How much is about the recording

^exactly^… and agree.

Most gear is pretty good, and things do not improve as one traverses through the audio chain.

If the recording is not too stellar then it is immediately pretty disappointing, but when the recording is good… then as long as the system is staying out of the way, it remains pretty damned good… IME.

On my system the difference is absolutely staggering. Not too many recordings sound horrible, but man the really great recordings are just mind boggling. I will be finishing a room for listening in the near future. Very anxious to see what proper setup and treatments can do for those less than stellar recordings.

I am there. Happy with the gear I have, in the context of my listening habits, living space and room limitations (that are many).

Not a single gear expense in the last 6 months, just musical joy, which was all what was intended to start with  

Big deal to me. Fortunate to have an acoustically treated dedicated listening room. Figured out the setup. Now it's all about the recording quality. I grade every album I hear A,B,C,D based solely on sound quality.

In my collection I'm hearing about 10% class A, 50% class B, 30% class C, and 10% class D.

The key is to get the music you like to sound as good as it can. If you take your system too far in one direction, you'll end up with 3 CDs that sound extremely good and everything else will sound terrible. 

@russ69 

The key is to get the music you like to sound as good as it can.

Yes That is the one true goal of a music lover. Music takes precedence over the quality of the recording. 

Also it is a track by The Guess Who 

The key is to get the music you like to sound as good as it can. If you take your system too far in one direction, you'll end up with 3 CDs that sound extremely good and everything else will sound terrible. 

Seriously?
what direction would that be?

if it sounds great with one recording, then it should sound great with 90% of them.
Or maybe my system is “not resolving enough”?

@tomcarr +1, utilizing that same grading system as I am culling 2,000 albums down to hopefully 800-1,000 and have to say that I am coming up with about the same #s you have. Enjoy the music

Seriously?
what direction would that be?

if it sounds great with one recording, then it should sound great with 90% of them.
Or maybe my system is “not resolving enough”?

Yes, seriously. I have no idea about what system you have or how resolving it is. That is not my point. On many of the systems I've put together, I can get it to sound absolutely stunning using some very high-quality recordings and the right tune-up. Absolutely knock your socks off. But set up that way 99% of my music sounds like crap. That is not the right direction. You do what you can do to get 90% of the music you listen to sound good. A hot demo set-up only has limited function.  

@russ69 , you have an absolutely great point there, which partially explains why I listen so much more to my secondary outdoor system than I do my main rig (other factors being present, of course).

...which partially explains why I listen so much more to my secondary outdoor system than I do my main rig...

I put together hyper critical systems for decades. I was chasing the Holy Grail, but my enjoyment was diminishing. Somewhere along this time I bought a cheap pair of Grado headphones and a portable CD player. The tunes were rocking. So, I decided to forget chasing the unachievable and tune my systems for my enjoyment. I can still play the super audiophile records with no excuses, but the rest of my recordings also sound great now and I have the music going all the time. 

@russ69 cheers to that!

Better recordings/masterings have been more important to me than anything other than loudspeakers for about 15 years now.

The Steve Hoffman Music Forum was invaluable in this regard, even if the Beatles threads literally took weeks to read.

More recently superdeluxeedition.com has also been helpful.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/

Then there is also the dynamic range database of course. It’s still helpful as ever during this era of loud/compressed music.

https://dr.loudness-war.info/

Andrew from Parlogram on YouTube is also good.

There must plenty of other sites too.

Yes, seriously. I have no idea about what system you have or how resolving it is. That is not my point. On many of the systems I’ve put together, I can get it to sound absolutely stunning using some very high-quality recordings and the right tune-up.

@russ69

What was tuned up? How was that done?
Are these systems super bright? Or what does resolving mean here?

Absolutely knock your socks off. But set up that way 99% of my music sounds like crap. That is not the right direction. You do what you can do to get 90% of the music you listen to sound good. A hot demo set-up only has limited function.

I have not set up systems like you describe, and it sounds like you have a lot more experience.

I usually put on a handful of recordings that I am familiar with, and they all either seem to sound great or they all seem to suck… I do not find that some sound much better, and some sound much worse.

Hence; I am wondering what is being done to get such a result.
(If nothing else I would likely want to avoid that.)

I'd also agree. But I do think it's possible to have a very revealing system and still listen to sub-optimal recordings and enjoy them. It's also highly dependent on the genre of music one listens to, I've found classical and jazz/blues to have the greatest delta of recording quality between poor vs. excellent.

@russ69  What was tuned up? How was that done?
Are these systems super bright? Or what does resolving mean here?

Well, it would take a book to tell the whole story but there are many ways to get where you want to go. The way I do it is find the right loudspeaker, the right amp for that speaker, the right tubes for the amp, the right preamp and tubes, the right source, the right speaker placement, the right room acoustics, and finally the right cables. (Lots of experience to do that, which means lots of wrong choices)

I don't do it, but maybe simple tone controls or frequency correction would be another way. (I'm not a fan of this method). 

Well, it would take a book to tell the whole story but there are many ways to get where you want to go. The way I do it is find the right loudspeaker, the right amp for that speaker, the right tubes for the amp, the right preamp and tubes, the right source, the right speaker placement, the right room acoustics, and finally the right cables. (Lots of experience to do that, which means lots of wrong choices)

^Thanks.^

I started that’s way and recently went back through the front end... maybe the equipment was already good enough as the changes were subtle…and everything seems to sound pretty good, unless the recording is overly shrill to begin with.

or it is to the point now that the recording quality is the biggest variable.

I am probably a bit lucky.

Are these systems super bright? Or what does resolving mean here?

Yes, they tend to be towards the brighter side, but you can have full high frequency extension without being too bright. Resolving is detail retrieval, that happens across the whole frequency spectrum, but you can take it too far. Harder to explain but I have steered away from a lot of super hi-end products that take detail retrieval too far. I want to hear the music sheets shuffling but I don't want it to dominate the recording.  

It all starts with the recording, and the quality of the recording. I listen to a wide range of music.  I like the Mozart Piano Concertos on Archiv LP's and discs (although the LP's are better).  I also liked Adele 21, but I don't think a good recording of that release exists.  So, while I like the songs, I hardly ever listen to the album because it sounds so crappy.  Then, there's recordings (LP's and CD's) that are recorded too hot, and they sound harsh.  Or, they are recorded too cold and sound dead.

But, when you find a great recording of music that you love, and you have a good system-- well, that's as good as it gets.

I've posted this before, but I asked the question: Can you hear the noise suppression pump in and out on Diana Krall's "Garden in the Rain"? I got few responses, which meant most people don't hear that. It's easily heard on my reference systems but not to the point of ruining the song...darn close though. That's how I know I'm there (at least one of my tools).

Aside from the obvious good attitude of enjoying the music, i agree that the recording itself is the single biggest contributor to quality.  Want proof? Listen to a mid-60s Verve or Mercury recording transferred to regular, old 16/44 CD. On a really good system they are glorious.  Vastly better than most 24/192/blah blah

Justme

That is easy. It depends.

As my system has evolved over the decades. I have occasionally made a turn where it was towards a bit too revealing and emphasized the recording more pushing too many recordings over the edge and subtracted from their appeal. My objective is to have a detailed but rewarding and enjoyable system to listen to. I learned that too revealing is a really bad thing. [a word about revealing: one could spend a lot of time talking about what that means; let’s not].

I really want to enjoy the music. I can’t tell you how many times I have exited an audio store with my ears violated by systems so laced with ridiculous detail and high frequency distortion I thought I was getting a root canal. It is so easy to have one’s analytical skills kick in and focus on how fine a detail you can resolve and the slam and not notice the sound is terrible. This is so endemic it is unreal to me.

Most would say it is about the music… but I think a large portion get caught up in details and slam. The reason companies like Audio Research and Conrad Johnson and a number of others is they have not lost their way in pursuing great musical reproduction and veared off providing details and slam at any cost, or “clean” sound striped of emotional connection.

Tomcarr and tooblue, for comparison, would you mind providing a few examples of recordings you have that fall into each of your A, B, C, and D categories. Don’t know what you listen to, but if you could pick a few examples of recordings that are fairly commonplace, and many of us might be likely to have, that might be helpful. For myself that would be among other things ’50’s-70’s jazz (Charlie Parker through to Weather Report) and rock ’n roll from the 60’s-70’s (Bill Haley and the Comets through to the Sex Pistols). Thanks,

Mike

I have a mixture of new, used and vintage equipment in my entry-level system. My listening space is the exact opposite of what an acoustically appropriate listening room should be. I am also approaching 70 with some hearing loss in my right ear. And despite all of these audio limitations, a well engineered and produced recording will stand out and be a joy to listen to. I find this slightly more obvious on analog recordings, but good digital recordings are obvious even streaming via Blue Tooth. 

I doubt anyone on this thread, or site, has a shite system, so yes, it all about the recording.  Why do some recording have a soundstage that goes out way past the speakers, and other are compressed to the point of almost sounding like mono recordings? Or ones that have everything coming directly from the speakers and the center is empty?  Great recordings are fantastic, and it's a slippery slope from that point on down.  As the adage goes, you can't polish a turd.  

@bigtwin  +1

I’m pretty happy with my kit, so it’s all about the music.  Now, for example,  I can  listen to Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and notice the difference’s between various recordings. 

@skyscraper Class A- Dire Straits, Steely Dan, Chris Isaak, Norah Jones, Supertramp, Moody Blues, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, Andreas Vollenweider, Cat Stevens, almost any jazz or classical album

Class B- Genesis, Heart, Eric Clapton, Roxette, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Queen, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Rolling Stones, Alanis Morissette, REM, The Cult, The Black Crowes, Billy Joel, INXS, Aerosmith, U2, Brooks & Dunn, Donnie Iris, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, The Who, Klaatu

Class C- Jefferson Airplane, Ted Nugent, Procol Harum, The Mamas and the Papas, Little Feat, Roy Orbison, Lynard Skynard, Ramones, Uriah Heap,  Faces

Class  D- Robert Johnson, Chicago Blues, Leslie West

This list is a guideline. There are some songs that sound better (or worse) than the overall grade for the album.

PS- my ratings are based on sound quality only, not artistic or musical quality.

I have no problem enjoying a class C recording as much as a class A recording.

I would buy your list. But I would add a class A+ for my audiophile favorites like: The Holly Cole Trio, Mapleshade Art of the Ballad, Mindy Smith, and Famous Blue Raincoat.

@russ69 I hear what you're saying. I've thought of adding an A+ list of the recordings that are truly incredible.

That list is a good barometer to compare quality for sure.  I'm lucky that my system can finally portray the venue's ambiance or lack of.   It quickly sorts out bad recordings from great ones, but at the same time recordings that were almost un-listenable in past systems are enjoyable again.   I can appreciate "rough" recordings for what they are and great recordings sound pretty awesome. 

@oddiofyl Exactly! 

Chicken and the Egg 

Which is more important?

A. Tweaking your system, room, music collection to achieve audio nirvana.

B. The pursuit of new music

russ69 I hear what you're saying. I've thought of adding an A+ list of the recordings that are truly incredible.

@tomcarr luckily I like Radka Toneff, “Jazz in the Pawn Shop”, and a few other vocals, jazz and other gendres.
The list of only Pink Floyd and limited, few others, gets a bit redundent.
we sort of need a few in each gendre, maybe even including Country or Rockbilly to really be inclusive… 😎

I’m pretty happy with my simple streaming set-up.  I often read (my real passion) while listening to music playlists on Qobuz, and the songs that make me stop reading and listen are typically the well recorded, high-res ones, whether I like the song or not.  I guess that’s my barometer.

Thanks Tom, I certainly have enough of those artists to sample the range of recording quality you're describing. 

Mike

I always use spherical styli (Denon 103) for cuts with low dynamic range. Save the micro-line for the audiophile versions. There’s an analog solution for everything. 

It's all about the recording.

@ russ69
Could you make a slightly more arbitrary meaningless statement"

i.e. WHICH, Diana Krall version of "Garden in the Rain" I have found 6 versions in 30 second of looking? I stil haven’t found one cut being use d in multiple collection. And if one was shared between collections was it REMASTERD, and in that Remastering, someone did some butchering?
Just listened to the one from "Love Scenes’ and I think what you are hearing is Krall’s STYLE of STROKING the keys. I have shown many friends over time how she strokes the keys rather than Pounding/striking the keys. Then when she does strike at keys, it does come over with more emphasis. Watch some of her live concerts and you can see it.

Also on studio albums there should be little to NO noise suppression used to begin with. SO possibly if you do hear some, it is likely on a Live cut. Then on that note is it really ’Noise Suppression’ or is it ’COMPRESSION’ that you are pointing out?

I'd like to take it one step further or at lest clarify the issue. I can easily tell a BAD recording from a great recording, but there are also those whose mastering is terrible as opposed to excellent mastering. I have seen it so clearly that even on a CD you can hear the difference. I find so may sources that take a LoFi recording and just save it at a higher resolution trying to pawn it off as something prime. Also it doesn't take an Audiophile setup to notice it. A dumpy Walmart computer speaker on my Rather good computer setup plays a totally different and noticeable sound when a recording comes from better source material as opposed to something where the source was LoFi to begin with.

Good music is such a joyous experience when it's well recorded/engineered.  At the same time when good music like Eric Clapton's classic Layla is poorly recorded it makes me cringe.  Recording and engineering is such an art.  I would recommend an interesting book:  "Making Rumors" by Ken Caillat.  What's interesting to me is that the book tracks one of the most famous rock albums of all time and it's written by the sound engineer!

@russ69 

What does the noise suppression in garden in the rain sound like? I just listened to it and nothing sounded odd to me. Is it throughout the whole song ? I have Rockport Avior ii speakers with a Boulder 866 int. Incredible detail and clarity.
 What components are in your system? 

Ron

i.e. WHICH, Diana Krall version of "Garden in the Rain"

Love Scenes Impulse CD IMPD-233

What does the noise suppression in garden in the rain sound like?

The tape hiss like noise is fully suppressed, then as she takes her breath, you hear the background level come up and she starts singing. Someone/some device is definitely gain riding to reduce the background noise on the quiet segments in between her singing. I find the whole album just a tad over-produced.

You'll need some really good tweeters, a system with good extension, and you'll need to turn it up a bit. It hits me over the head but if your system is fairly average you may not hear it. It sounds great on my lessor systems. 

Most people do not realize how bad a recording can be until they hear it on a great system. A good system will make good recordings excellent and bad recordings unlistenable. I love listening to great recordings on a great system as I find myself enjoying artists and music I never considered previously. IMO the recording and the system go hand in hand.

How much is about the recording

It’s everything.

Only a deluded fool believes their system can make a bad recording sound good.

Only a deluded fool believes their system can make a bad recording sound good.

Given enough tools, I'm pretty sure I could make a bad recording at least sound acceptable. But I still agree with what you are saying.

The late Rudy Van Gelder once said "I love re-mastering early recordings. Those engineers wore ties to work."

If the sound recording is lousy the performance better be amazing or the record/CD etc. will be relegated to the back of my mind.

An example of studio wizardry rescuing a lost cause is the 2011 release of Robert Johnson: The Centennial Recordings. Steve Lasker and Seth Winner accessed the finest available original and test pressings and, after using the most advanced transfer techniques to capture the source material, removed all the sonic noise (clicks, pops, stripped grooves, etc.) knowing some loss of high-range frequencies was inevitable, resurrecting the clarity of those 1930’s recordings to an astonishing degree. I can listen now without flinching.

my point is that poor recordings can, at great expense, be overcome if the performance warrants the effort.