Paul Simon's "Graceland", also sounds very synthetic. This is also a Roy Halee production. I'm amazed how live concerts, even recorded over 50 years ago, sound so more musical than many studio-produced records that sold so well. Am I crazy?
"Bridge Over Trouble Water" sounds artificial
During the pandemic I've been upgrading my sound system. I used to enjoy Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Trouble Water". With my upgraded equipment the hi resolution audio sounds very synthetic, with one track on top of another, not like real music at all. The voices are doubled and violins just layered on top. On my same system, I played a live concert of Andre Previn playing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". It sounded real and beautiful, like a live performance. Am I doing something wrong?
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I keep waiting for this thread to die but it won’t. I grew up in the ’70’s. I confess to having once owned S+G’s album-whichever one had this song on it. When I started college in the fall of ’77, the very first day I had moved into my dorm, I pitched the album out the window of my dorm room on the 20th floor. I did not want my roommates to think I was a douche. I will never forget that there were throngs of students and volunteers moving all their things into the dorm that day and this record careened in the wind like a meteor right at some hapless kid’s head. I had visions of it hitting him in the jugular and my being arrested for involuntary manslaughter. Imagine the irony of losing your life due to a flying record that has "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on it. At the last second, it missed him by inches and I immediately made a note not to try that stupid stunt again. I got rid of a Dan Fogelberg record too that day. Into a dumpster this time. And my copy of the America record that was ubiquitous, the one with "Horse with no Name" on it. But not my Peter Frampton "Frampton Comes Alive". I held onto that for a while longer. And I was a nerd myself, having every single Jethro Tull record ever released rather than just the three good ones-the earliest releases. |
Roy Halee basically made a career out of producing Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon, and his wife Edie Brickell. I don't think aside from that he has any remarkable credentials as a producer of audiophile recordings. That being said, the more spare recordings of acoustic guitars and Paul & Art's vocals etc sound very good, but once Roy starts on the "wall of sound" like the end of "The Boxer" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" it gets quite messy. |
Hmm, well semantics aside, I find it sounds better and not great but good enough to be enjoyable on my good system with room for the "ambience" to breath than on headphones (Chord Mojo to Sony MDR-1AM2). So I don’t agree with the assertion it sounds "worse" on a good system. In fact there is a lot more to potentially enjoy if you are into it. I will agree it is not an "audiophile/reference" recording, but I don’t think anyone ever claimed it was. |
Do you choose music based on how many Grammy or MTV awards it’s gotten? No. Yes obviously better sounding recordings would be better but it is what it is and there is no shortage of recordings I enjoy both old and new. I like music, warts and all. Including BOTW. If I could wave a magic wand I would but meanwhile I just do what I can to make all music more enjoyable. Does not have to be to my specifications. |
mapman, Do you choose music based on how many Grammy or MTV awards it's gotten? Well recorded music is the exception not the rule, and that makes sense from a record label point of view. Why spend money improving the quality of recordings when it won't increase sales? I wish they thought of what they do as more of an artistic endeavor, but they don't. It's just a business. |
Wow now in hindsight they should definitely revoke those Grammies for BOTW. Clearly they had no idea what they were doing. There are a bunch of people here alone that seemingly could have done it better. They should have consulted with more audiophiles. They definitely missed out on the way more heralded audiophile seal of approval. |
My feeling is we can upgrade our equipment to the point where the music we love is no longer listenable. At that point it's time to step away and evaluate your goals for your system. No one would be impressed with my 25 year old system but I can pull any album and just enjoy without evaluating the sound. |
Nothing wrong at all.... Hi Res sucks the "Secret Sauce" right out of the listening experience. Some material sounds "impressive" but does it Jam like the way especially that song was originally recorded? Absolutely not. Hi Res Audio is the equivalent that Handy Cam TV eperience. Impressive audio but no soul. Bridge over Troubled Water sounds better on an old AC Delco car radio than a high res system. |
This could be a longshot, but I had it happen to me. If you are using a video receiver or a multi-disk player that does its own decoding, it could be an obscure problem like this. I recently reset the settings on my Oppo 105 universal disk player. In so doing, I chose the stereo settings since I am only using a stereo rig, but among the other settings I used neo 6 downmix settings. The first disk I put on was a james taylor recording that was recorded in multi-channel SACD. Just as you described there was a second slightly delayed and very electric sound on top of the stereo sound. I tried another strictly CD recording .... nothing, just normal. So I went back into the Oppo and illiminated the neo 6 downmix. That did the trick. As I said, a pretty esoteric thing but if nothing else seems to work ....... |
I have 2 early pressings and I enjoy them . The producer mentioned earlier did an outstanding job , especially considering the “ Era “. I wish I had an MFSL pressing , but not at current collector prices . I remember watching a documentary where they discussed the drum track for BOTW, being partially done in an elevator doorway in the middle of the night . Apparently the night watchman came off the elevator unaware and was quite startled . It’s too bad that the Classic Rock era suffered from the AM car radio mix . But it’s interesting to see people like Jimmy Page using a metal lipstick tube to enhance his slide work . And Pink Floyd’s homemade tape loops to add the sounds to some early music. While my system lacks any kind of tone control or digital correction , I find tube rolling alleviates some issues , YMMV. It is a crap shoot sometimes , but It is what it is ! Happy listening . |
The better your equipment gets, the worse that old, sub-par recordings sound. I did find something that really helps on these anemic sources. Since I bi-amp, I use a separate amp AND and preamp for the bass. With a double pole, double throw switch, I bypass the sub crossover to add harmonics to fill in for these ancient recordings. You can do this without the second preamp, but I also get to choose how much bass I add, and without phase shift. |
I'm trying not to beat a dead horse. I listened to the LP, the CD, Hi Res on Qobuz and on my two systems with KEF LS50 or Klipsch R8000, Marantz amp or Parasound Halo A21+, Denafrips ares ii, Parasound P6, Marantz CD, Cambridge CD transport. With all equipment BOTW is a poor recording. I then listened to Simon & Garfunkel Live in Central Park, 1982. The same songs sounded like real music with real musical instruments! The improved sound was unmistakable. Am I wrong? |
On BOTW, the strings are absolutely dripping with electronic or spring reverb. I think it was meant to sound chintzy, far away. Same with the solo snare sound. When that got transferred to CD, the charm of that processing turned grating and, for some unlistenable, same with the horns on "Keep the Customer Satisfied." It sounds lovely on lp, but wasn't even supposed to be particularly hi-fi sounding. Still, that lp is a quality recording: So Long, Frank Lloyd Wrigh, Song for the Asking, etc. FWIW, S&G wasn't just for the "hippie generation," which they actually mocked in their songs; they were heavily marketed to the audiophile set, alongside classical and jazz. |
Not wrong, IMO, but this is what I've talked about before. Trends and fads in what is considered a normal or good speaker system have changed over time. You can't make a perfect speaker system for today and expect it to sound fabulous for all past decades of recorded music, so, I have argued, the best you can do is pick speakers that are equally good for all your styles of music and use tone controls as necessary. Would be interested in knowing what this sounds like via homage speakers, like BBC mini monitors. Best, E |
Yes, that's an unwelcome (and unexpected) result of having a highly (or even just modestly) resolving system. Sometimes it reveals some hidden gems of detail that you never paid attention to before, but it also can shine a spotlight on the warts. I find myself seeking out good sounding recordings from artists that I would've never listened to in my youth, and find myself stopping familiar albums halfway through because they are not pleasurable to listen to. Examples: I listened to Heart's "Magic Man" from the Dreamboat Annie album the other day, and thought to myself halfway through when the synthesizer kicks in, "Boy, that's a cheesy sounding synth". Black Sabbath's Paranoid album, "Hand of Doom" has some cymbal bell taps at the beginning, and the drummer was out of time with those - never noticed that before. |
Obviously Mr Garfunkel couldn't take those high notes in the end so he needed some help which screwed up the recording a bit (done better today). The same with Mr Mercury. But he had Mr Taylor to help him out. Whats the problem? Still a very enjoyable and interesting recording. You can clearly follow what they did in the studio. Thanks to high-res. |
When you put down the sound of BOTW you are denigrating the work of this man, Roy Halee. He knows more about what sounds good than you do. |
...exactly. The same recording on different systems can have a different impact on a listener as to it’s inherent quality. Is there really no such thing as ’relative recording quality’...I don’t actually know. I just know that as a group, we audiophiles might like to Think there is such a thing as relative recording quality...but is there really...?? Can we really define it’s limits? I occasionally come across cause to wonder how safe it is to think that we actually can. |
I was at my local record store today. I had some time so I leisurely looked at everything. I almost bought a couple of oldies I've had in the past and enjoyed feeling like I should really have in my collection again. Kind of must haves like Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman but I didn't buy because I listened to it so heavily in the 70's. I know all the lyrics to all the songs. I just don't think I can listen anymore. Kind of like The Godfather. I love the film but I've seen it one too many times. I enjoy discovering new artists these days. |
I'm in the $65K + range for my system and it is very well matched components and cables. I have been doing this for a long time. Trust, there are great sounding recordings, there are good recordings, there are not so good recordings, and there are terrible recordings. Some reissues are good and some are fabulous. It's all over the map. mozartfan, by the way since you mentioned Carol King, the reissue of 'Tapestry' by Mobile Fidelity, Original Master Recording, is absolutely fantastic. That one you can turn the volume knob way, way up. It has dynamic range, slam, and sonic bliss that will shock you. Well worth the higher price for a MoFi edition. |
Would also like to add: remember that exactly where, and in what order, your recordings will ultimately land is overwhelmingly determined by the quality of your setup. For the longest time, I believe it was J Gordon Holt, who went around proclaiming the relative recording quality of various vinyl editions in general, but as his system progressed into the $30k territory, he found himself reversing his opinions on several of his recommendations and ultimately felt himself forced to admit that trying to divine overall recording quality was actually too hazardous for anyone to do definitively. |
@aeshcwartz I'd say, it has nothing to do with the recordings. Your result is just reflective of the current (true) state of your playback system in your room...even if the upgrade results, in some way, in an apparent step backward or down in listening experience (in the case of a few recordings). Either the "upgrade" was not quite "up" enough, or other areas of the system need to be looked at, too. But, I can assure you, once you've finally gotten it right, you do indeed get the satisfying treatment All your music deserves. You can look at better gear or better tweaks or both, whatever you like, but this sort of 'jockeying' of subjective impressions of various recordings as you progressively improve your system goes on all the time. And at times things can somehow, in more isolated incidents like you've noted here, can temporarily appear 'go south' a bit unexpectedly in the process longterm. That may seem counterintuitive given the rationalization for a given upgrade, but I would say this kind of thing is situation normal and just goes to show that you may have a bit further to go with your system...but I'm saying that if you keep going you will definitely get there. Sometimes, that can be a difficult thing to keep in mind in the long run, and it may be easy to get drawn down into the weeds so long you lose sight of it...assuming it's even your goal, of course. |
mammothguy, thats a good point, We revisit oldies but goodies , like a walk down memory lane.. I recently added Carol King’s greatest Hits, as much as i love some song,s, its best not to put too much gain on the vol knob. We have fond memories for these masterpieces , but not for the quality of sonics. S&G’s hits had great impact on the youthful hippie generation. Paul; Simon was perhaps the greatest song writer for the hippy/pop culture. We loved his songs for their folksy, creative words and melodies. Paul Simon’s creativity spoke the soul yearnings for *Our Generation* (The Who My Generation Live version) I mean consider how important, and *sensational* the soundtrack is for The Graduate. So the soso record quality on some , if not most of our greatest hits late 60’s/early 70’s , are *forgivable** for the creativity and as someone mentioned, their *nostalgia* emotive affects as we walk down memory lane... |
Albums that sound like BOTW, and there are far too many of them, I simply keep the volume much lower than I do with a great recording. This allows me to enjoy the music I wish to listen to and do so without being too terribly brash on my ears. I would not build my system "down" to a lower level of quality for the sake of such albums. I strive to put together the best system that I can afford and simply adjust the volume as needed. But man, on those really great recordings, let 'er rip! Full-tilt-boogie, what a blast that is. Sonic bliss and entertaining as hell. |
