Is revealing always good?


I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player (and AVM player). Because I listen to redbook CD's and 705 of the CD's I listen to are jazz recordings from ca. 1955-1963 the recordings often have bad "digititus." The piano's ring, clarinet is harsh, transients are blurred --- just the nature of the recordings. With a revealing CD player, all this was palpably evident so much so that at least 1/2 those CD's were rendered unlistenable. Now, with a cheaper, more colored CD player (a new Creek) --- not nearly as revealing --- one that "rounds off" some of this digititus, these CD's are again listenable.

So... is revealing a particularly good thing for redbook CD playback? I think not. is "colored" always a bad thing? I'd say no. At least for CD playback. Thoughts?
robsker

Showing 1 response by minorl

There are a couple of issues going on here.

1. The new CD player is demonstrating an effect whereby, the music played shows faults in the recordings. This subject has been discussed before. It may be necessary to hang onto an older cd player in order to listen to the older recordings. Also, with the new player, if the newer recordings are better, through the new player as opposed to the older player, it makes sense to have the new player for better quality cd recordings.

2. Listening to the new piece of equipment in your home system before purchasing. This really is the way to go. I am a firm advocate of taking equipment home to listen before purchasing. My favorite store allows me to do this. Because a) they would have my credit card information and would charge the amount if I failed to return the item and b) they know that I'm not a lookee loo and will purchase the item if I like it.

If the item is fairly expensive, which most high end equipment is, it is really unreasonable for stores to not allow one to do a home demonstration for a few days at the minimum.

to expect me to come out of pocket for large sums without such in-home demonstration is not reasonable to me.

As far as revealing, I have found that better equipment does indeed "reveal" the issues of other equipment to the extent that further upgrading may be necessary.

An example for me was my purchase years ago of the Audio Research REF 3 pre-amp. I took it home for an in-home demonstration (San Diego to Los Angeles), and compared it to my existing retubed AR SP 11 pre-amp. I found that many of my older cd recordings sounded really bad. some like a tweeter was aimed directly at my ear. Bad recordings and bad recording equipment. Not so much through the SP 11. But, the newer recordings through the REF 3 was absolutely wonderful. Don't get me wrong, the newer recordings through the SP 11 also sounded great. Just that the REF 3 "revealed" faults in my older cd recordings that I didn't hear so much with the SP 11.

I'm very happy with the REF 3 and I guess there are some recordings that I can't sit through anymore.

Oh well.

enjoy