Audiotomb; good thread but difficult to grapple with. I found Scott's (Sns) assessment above particularily astute and interesting, or said another way, I agree with much of what he says. I recently made a major speaker up-grade, ie from warm/forgiving to much more revealing-- but not analytical and lo and behold I had a whole new CD collection. I've got a feeling that has happened to everyone on this thread-- or reading this thread.
I found the "double edged sword" aspect that others have alluded to regarding recording quality and system quality to be true too. But I also found that it's not easy to predict what recordings are going to "survive" being played through a more revealing system, eg I have some remastered Jerry Lee Lewis CDs that sound very "musical" even though there are still some problems with the recording-- but PRT was retained. And the newly re-mastered CCR CDs are great-- they use JVCs K2 20Bit Super Coding system. I have purposely built my system to be musical, and don't equate either "high resolution" or "analytical" with high end audio. I'm too damned old to mindlessly pursue "resolution"-- I want musical.
Most audiophiles don't seem to like C/W music-- I do like some of it, but interestingly, I've found so many C/W recordings that have come out of Nashville that it can't be a coincidence. Nashville recording engineers know how to consistently produce good recordings, and I mean recordings that sound excellent on my pretty revealing system. Recent examples are Allison Moorer's "Alabama Song" CD, and Alison Krauss' "Forget About It"-- I don't actually know if these are Nashville recordings, but they are C/W and Bluegrass. How about Dolly Parton's "Sparrow"? And Emmylou Harris' "Cowgirls Prayer" is so good that it has survived several major upgrades. Enuf, and Cheers. Craig
I found the "double edged sword" aspect that others have alluded to regarding recording quality and system quality to be true too. But I also found that it's not easy to predict what recordings are going to "survive" being played through a more revealing system, eg I have some remastered Jerry Lee Lewis CDs that sound very "musical" even though there are still some problems with the recording-- but PRT was retained. And the newly re-mastered CCR CDs are great-- they use JVCs K2 20Bit Super Coding system. I have purposely built my system to be musical, and don't equate either "high resolution" or "analytical" with high end audio. I'm too damned old to mindlessly pursue "resolution"-- I want musical.
Most audiophiles don't seem to like C/W music-- I do like some of it, but interestingly, I've found so many C/W recordings that have come out of Nashville that it can't be a coincidence. Nashville recording engineers know how to consistently produce good recordings, and I mean recordings that sound excellent on my pretty revealing system. Recent examples are Allison Moorer's "Alabama Song" CD, and Alison Krauss' "Forget About It"-- I don't actually know if these are Nashville recordings, but they are C/W and Bluegrass. How about Dolly Parton's "Sparrow"? And Emmylou Harris' "Cowgirls Prayer" is so good that it has survived several major upgrades. Enuf, and Cheers. Craig