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Bad recordings and high end audio

Hello. Have decided that the kids are out of the house and I can dedicate some space and money to my long ignored hobby. What is different now is there are so few audio stores. I firmly believe in listening to products so thus I start this great new chapter of my life. The first 2 stores I went to the people were very patient with me and I listened to a ton of combinations. They asked me did I want to hear anything else and I said  yes, ummm,.. how about Led Zeppelin? I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible” except for this one version of Led Zeppelin 2…blah blah. So I said what happens if I am at home and i have a desire to play Led Zeppelin or another perceived poor recording? They did not have an answer for me nor did they play Led Zeppelin lol . I ended up ordering a pair of Magnepan 3.7i’s from a different store. 13 weeks until I get them, ouch. I am going to guess that people do listen to poor recordings on great systems because you just want to hear a particular album, right? Or am I missing something? Just looking for a bit of insight. Yes, I know they want it to sound the best so I will buy it but is that the only motivation. Or maybe they hate Led Zeppelin, lol.
daydream816

Showing 1 response by erik_squires

erik_squires
16,733 posts
 
I think a small part of this is from audiophiles who get wowed by overly bright speakers (i.e. detailed).  Current Dali being a great exemplar of this.  Bright recording + bright speakers = misery.  Then of course there was the era of really bad digital drums at the start of the CD era.

Another part is fear of tone controls. Trying to establish some sort of cultural purity by never turning to them when you need to.

Honestly recordings over the ages have varied a great deal in their target market and expected audio systems to play them on.

My best advice is get a middle of the road speaker system not too bright not too much bass.  Use tone controls.  Get good room treatment that has a good mix of diffusion absorption and bass traps.  You'll find yourself listening a lot more and when you need to tweak it, so be it.


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