotient is high.
Environmental noise effectively masks treble info. (Thus Avalon sounds ok in a convertible at speed...and lots of 70s hits sound better on an old 5 tube radio with no response above 8k, and a single 5" stiff speaker. WONDERFULLY coherent and musical, actually. Like BUTTA!)
From another angle, my search of the past year or so for an acceptable digital front end perhaps taught me that extended
HF response via upsampling, etc., was not the holy grail.
ARCAMS, Meridian and Bel Canto went by the wayside.
Yet rolling off the top, whereas it usually restored musicality, took too much of a toll on the rest of a great system's strengths. Then I got a detailed and measurably-flat CDP that simply doesn't sound shrill. I frankly don't quite get it. Yes, crappy CDs still sound that way. But MANY CDs that were too shrill and edgy on other mid-level CDPs simply sound acceptable, WITHOUT turning down the treble. So something else is at work here, NOT just spectral tilt.... Nonetheless, I still believe that changing spectral tilt-optimization can ALMOST be the panacea that restores the musicality quotient minima that we require psychoacoustically. I hate to think we just used to call them tone controls...or lately interconnects. Ha!

With the rise of the CD and the technology available in our components the quest for sonic purity has been the goal. This seems to be what we thought we wanted. As someone who has gotten back into audio gear i can see that many people feel that this isn't what we wanted after all. I believe our equipment should serve up a compelling big picture, not show us the music through a microscope. This is probably why LPs are big now. They had a huge impact on several generations and today's pure digital sound isn't the same. This may be why tubes are big now as well. Of course, both LPs and tubes have a retro feel, but it may be the sound that is the real reason people prefer these mediums.

For another perspective, think of film vs video tape. Video tape can be said to show a more pure visual image, but it is not as interesting as film. Film is grainy and, to use an audio term, adds its own color to the imagery. We prefer this over the image of video tape.

In updating my equipment I've heard some equipment that allowed every sound to come through, but in the long run this was tiring. It was interesting for a moment, but was fatiguing in the long run. I want to hear music in the large sense, not someone coughing in the background of a sonically pure CD.

Thanks to all for a thought provoking thread and especially to Fineberg for a real breath of fresh air. Having begun my chequered career as a symphony and ensemble player, I listened to recordings in the beginning for the absolutely faithful reproduction of live music. This was unimaginable back in the 60s and so gradually my interest changed from listening to the music to listening to the sound--and that led to listening to the assortment of parts and pieces littering my listening room floor. I stayed on the trade-tweak-buy-sell treadmill for a good twenty years and it was fun at the time.

Now, either because I've matured or my hearing has begun to fade or because I'm bored with the quest for the perfect preamp, I find that I'm back to listening to the music.

One of the joys of finally owning a really superb set of speakers is the quantum leap in low level resolution. Now I can hear what those violins wayyyyy in the back are doing. And this leads me to what I experience as the biggest disappointment in relistening to older recordings of orchestral music: the really lousy quality of a lot of the second-desk-and-beyond playing. Just about every player and teacher I know acknowledges that the overall quality of symphony players today is light years ahead of the glory days. And, man, you can really hear that. Makes me ponder the frustration that the old conductors used to experience.

Do you know the ancient story about Toscanini right at the end of his career conducting a regional concert with a local cello soloist? After two hours of frustration, when it had become obvious that the cellist simply could not play the notes, the old man turned to her and exclaimed, "Madam, you have been your legs the most beautiful object that God ever created. And all you know how to do is scratch it!"

With today's equipment, you really can hear stuff that was formerly buried in the fog. Not all of it is pretty.

Will