Are most recordings so bad it's not worth spending large on speakers?


In my interest in finding a speaker with a more lifelike sounding speaker than most monopole - e.g. (bipole, dipole, omnis) I emailed Morrison at Morrison Audio about his omni speakers, which for full range are around $14k. I explained I use my speakers with my TV, and to listen to folk, jazz, blues, some rock.

His response re my music choices, was, "The recordings are dreadful in terms of a lifelike reproduction. You needn’t spend so much on speakers. A monopole pattern is just fine since that is what the recordings are tailored for."

Comments?

cdc2
The first rule of Morrison Audio is you never talk about Morrison Audio! ...  :-)
I must say, he has rather strong opinions on audio, I would wholly agree with some, not at all with others.  He has a single minded obsession to recreate a live performance aura, and to that end, he is not totally wrong that the vast majority of recordings are not recorded in a fashion to allow that, no matter how many times people here throw around terms like imaging and sound-stage. They are multi-miked, and mixed. What you hear is what the recording engineer wants you to hear, and any sense of sound- stage or "imaging" is a created illusion. He is somewhat correct that the types of speakers he sells and designs do not necessarily offer a benefit, since the illusion was not created with speakers of his design, they were created using monopole speakers. I think, though, he may be short-selling himself a bit as omnidirectional speakers really do appeal to some with any music content.
I did want to clip one part from his website, as it is worth repeating (and given how often these terms are thrown around with just about any tweak). Sound-stage and image is almost exclusively speakers and room, which is why many who actively work with audio, raise an eyebrow at many a claim.

Depth and Image February 20, 2015

The terms depth, image, soundstage etc. are bandied about in describing a systems ability (or inability) to recreate a reasonable facsimile of musicians playing their instruments in your listening room. Another way of describing this illusion is to say that the speakers "disappear" sonically. In order to recreate this illusion there are a few simple rules.

Rule # 2 The electronics in the system play a surprisingly small part in creating the illusion. It takes a wretched power amp to totally screw things up. It is not necessary to spend vast sums of money on exotic thermionic based units.



Replace "recordings" with "room acoustics" and I suddenly agree with Morrison.

The question of spending however to my mind is a separate issue. The quality of components and design is not that well coupled to the finished product in my mind.

I will say that it has been a VERY long time since I felt the super speakers were worthwhile. Lots of great < $20k speaker brands and makers out there.
There are a few really bad recordings around, but certainly less than 5%. The rest range from good and fun to listen to exceptional and mind blowingly mesmerising through the right system. 

Buy good speakers but you need to ensure that your source is up to the task, because the quality of the source is exactly what you’ll hear through your new speakers. 

Finally soundstage and imaging are both in the brain, created by psychoacoustics based on the sounds reaching both ears. To get great imaging requires great accuracy of frequency, amplitude and phase (timing). If there are too many errors, your brain gets confused and can’t create the imaging you’re looking for. The errors are basically the sum of room, speaker, amplifier and source distortions of the recorded signal  
Most amplifiers are so flat as to say they are perfectly flat unless intended to not be. Digital sources are perfectly flat. Most analog sources strive for this. We can't change the recording, so we are stuck with that. Amplitude then is completely signal/volume dependent. Frequency accuracy by far dominated by room and speaker. Phase is again, if the signal chain is competently designed, typically orders of magnitude more influenced by the speaker (and room) than anything else. Accuracy of these things is again completely dominated by speaker and room.   It is very hard to argue the signal chain, competently implemented, has noticeable impact on sound-stage and imaging when just moving your location a bit swamps out the effects.
atdavid

It is very hard to argue the signal chain, competently implemented, has noticeable impact on sound-stage and imaging when just moving your location a bit swamps out the effects.
More illogic from atdavid. That something may be difficult for you to understand does not mean that it is "hard to argue." In this instance, your claim is rather like stating, "It's hard to argue we can put a man on the moon when I get stuck in traffic every day on my way to work."