2. misc-audio
  3. 156982-140986

Do we ask too much of our audio systems?

In high school, I taught myself to play guitar and later started playing in rock bands for about 10 years. I used a low powered mono tube record player in my bedroom to study Clapton, BB  King, Page, Hendrix, Beck and all guitar heros of the time and learn how to play. In those years, I never bothered to upgrade my system, mostly because nothing seemed to be able to replay what I experienced playing live in a band, with a Les Paul in hand and a screaming tube guitar amp. As the years went by I built half dozen speakers and had a decent Pioneer front end, using a Philips TT. My system sounded better, but never equalled the emotion and involvement of playing live. So, I guess I grew into Audiophilia thinking nothing is as good as live music. Now I have heard some very good systems and speakers, but still wonder..."am I chasing something un-attainable?" Do we ask too much from our audio systems?
dtapo

Showing 2 responses by bdp24

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,096 posts
 
Agreed @edcyn! Recordings can be magnificent on their own terms. In addition to the Monument recordings of Orbison, the Barnaby and Warner Brothers’ recordings of The Everly Brothers are sublime (the Rhino LP’s are very good, the UK Ace LP’s even better). The Classic Records LP pressing of the 1950’s RCA recordings of Elvis are startling in their "in-the-room" immediacy and presence, of his voice and the instrumental accompaniment. When those recordings were made (late-50’s/early-60’s), electronic manipulation was relatively minimal. Those recordings played back on a quality hi-fi create sound far superior to that heard at most live Rock ’n’ Roll shows.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,096 posts
 

As Geoff states, at best a system can only reproduce that which is on the recording. Though I am as guilty as most of ya’ll, the amount of effort and $ invested in our hi-fi’s is comical in view of the quality of most recordings. The vast majority of recordings---especially in the "modern" era (1950’s forward)---are not of music performed live, but in a recording studio, with a LOT of electronic manipulation applied to the already often mediocre sound captured by the forest of mics---some of them real crap (the Shure SM57---a $99 PA mic---is used on the snare drum in a lot of recordings!)---used in studios. Have you ever heard the knobs on a parametric equalizer---found and used in all studios---turned?

Pop (non-Classical) recording engineers are trying to create a "good" sounding recording, not one that sounds like live music. The idea of getting studio recordings to sound like live music is ridiculous; the sound contained in most recordings makes that impossible. HP’s slogan of the absolute sound is idealistic, not realistic. I myself am thankful for just living in a time when music can be recorded and then reproduced (in whatever quality) in our homes AT ALL. Live music, and recorded music reproduced in the home, will always be very different things, at least in our lifetimes. Now, a Water Lily Records recording is a different matter. How many WL recordings do you own? ;-)

More to discover