The trouble with this "it's not the system it's the room" argument is that the good recordings and the mediocre recordings are both being played in the same room. Moreover, it is the same room as my upgraded-from system. I fail to see what difference the room would make in comparing one recording to another in the same room. Judging from what some people spend on gear I'm sure some of them could afford different rooms to listen to different records, but that is not a lead I am in. A better system makes all recordings sound better than they were, but they all finish in the same order as before in terms of recording quality.
The Ry Cooder record is indeed a good choice, but I made it back in the 1970s when I bought it. Speaking of good choices, one thing I learned now that I have heard just about all of the original versions of the songs he covered, that whatever you think of him as a musician, he sure knew how to pick them. Something very interesting could be written about folk singers as music critics, based on their choice of material.
The ultimate example of the difference digital mastering can make is a comparison of the first, second and third generations of the Complete Robert Johnson, the last of which is an absolute revelation. I think they might have had the original metal parts for that one. The ultimate test would be if someone had a pristine set of original 78s to compare it with, possibly to be found next to the Arc of the Covenant in that big warehouse at the end of the Indiana Jones movie.
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@clearthinker
Therefore a system could be designed that would process poor recordings to sound like good ones. But the changes made would render the performance different from the original recording.
Isn’t this also what modern TVs do?
Re-interpretate and reimagine the signal being fed into them?
When you look at some of the new OLED screens, they are indeed impressive, but you would have call them realistic.
Hyper-realistic, maybe.
@sns
Poor recordings remain poor, no help can be found for these.
Agreed.
Perhaps the best thing to do with those is ( the vast majority) is to downscale the playback equipment to something with reduced bandwidth, scale and resolution, a bit like using soft focus photography, where they may appear benign and acceptable.
Aren’t these low bandwidth, low resolution recordings always likely to sound better on equipment such as boomboxes, car stereos, jukeboxes and smartphones rather than high resolution, high bandwidth equipment that they were never designed for?
In fact, just how many producers (Joe Meeek, Jerry Wexler, Phil Spector, George Martin, Brian Wilson, Mickie Most, Brian Eno, Quincy Jones, Rick Rubin etc) even considered audiophiles in mind when they were recording?
I’d argue that when it comes to audio resolution is clearly a two edged sword, and that is precisely why some of us attach far more importance to the faithful reproduction of timbre.
All recordings benefit from this but not all systems can deliver.
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@heretobuy
very good choise playing some young Ry Cooder. Not bad, not mediocre, just very fine recordings and music. Classics.
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I have a big investment in my front end. But the most significant improvement came when I added another $10K to my $3K cartridge. (Analog only system-Lyra Atlas SL) Granted, the rest of my system was up to the level of the Lyra.
It pulled so much more information out of the groves that almost every LP now, at least, sounded interesting and listenable. Now, only the rate exceptional LP sounded “bad”.
IME, there is no question that the better the system, the better the sound.
However, I also believe that a system must be at a certain level to reap these rewards.
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Definitely yes, but better recording always will sound better. :)
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I listen to all of my music on hand (vinyl collection). There are definitely some better sounding records than others. There are incredible sounding records, too. And there are a few that are just terrible sounding. I still listen to all of it. However, those lesser sounding records just sound better to my ears when the volume is adjusted accordingly. That is to say, for lesser quality recordings I listen with the volume lower than I do for the high-quality recordings. It seems to work better for my ears and allows me to have a more enjoyable listening session.
My system is quite good and is revealing, and my room is fairly well treated. I get from the records what they have to offer. Again, I adjust the volume accordingly and enjoy my record collection in its entirety.
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IMHO, the answer to this question depends on what you think sounds good. If you are a purist, who strives for a neutral system that reproduces honestly the source material, then a lousy recording will sound lousy. Lousy recordings can be compressed dynamics, mediocre soundstage , poor frequency response, etc…no neutral system will change any of these things. However, some systems, either knowingly or innocently to the owner may modify some of these things, perhaps subjectively to the better , to the owners delight. As always, the hobby is about the owners pleasure, so different stokes for different folks…
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For me it depends on what makes a mediocre recording mediocre, by the way, I’d judge a large proportion of recordings as mediocre. I’ve found mediocre recordings that formerly had timbre, sound staging and/or were less resolving have become much more listenable. A highly resolving system with more natural timbre or tonality will uncover information previously unheard, and presents recordings in a more forgiving manner. Recordings with these defects become more involving.
Quashed micro dynamics is one defect that’s been heightened by a more resolving system. I find far too many digitally mastered recordings to suffer this malady, I can only take these recording in small doses, consecutive plays of these recordings causes me to lose interest, have to return to known high quality recordings to return to involving listening session.
Poor recordings remain poor, no help can be found for these.
Great post and i concur with each words....
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For me it depends on what makes a mediocre recording mediocre, by the way, I'd judge a large proportion of recordings as mediocre. I've found mediocre recordings that formerly had timbre, sound staging and/or were less resolving have become much more listenable. A highly resolving system with more natural timbre or tonality will uncover information previously unheard, and presents recordings in a more forgiving manner. Recordings with these defects become more involving.
Quashed micro dynamics is one defect that's been heightened by a more resolving system. I find far too many digitally mastered recordings to suffer this malady, I can only take these recording in small doses, consecutive plays of these recordings causes me to lose interest, have to return to known high quality recordings to return to involving listening session.
Poor recordings remain poor, no help can be found for these.
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In a poor recording a system can't reproduce something that is not there. An "accurate" system will play the good and the bad. It is not designed to fix the bad just reproduce what is in the recording.
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There's a reason why the epithet "forgiving" is quite high up there in the audiophile vocabulary.
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I find it to be opposite. My really good system makes bad recordings almost unlistenable, It will make average recordings some better some average.
Our perspective are not exactly the same, but it is related also to the genre of music we listen to...
Most of my bad recordings in jazz or classical are more listenable in my system even if they stay bad...
But pop or rock may be exception.... The jimi Hendrix two albums i refer above are unlistenable because of compression...the mix in studio is horrible work...I hate too much mixed in studio music... I prefer natural instruments in natural acoustic room with minimal mix ...
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The better your system is, especially imaging, the more it will reveal the great, good, bad, ugly.
The more you experience excellent imaging, the more you are aware of problems.
Yes it is true also in my experience...
But it is true not only with imaging,but with all other acoustic characteristic...
For example if your system give you a good listener envelopment, in some well recorded album you will be AMONG the musician on the scene...They may be around you... It will not be the case in heavily compressed music... It will be horrible... But what is hoorible on a bad audio system, stay bad on a good audio system but can become "interesting" because it take a new acoustic meaning ... You "see" more...
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A poor recording will always remain as such. What you get with a better balanced system is that even a poor recording would have a meaning. No it will not sound good but it would be easier to follow.
Thanks very much!
You explained it better than me...
I never spoke english only read it and i read only science or philosophy, it is why my expression is "square"....
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Mixed in here is the subjects of what you choose as test music, and what kind of music is critical to choosing a system. The wrong choices and you take your system in places where one kind of music and recordings get better at the expense of all others.
My big mistake was grabbing some electronic music CDs that I really liked. I kept optimizing the ethereal nature (lots of natural treble and ultrasonics (think planar speakers). But most music sounded worse.
Finally, about twenty five years ago I started listening to live acoustic music as frequently as possible… to calibrate my ear. Then the symphony a couple times a month. I then chose acoustic music for auditioning. My ear got trained as to what to listen for and the auditioning then drove very different choices in equipment… making most music sound better at every upgrade.. now if there is a chance for music to sound good… my system will give it. However electronic music sounds natural… not overly ethereal… which I liked… but the result is 98% or the music l listen to sounds simply incredible.
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When I got into this as a teen, 50+ years ago, I was exploring the Chess Real Folk Blues catalog. Howling Wolf was a favorite...not for the "sound" but for the musical intensity. I listened on Sennheiser HD414s then...very peaky and edgy on those records. Then I got a pair of Stax SR-5s. Now there was actually "air" in the monaural Chess studio sound, with a roundness of tone and absence of distortion that made the listening much more involving. Listening to the higher fidelity recordings of the day from the Dead, Tull, Pentangle, etc. all sounded better too, but the rough stuff benefited as well.
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All systems are imperfect. That is they cannot perfectly reproduce the signal fed into them. Therefore the sound that comes out will be judged either ’better’ or ’worse’ at reproducing that signal. The systems that are ’better’ will be improving the sound of the (poor) recording.
You are right here....
Therefore a system could be designed that would process poor recordings to sound like good ones.
But sorry for me you are wrong here completely...
A bad recortding erased by bad choices of the recording engineer too much of the "acoustic cues" by too much manipulation or too much effects added, the original acoustic lived event is lost in the recording process... This is why we call it a bad recording...
No audio system will change that ever...But a top audio system will make EVIDENT the trade-off choices of the recording engineer and will even reveal what has been add to traffick the sound acoustic of the original lived event...
A bad recording stay bad but MAY become interesting acoustically way more listenable because "interesting" now even if they stay what they are : bad...
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What I have found is exemplified by my run in with Jimi Hendrix ‘Are you experienced?’. When I play it on the system I have today (for nostalgia sake) it’s almost unlistenable … harsh, bright, compressed etc …
I am not familiar with this recording...
I listen a youtube copy just now... it is VERY compressed yes but not harsh nor bright on my system....
mine reveal the compression only...I dont like the compression at all...
(69) Are You Experienced? - YouTube
This other version is worst...more compressed...Neverr harsh or bright...
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced? (Iowa 1968) - Bing video
One of The two worst recording among my near 9000 recording.... oufff...
I never listen rock, pop or commercial music tough...
I feel it unlistenable even if less bad recorded...Sorry...
listening that remind me why?
But it was better to listen Hendrix on the original FIRST of his recording when i had 16 years old... I never forget ... I remember Cream also vividly...The sound impression...
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@kevn - good points, but how does that account for the fact that more recordings will tend to sound good to a listener than bad or mediocre, though some will most definitely sound bad or mediocre?
And some people just can't modify their listening environments as much as some people think they should be able to....
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Therefore a system could be designed that would process poor recordings to sound like good ones. But the changes made would render the performance different from the original recording.
It is not my experience....
Bad recordings stay bad... But they become listenable and very interesting now...We listen more to the original acoustical cues and we detect more what was bad INTO the recording process...
A good system put you more in touch with the acoustic process used by the recording engineer...
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There is still lots to hear in even a mediocre recording and a better system will do a better job of delivering what’s there. That means a better listening experience and a better listening experience means the mediocre recording just got better.
Exactly!
I will add that the mediocre recording get acoustically more "interesting" and now reveal more of the original acoustical cue choices even if he stay mediocre...We listen to it more easily, we stay with the music in it forgetting the bad recording now...
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I've found that most 'poor' recordings only sound poor because the system/room I was hearing them in was not good enough to translate the acoustics of the space the recording was made in.
Exactly.....
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There is still lots to hear in even a mediocre recording and a better system will do a better job of delivering what’s there. That means a better listening experience and a better listening experience means the mediocre recording just got better.
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+1 @gosta
Well said, my experience exactly.
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If you ask an acoustician he/she will tell you that 80 percent is the room and 20 percent is the system (if not 90/10). Something to think about when you judge a recording being bad. Maybe its you and your system/room that is at fault. I’ve tried to learn the lesson and agree with others that have pointed this out. A good system should make any recording sound interesting. It’s an easy task to make a Steely Dan recording sound sweet.
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Nope. A great system makes a mediocre recording sound mediocre. There are lots of systems that make everything sound mediocre (and give the illusion that mediocre is somehow good), but that doesn't make them great systems.
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Step by step my system gets better. And the poorer records come along with the system, most of the time. When I hear music that I have heard many times in the car or radio then I hear it on my system it is always a pleasant surprise.
Recordings are rarely left alone i.e. remastering, remixing and even rerecording. Many recordings are muffled, muddy, over-miked, guitar one channel, guitar player on the other or too much effects or gimmicks. Few times, this really can be all you concentrate on while listening.
Another problem I run into since streaming: the volume of the recordings. This can mean a difference of 9 am to 12pm on the dial. This happens after remastering or new recordings are recorded that way out of the gate.
One should not sit there and be obsessed with recordings. Enjoy. Now, if you know a recording is well done and you want to evaluate, pick these out, otherwise just play what you like or let you or your streaming service pick out songs.
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@bigtwins
100% I have a ton of music mostly metal that I enjoy in car and find unlistenable on reference system. These old recordings were engineered to be broadcast over an analog radio signal. Not digitized and run through a $2000 dac and 10 k speakers.
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I find it to be opposite. My really good system makes bad recordings almost unlistenable, It will make average recordings some better some average. All worth it for what it does to good recordings that draw me in to my happy place where nothing matters but the music my ears are deciding. One thing to keep in mind that producers have to engineer a recording for all medium. This means compromises. A lot of people are critical of remasters but if you get a recording that is redone to account for a high end system I am all for it. It is not going against the artists original output but it is taking the compromise in the other direction.
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I’ve found the best cure for a bad recording of an otherwise interesting performance, is good beer. 😎
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My current house of stereo system makes every record sound better. Whether they are well or poorly engineered/mastered. Across the board, all sound better than they did with my older systems in various rooms. I must have done something right this time with both the system and its acoustic setting. But, however a poorly recorded album's sound improves, it still basically sucks 😜
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If a high end system is better at at processing the signal ( reducing EMI, RFI etc.) wouldn’t that give a bad recording the impression of sounding better at least in some aspects?
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The better your system is, especially imaging, the more it will reveal the great, good, bad, ugly.
The more you experience excellent imaging, the more you are aware of problems.
One category is excellent but needing a slight balance tweak. I use my Chase RLC-1 for the advantage of remote balance from my listening position, in very small steps. It is amazing how much is gained from a small correction.
Another category is weirdly produced imaging, a drummer on the right moving to the center for a solo, same thing with other musicians moving about.
Get thee equipment with a mode switch for Mono.
Next we have playing Mono LP’s. Not only a true mono cartridge ignoring any vertical anything, but again, a mode switch with Mono, or sometimes better: both channels sent to only 1 speaker. That avoids your brain from it’s habit of seeking imaging when in your listening spot. You can move here and there with Mono from one speaker.
Not great music, not great engineering, oddities, BUT great songs, great memories. I keep a MM replaceable stylus cartridge just to play them with, to enjoy as I always did, but not gonna wear out my expensive MC non-replaceable stylus for them.
I often say "I can't hear any difference", but I certainly can hear differences when they are there to hear.
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A poor recording will always remain as such. What you get with a better balanced system is that even a poor recording would have a meaning. No it will not sound good but it would be easier to follow.
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All systems are imperfect. That is they cannot perfectly reproduce the signal fed into them. Therefore the sound that comes out will be judged either 'better' or 'worse' at reproducing that signal. The systems that are 'better' will be improving the sound of the (poor) recording.
Therefore a system could be designed that would process poor recordings to sound like good ones. But the changes made would render the performance different from the original recording.
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The simple truth is a very good system is probably very revealing as well. That said a lousy recording will be lousy !! You can waste your time with room treatment and or the dials only to end up with lousy !! Play a noted well mastered Selection then without touching anything throw on some old Rolling Stones. Their not in the room with you their in that Sony Walkman lol. Pick and choose new and old it’s out there.., turn it up and smile when you find it.
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What I have found is exemplified by my run in with Jimi Hendrix ‘Are you experienced?’. When I play it on the system I have today (for nostalgia sake) it’s almost unlistenable … harsh, bright, compressed etc … though the music still good. It just never sounds as good as it did on my parents cheap console system 40 years ago even when my hearing was better.
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I've found that most 'poor' recordings only sound poor because the system/room I was hearing them in was not good enough to translate the acoustics of the space the recording was made in. There are much fewer poor recordings than we generally believe exist; and more poor systems/rooms that make us believe the recording was poor. The best sound/room systems accurately allow the decay and reverberation of the recordings to complete what we understand as the soundstage, such that what once sounded like a poor recording was merely an inaccurate or incomplete playback of the uniquely altered sound of instruments and music in the specific venue of the original recording.
In friendship, kevin.
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yes I totally agree garbage in garbage out, I have a $60,000 system which includes a Sim audio p8, Sim audio w8, esoteric P10 transport, Wyred4sound 10th anniversary dac, monarchy audio up sampler, and for the speakers monitor audio platinum 200 Gen 2, a friend of mine brought over some of his CDs that were not so well recorded and boy could you tell the difference from other CDs that were well recorded it wasn't even close.
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I have to come down strongly as a no on this one. A poor recording is a poor recording. The system can't put anything there that isn't there. It is my belief that the measure of analog is analog. That is you don't really see the value of analog so much from comparing it to digital recordings as in comparing good analog recordings to poor or indifferent ones. I think this is what really makes you appreciate the artistry of producers and engineers in getting sound onto an analog medium. I recently had a general upgrade of my system that particularly improved the analog side, and it is quite the experience to listen to a record you know of old find it sounding better than it ever sounded before. But when played through the same equipment you will find that there are recordings that just fill the room and there are others that lay there like a lump. One thing I've been doing as I revisit my LP collection is listening to the English folk music I love, and I still love the music but by and large they really weren't that well recorded. On the other hand, while it may just be an effect of what's in my record library, what I've been particularly impressed with are record from the Warner/Elektra/Asylum menage, For example, Paradise and Lunch by Ry Cooder, and Swordfishtrombones by Tom Waits. Actually, one of my more unusual analog appreciation moments was listening to an old Alan Sherman record and being struck by how good it sounded.
On the digital side, I once tried something I think of as the DAC/CD Death Match, when you take an early digital recording you know to be pretty dire and run it through a good DAC to see if it can be redeemed. My match was a Denafrips Ares II vs. the extraordinarily harsh MCA Broadway Gold digitization of the original cast album of Porgy and Bess circa 1992. I'm afraid the CD won that one.
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complicated subject, not strictly GI/GO but close enough to it to make finding a happy medium a protracted and almost [but not quite] Sisyphean task. you need a system [not just a speaker setup but your equipment and room] that accentuates euphony in a useful way. in a large room, properly set-up Vandy 1Ci or 2Ce speakers will make harsh recordings sound markedly less harsh, at not a great cost to ultimate clarity, but NOT in a small room where one can't be at least 10' from those speakers with those speakers not further than 3' from any wall - in this circumstance poor recordings sounded shouty and harsh. the local mag hifi stores found their vienna acoustics speakers big sellers for a similar reason, folks with money and big listening rooms found them to be mellow but clear enough, with a wide variety of music. these speakers didn't image quite as well as the vandys but had a somewhat wider sweet spot. the speakers i settled with, a pair of thiel cs.5 minitowers, struck a good balance plus are surprisingly forgiving of poor room acoustics/room dimensions, they sound generally on the sweet/mellow side of neutral, and they image excellently no matter what, with minor image width/density differences noted upon their degree of toe-in. my maggie SMGs also were among the more mellow sounding speakers i've had over a wide variety of music. they did not seem to sacrifice a lot of clarity in well-made recordings, on the best recordings they presented "another room within the room" type of reality, like their larger brethren. these speakers also did not require a big room, a typical spare bedroom was enough for them.
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An audio system can improved by increasing the details and being more revelatory can make some bad recording worse because the sound shape become better cutted...
It is normal...
But the more improving effect, the ultimate improvement, toward a balance and more neutral impressions all over the frequencies will make the bad recording no more worse but more "interesting" by his abilty to manifest not details in greatest numbers not clarity, but naturalness of timbre experience, a more realistic palette of colors and their shades...
Then all recordings manifested new acoustic cues coming from the recording itself, bad records stay bad but are more listenable...Best recorded albums stay the best but reach a new peak of effortless realism...Best records and bad one gain weight ...
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My perspective on this topic has somewhat changed over the past few months. I think all of us have recordings that we consider to be stellar, others that we consider to be poor, and others that that don't warrant a strong opinion either way.
If I want to show friend what a truly poor recording is I pull out a couple of my Josh Groban CDs that I simply cannot listen to anymore. Ironically, one of them was actually one of my test CDs that I used when making my first "audiophile" type of purchase. I know cringe at the pain that I must have caused the salesman that sat on the couch and listened with me.
In any case, I have a several other CDs that I very much enjoyed with my original gear which was an Integra receiver that I still have along with my current Focal speakers. They were some of my go to recording for enjoyment. Every time I made upgrades to my system these recordings always seemed to become a little less enjoyable. I figured that it was just that they were poor recordings any my system was becoming resolving enough to expose them.
Then with my most recent upgrades that include rolling tubes, upgraded power cables, and upgraded interconnects my system really went to the next level. What surprised me is that the recordings that seemed to always suffer from upgrades became wonderful to listen to again and are now back to being some of my favorites. My Josh Groban recordings still sound like junk.
I think my Integra receiver has the edge when it comes to making poor recordings sound good because it has the digital processing capability that really seems to benefit poor recordings.
To summarize, I have had several recordings sound worse and worse as I upgraded and then unexpectedly the magic returned.
I think we all have recordings that we use for testing purposes and I'm thinking that these particular records might be an indicator of system synergy.
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In general… a better system sounds better. The caveat is that there are two ways of pursuing a great system… really detailed or natural. If you pursue ultra detailed, you quickly makes bad recording sound terrible. If you take the approach to have a relaxed natural sounding system, then most recording sound much better… the better your system is the better the recording sounds.
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I have found that as my system improved, excellent recordings/masterings sounded better, and the inadequacies of less-than-stellar recordings/masterings became more pronounced.
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@pesky_wabbit
+1
Otherwise we would only be listening to test records and severely limited in our choices.
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I'll go out on a limb and say I prefer some reconding on a much lesser system. A lot of Led Zep comes to mind. I find my very good system tends to highlight just how poor a lot of these recording were. I save them for my car.
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The most important part of your system is the source for Everything starts there good or bad ,the signal once lost cannot be made up down stream,
I personally like Multibit,or R2R dacs they sound very natural ,vacuum tube Dac also ,good design is what counts most.
digital cables the Ethernet hub ,as well as Ethernet cables and usb cables can make a Huge difference . I am part of a multi state audio club and have been shocked to find out my AQ Diamond 💎 usb ,and Wireworld platinum 8 are detailed but flat compared to imo Final touch audio Callisto cable best under $1k in naturalness , I own this but moved up to their new reference the Sinope which truly is like Analog for digital cable and I heard too Shunyata , as well as Synergistic research ,those cables are more money and better in a area or two realism i willtake over ultimate detail by a few % points , Ethernet cables very important as well, I have both AQ Diamond 💎 as well as FTA Ethernet cables ,the uptone audio is a excellent Ethernet hub for under $1k ,the synergistic research hub is the best I have heard at $2k it is worth it ,I don’t own it Yet but planning on it. spending $3500 for a few digital cables is a lot of $$ to me but we’ll worth the expense .
we took 2 dacs rom Denafrips ,the dac at 1/2 the price was better sounding with these top cables the better dac had a Wireworld platinum 8 which is pretty respectable ,just to make a point on digital cables.
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I go for systems that do their best to tell the truth but don't have a distorted hissy fit when a recordinging or pressing ain't perfect. True, nothing can help some of the grindingly bad 1960's 45rpm singles I own. But if the system has the wherewithal to find what is best within the groove/digital stream et.al., I'll forgive the recording's transgressions.
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