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How Many Of Us Are Compensating

No matter how elaborate, expensive or tweaked our systems get we are ultimately at the mercy of the sound quality of the music we purchase. The record producer, recording/mastering/duplicating engineers have set a hard limit on what can be retrieved from the recording media. Fortunately, the best recordings have a very high threshold as repeated equipment/set-up upgrades continue to discover additional levels of high fidelity sound. On the other hand, the average commercial recording can be quite pedestrian as far as sound quality goes. Over compressed, heavily EQ'd, non-existent soundstaging, etc... To what degree have you assembled your system and/or set it up in a way to compensate for the less than stellar sound quality of typical recordings? If you have "compensated", do you think what you did compromised the sound of the better made recordings?

As an example I have adjusted the toe-in of my speakers slightly more outward to avoid some objectionable upper midrange/lower treble hardness present on many modern recordings. Secondly, within the last year I've switched to a preamp with 7-band tone controls to deal with the really bad recordings.

BTW, I don't see compensating as a good or bad thing. I think it's far preferable to limiting what we listening to because it might not sound that good on our expensive toys.
128x128onhwy61
stilljd
161 posts
 
I can compensate by moving speakersÂ… Magnepan 1.6's. That would be hard to do for most. Way out in the room for acoustical or small ensemble. Push them back (almost 3') to up the upper base & mid range output for rock, wall of sound, etc. Also have a second player (Pioneer Elite carousel) that is less edgy and have fitted it with mid happy Straight Wire Rhapsody IC's.

I really like getting the best out of the special (to me) performances and recordings. And sometimes you just want good loud rock.

Jim S.
chadnliz
3,736 posts
 
I wish it was easy to move speakers but it probably is best to leave them be for my situation, plus at over 300lbs each they made that an easy choice :)
gregm
3,405 posts
 
Viridian -- LOL!
pbb
1,140 posts
 
Quite the opposite, I find that most audiophiles have systems tailored to play the four or five perfect albums ever recorded.

There is nothing wrong with EQ or tone controls if you need them.

A lot of great music is found on recordings with less than stellar recording qualities. If a person is of the music-first type, they don't even bother with the equipment that much.

The one thing I would love is a vacuum SOTA table with a light arm and high compliance cartridge to play all the records with edge warp, slight or radical, that I have.

I find that many records have sibilance issues and I have put up absorptive panels on the ceiling at the points of first reflection.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61 OP
5,229 posts
 
Thanks for the insightful responses. What got me thinking about the question was several recent posts regarding sonic deficiencies in what I consider fairly high-end systems. One audiophile complained that he wasn't getting a good violin sound. Another wanted to be front row at a jazz club. Both are wonderful goals, but if the recording was recorded in that manner I don't see how any amount of audiophile twiddling can change that. You can only compensate for so much.
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