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Using Bad Recording to Evaluate a System

Once I went to a dealer to audition a speaker, brought a few CD's. One of them was a CD of a group I like but has rather low quality recording.
Well, I put that CD in and cued up a track, and when the music ended the dealer asked why I was using such a horrible sounding recording to audition. (I think he looked kinda slightly pissed. Maybe because the music sounded shrill and irritating the whole time???)
Yeah, why?
Here's what I think: an audio system should make listening the music a pleasant experience. The better your system can reproduce, the more enjoyment you get regardless of recording quality. Saying that 'my system is so good I can only play my audiophile discs' is basically saying something is wrong with my system. Yes, nowadays I tend to play my 'audiophile' CDs much more than regular ones, but that's because of the music AND the excellent recording quality, but when I play my regular or lower recording quality CD's, I find that, although the shortcomings are more obvious, my system can reproduce the music as an enjoyable presentation, and I enjoy it more than when I used to in prev. lower-res/quality/musicality systems.
yr44
chadnliz's avatar
chadnliz
3,737 posts
 
I dunno how one can get the most out of really quality recordings without creating a system that shows flaws in less then ideal media, I know some systems are ofcourse more forgiving then others, but a true Audiophoole system will not give you the best of both worlds Imho one must decide wich direction to take and build accordingly. My system is pretty brutal on bad material, but when it is good WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAH
unsound
7,341 posts
 
If you want a system that editorializes things that's your business. As for me I think it's an anthema to the whole idea of anything that purports to be fidelity. I have used bad recordings to evaluate equipment, but, with a very different objective. I wanted to test how faithfully the equipment reproduced specific known anomolies. Systems that are capable of demonstrating the bad are usually better at celebrating the good. More often than not a good performance can perservere and still be enjoyable despite problems elsewhere.
sns
3,539 posts
 
Many of my favorite recordings sound rather mediocre so I'm in full agreement with your observations. Playing mediocre recordings forces one to deal with that old analytical/musical conumdrum, finding and keeping the perfect balance can be very elusive! Its relatively easy to make audiophile recordings sound good, much more difficult to make the mediocre ones sound good.
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