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Coldplay on Quad 988

I am a few months into a pair of Quad 988. When the music is right they sound excellent. Vocal best I have heard. I have recently acquired the last three Coldplay CDs and all of them sound bad except when there is only vocal on the recording. Again with vocal they are excellent.
The music part of Coldplay is heavy distorted and in my mind very unattractive. What is going on?
dcaudio
missioncoonery
1,221 posts
 
IMO..I would never want or buy any gear that mask the quality (or lack of) in a recording..Makes no sense if you think about it..
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,197 posts
 
A recording is what it is. I vote to let it all shine through, for better or for worse.

A remaster might help or not. You would think not in this case since this is a modern recording of a high profile top selling band and that there is no reason to get it wrong in the first place. The sound is probably just what the producers wanted it to be and not geared towards the piddling audiophile market.
teddy_bear
112 posts
 
Use B&O
musicfile
341 posts
 
Playing Coldplay on a good speaker is just wrong
If it sounds good get rid of your entire system
nrenter's avatar
nrenter
766 posts
 
IMHO...

First of all, Coldplay recordings are not as great as they should be.

Second, I think your initial post provides more insight than you thought - When the music is right they sound excellent. What other rock do you listen to on your Quads that sounds excellent? I've listened to DSOTM on a system that conststed of Quads and probably $100k of associated gear and IMHO it just wasn't right. Vocals, acoustic guitar - very, very enjoyable. Anything rock - not so much. Given the listening habits of this system's owner I'm sure this was more than fine with him. These are some of the tradeoffs when assembling a system.
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