I was constantly upgrading gear, demoing songs, reading reviews, trying to find out why I had the feeling that the song I was playing shouldn’t sound the way it does. Something off or lacking, I luckily found a set of equipment and a room setup that if a song is off, it’s likely recorded that way. I trust my system to do a decent job. I wonder do others get to a point where they are more critical of mastering techniques than something wrong with their equipment? Admittedly, it’s easier to say how a piece of gear or cable made some significant difference, but in what exactly since the music sources are so wildly manipulated by engineers?
The better is your audio system, the closer it takes you to all pros and contras of a particular sound recording. From there, it is a matter of a taste which kind of sound you like more (I personally like both, tube and class D amp sound, i cannot say which one i like more, but i admit that a SET tube amp may deliver a most realistic sound). And a few thousand dollars upgrade in tour digital stuff will have less influence on the SQ of your system than the quality of the sound recording of a particular album.
When a particular recording sounds off I blame it on the recording. I have a far greater number that sound wonderful. One must have trust in the system as it interacts with the room. I feel I have that.
Primary faults for me are those that are too closely mic (sibilance) or lack soundstage.
I will fully "trust" my system when I could identify a Dac capable of throwing in wide/deep soundstange AND nimble bass notes at the price I am willing to pay. Until then, as much appreciation I had with my power amp and speakers, there is still something to be desired for my system. If you have come across such a Dac under $1k, let me know please.
@jrw1971 thanks. You got it. I cringe when anyone refers to gear “sounding warm” or whatever, since it doesn’t make sounds. And sorry to say those’ reference recordings’ are manipulated as hell to sound good on any gear! That’s the art here. I guess if you recorded something and played it back, guess what? You’d probably like it, because you trust it. I recall hearing a million dollar system 30 years ago, fed by a professional tape machine recording of Chicago symphony. I guess it sounded good, but I wanted to play James Brown sex machine live. Well. Disappointingly it sounded like crap. Years later I wonder if I’m able to appreciate that system, but the more I hear of the fancy stuff the less it impresses since much music I love isn’t really designed to be heard this way.
@dain — I love the question you pose. Here we are, collectively, trying to build/refine/tweak a system that sounds the way we want it to sound. And the only way to asses your status and progress is by playing recordings. And those recordings all have a different sonic profile.
Your eye doctor determines your prescription with standardized eye charts. And then you trust the glasses he/she gives you. But what if you knew that some eye charts are blurrier than others, even with perfect vision? Some charts are black and white, others are some other combo. Some use overall smaller characters from top to bottom. Some use different fonts. And then you learn that your glasses might not seem so resolving if you look at another doctor’s eye chart. How much do you trust your glasses?
I think it’s a mission-critical question. And we all have to find ways to sorta/kinda standardize our system assessments, identifying our own “reference” recordings. But that’s not exactly scientific. Like any high end chef will tell you, when something tastes off, she will always consider all possibilities, including the ingredients (analogous to the equipment we choose). Like that chef, when I hear something I don’t like, or don’t hear something I should, I consider all possibilities including my gear ingredients.
There is some art to it. It adds another level to the fun. My two cents.
i would say that it doesn’t take a super highly resolving system to hear the vast effect of different recording/mastering/mixing qualities on the sound we hear...
but on a highly resolving one, it is all the more obvious
It seems like the way they record the music can have a great impact on weather or not I like a CD or record. I prefer an all enveloping sound rather than pinpointed interments.
It seems like the way they record the music can have a great impact on weather or not I like a CD or record. I prefer an all enveloping sound rather than pinpointed interments.
@wharti like that sentiment. I was always a music first person. All my budget went to discovering something new, finding a hidden gem. As streaming became a reality, I invested that Music budget in better equipment. It’s certainly a luxury to have practically all of recorded music at your touch. It’s now easy to just run through a dozen recordings of a classical piece, seeing how each differ and which recording and performance connect with you. But the audio gear stuff is often a curse focusing on the artistic choices of the producer/ masterer to see if it syncs with your choice of gear. It seems the main topic here and in other audio blogs and magazines, so curious if it’s just me that finds it challenging.
There is NO system that sounds real...or is truth telling.
That's true, strictly speaking. So what? There's no sense in allowing unattainable perfection to be the enemy of the good.
The only difference between one system to another is they all sound different.
No, some sound better. Some sound much, much better. Some sound worse.
... unless you were in the recording studio at the time the recording was layed down to tape, how are you supposed to know how it was intended to sound? You can’t....
You most certainly can if you make your own recordings. That was actually rather common in the early days of audio.
I have two systems. The first one I trust with my life. The second one I’m not so sure yet. The room is so different and I haven’t been able to dial it in yet. But either way, I’m done for a while buying amps and speakers.
"I think that worrying about the performance of your system after you have dedicated the necessary effort to dial it in (which may take time) is a symptom of audio nervosa"
I trust my system more than my cats. They like to run behind the system and pull wires loose.
Since LPS are way in the past for me, I am streaming.
I got my system. Flying solo since I don't have a local dealer. The good thing was I found good deals. Every time I changed, sold, bought, moved something I kept saying. Wow it sounds better. Now, 2 1/2 yrs later, I think it is more dialed in. I have not located others who have systems to compare to or been to a trade show. The store I have been to made me realize I could spend a lot more for not much more.
I haven't been to a small venue is sometime. It shows me what instruments sound like before electronic modification. I do find many recordings that make me wonder what the recording engineers are thinking of. I have seen some concerts where I could not believe the sound quality. Tool, Weather Report, George Benson, Chick Corea, Recently a Dead and Company concert in an amphitheatre sounded fantastic. Not loud, no earplugs, but clean wonderful sound. And then just to prove it, they send out a couple bass notes during their "Drums" version that rocked your world, and mine.
Lately, I have been just listening to the music. And I enjoy some of the newer 3D stuff. But also some old school recordings. So many voices have been messed with.
Yes I trust my system and I know why that is reality. There was no luck involved.
Should I one day go down the Class D path, I will trust my choice there for the same reason.
My system is invariant between different recordings/mastering/genres etc.
I don't have streaming where I understand that music is deliberately coloured by the use of MQA and other tricks and so the system may have to be tuned or whatever to accommodate this technology.
The recording of a significant amount of modern pop and rock music goes way beyond the use of relatively simple eqs, compression and reverb that would have been the staples of the signal chain in studios before the advent of computer based recording. The result is that a lot of modern pop/rock recordings do not sound great. That is is the fault of the use of the technology and not the technology itself, I should add as evidenced by the fact that there are many excellent computer based digital recordings of other musical genres such as classical and jazz. As far as I'm concerned, unless the recording is totally excreable, I'll listen whatever music I like regardless of the recording quality. I'don't subscribe to the theory that a revealing system makes bad recordings sound worse, rather that it makes it easier to hear "through" the recording to the music.
There is NO system that sounds real...or is truth telling. All you can achieve is a reasonable, if that, facsimile of what was recorded. The only difference between one system to another is they all sound different. Like a dog chasing his tail or the proverbial merry go round. Just be happy your not listening to a boom box. Otherwise you will end up in the Nut house. Also, unless you were in the recording studio at the time the recording was layed down to tape, how are you supposed to know how it was intended to sound? You can’t....people are wasting a whole lot of money swapping and selling in an attempt to achieve what is not possible. Like a few say here, just enjoy the music, and buy more of it, meaning buy more physical media. Sorry, streaming is not for me, except to find or discover new music.
I am wondering what question the OP is asking. Of course I trust my system. Different remasterings of recordings will sound different. If his system is good enough to allow him to hear these differences, then it is doing the job
Janis Joplin has always been a favorite, but finding a great recording including some 15ips RtR 2nd masters, sucked. It was better than what I had but it was just rougher than a cob.. They didn't dub anything they just recorded it. Good, bad, or wasted, it got recorded.. One recording I heard 5 zippo lighters slam shut through the recording..
Neurotic audiophiles scurry to hear if their system reproduces 5 zippo lighters.
I learned that I could trust my system when I listened to many ‘70s and ‘80s recordings and every time I put on Dire Straits or Steely Dan or even Midnight Oil I was astounded by the sound. Goose bumps for sure. It doesn’t stop me from listening to the others , I just don’t listen to them when I’m in the mood to take my system out for a run.
I think that worrying about the performance of your system after you have dedicated the necessary effort to dial it in (which may take time) is a symptom of audio nervosa. That in turn leads to playing known good sounding recordings, just to be sure everything is OK, and robs you of the enjoyment of what the system might be capable of.
I’m confident that despite my efforts, somebody like a Jim Smith could do even more to make my system sing. I’m not talking about component mismatches or bad acoustics, which have to be dealt with (though I think some folks over treat their rooms, or get all spendy on wire and other tweaks that offer marginal improvements).
As to what is "true"-- who knows? One engineer who worked for Phil Ramone said in effect, you would not believe how much manipulation is required in the studio and mix to get something to sound natural.
I only really began to enjoy my system when I put the audiophile approved records to the side and just searched out new to me music. My baseline is the standard issue record, often from the '70s, not exactly a high point for vinyl in the States, rather than some special audiophile 1/2 speed mastered reissue pressed on an exclusive vinyl compound.
You can get stuck in equipment evaluation mode for years. Break the chains! Get it sorted to the best of your ability and then kick back and enjoy.
I’ve got quite a handful to maintain from tubes all the way through to linear arm with air compressor, and exotic cartridges. In some ways, I’m more aware than ever of the precarious nature of this fancy stuff, but I’ve developed an attitude that there is no reason why hi-end should be more fussy. And if something is wrong, I track it down and get it fixed. Nervous about it-- well, I am compulsive enough to want to sort problems immediately, and not let them languish. But in the scheme of things, it’s just equipment -- hopefully stuff that endures and doesn’t depend on out of date chips or other things that make a unit obsolete and unusable.
Most of my time and effort in the last 10 years has been on the records, rather than the gear, though I do maintain it properly. And it does bring me joy.
I will always enjoy reading about all the different versions of the same album mastered by different companies and individuals. I'll pick up the best version in the majority of the people's opinion and compare with what I already have and also with Qobuz and Tidal. Pretty cool when you start to hear the difference and confirm with what others are saying. If you can spot the differences and agree with the majority of folks I believe you and your system are in the ballpark.
Of course I trust my system, but it’s only as good as the mastering or recording I feed it.
Speaking of recordings, I spent years chasing the dragon for decent sounding Richie Valens tracks. I tried several 1980’s CD releases and always came away feeling that there could have and should have been much more done in the mastering chain instead of leaving us this kind of bright lifeless sonic presentation. When I discovered the 2003 Audio Fidelity SACD Hybrid my prayers had been answered. Apparently Mr. Hoffman knew what it needed in the redbook layer. Finally decent sound! For kicks, knowing that there are no tools for doing anything in the DSD layer, I threw the SACD layer on. Well imagine how surprised I was when I realized all of those 1980’s CD’s were flat transfers and the real way the Valens recordings sound because they’re the same sound as the SACD layer on this AP hybrid. Recordings definitely matter.
@steakster- A-ha! Clive indeed! First I was gonna say 'none of them' or something like that, but I changed it to 'with a very few exceptions' - also people like the late Ahmet Ertugan. A friend of mine used to be president of Capital Records for a few years (I first met him when he was an order taker for a record company), and he was also somebody who really cared about music; he'd even send out CD's of music that wasn't even on his label to people because he thought they should hear them.
Having a varied digital playlist accentuates the wheat from the chaff. Just now had to adjust the volume from a Temptations song just to make it palatable. Most are ok, some amazing, others horrid. My system is a doorway.
@thyname good point. I did get to sit front row at a small club with a blues band. Great fun but I kept thinking it sounded a lot like my home system. A bit louder. Went to another show with PA doing most of the work, not too good. Once was behind the PA. Boy, drums are loud! Unamplified music, tricky since they really have to manage volume and tone. Overall recordings sound best since the artists that make them are really skilled at making all those negatives go away, but it’s not ‘real’ which seems to bug audiophiles who seem to look for some truth. Other systems that friends have are just really different. There is often no real standard, except I always liked the Audio Note room at Axpona. It seemed to have something special to my ears.
@artemus_5 I asked the question because the puzzle is we talk about equipment, but the only way to judge equipment is to play music. Music is not a fixed concept, it’s an art that may have too many variables to judge. But if you trust your system recreate the music well, then you can enjoy the recording for what it is meant to represent by the artists, not in such an elaborate fashion through gear. As @larsmansays, I enjoy music just fine through earbuds, but elaborate stereos are fun too, but challenging.
Over the last twenty years of my fifty year audiophile career I have gone out of my way to listen to live acoustic music… a single piano, small unamplified jazz ensemble, and I have had season tickets to a great symphony orchestra in a good acoustic space for over ten years. This experience has redirected the direction of my purchase and profoundly changed the character of my system.
It used to be one music type would benefit from my system improvements… now all do with each upgrade. Unless you listen only to, say, Rock… then buy JBL… and the kind of electronics used in mastering. Otherwise, correctly correlating your system to reproduce real acoustic music is what you want to do… as it will generally improve rock, and other all amplified stuff.
I can’t begin to tell you how rewarding this has been. My system went from overly detail forward ( same amount of detail, only not stuck in your face) to incredibly musical. It changed the emphasis to the music from putting the mastering techniques and microphones used in your face. I now listen to music about three hours a day now and have to be torn away from it. As opposed to one hour.
You can see my system under my userID. True high end companies like Audio Research and Sonus Fabre have dedicated themselves to reproduce music… naturally and wholisticly as opposed to just adding forward detail and slam just to sound impressive. They have taken music reproduction to truly amazing levels.
@steakster- As somebody who has worked in the record business for a number of years, one thing I can tell you is that with very few exceptions, the last people who care about how anything sounds are record label executives!
That being said, there are a lot of recordings, vinyl and digital, that sound OK on the music systems or earbuds that most people listen to music on; they are not making these records to sound great on audiophile gear; they're making them to sound good on most any generic music gear, and if it also sounds good on top quality gear, that's just a bonus... .
I wonder do others get to a point where they are more critical of mastering techniques than something wrong with their equipment?
50/50… for me.
A few months ago I listened to an old 80s song and it had a triangle that jumped to a speaker… so I thought I had a blown tweeter… but somehow I concluded that it was just a bad recording.
Other times the recording is just more obviously bad.
I should listen to what people with more modern gear do.
I luckily found a set of equipment and a room setup that if a song is off, it’s likely recorded that way. I trust my system to do a decent job. I wonder do others get to a point where they are more critical of mastering techniques than something wrong with their equipment?
I don't understand. I suppose because I come at it from a different direction. As I read your post it seems that you are constantly looking for the bad in the music rather than enjoying it. Do you enjoy the music? Or is it the criticism you enjoy? Either way, it seems like work rather than play. I'm not trying to be overly critical of you but I can't imagine enjoying music under those conditions.
Relax. Enjoy. Problems will arise at some point. But there's no need to look for them. Just react and resolve them t when they show themselves
If you only listen to your own system, and your system only, you will never know if your system is the best (I am using “you” as in plural, not addressing any particular person), and whether it can be improved. If there is no reference point, there is nothing to improve. And unless you are a billionaire, you cannot possibly buy all what’s out there to try in your home.
You will need exposure. Things like visiting your friendly local dealer(s), going to audio shows, and most importantly having a network of local like-minded people to exchange visits. Bonus points if those audiophile friends are very experienced and passionate, and well heeled. And it’s also a lot of fun. Talking, listening, drinking. Socializing stuff humans do.
The more exposure the better. That’s the only way to create a good idea of what’s out there, that you can use to improve your own system. Of course, to your liking and preferences. That’s what I do. Consistently over the past 15+ years.
I go to live concerts too. A lot, but honestly though that’s no help in this regard, as the music I like is always amplified. But I have a great time nonetheless
It is hard to make A-B comparison with life concert, especially when best seats are not available. We assume that sound of instruments we hear thru our system is true and later compare everything to it. If I have warm sounding system (added even order harmonics) I will never know how clarinet (only odd harmonics) should really sound. We can still judge dynamics, clarity, extension etc, but it is hard to judge timbre of instruments - at least for me. Trained musicians can hear and have easy access to reference sound.
@steakster my friend read about recordings in the early days of CDs and right before.
You will cry.
OP: I worry about our critical listening a great deal. If you are recording or making or reviewing gear then critical listwning males sense, but for the audiophile critical listening should be introspective and learning about who we are as music consumers.
Some gear is reformed some is refurbished. :-) But a recording can be a crap shoot sometime.
Janis Joplin has always been a favorite, but finding a great recording including some 15ips RtR 2nd masters, sucked. It was better than what I had but it was just rougher than a cob.. They didn't dub anything they just recorded it. Good, bad, or wasted, it got recorded.. One recording I heard 5 zippo lighters slam shut through the recording..
I call it "John Wayne" recording. "We whipped out another one,...... Pilgrim!"
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