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Low level detail's

I am begining to come to the conclusion that the retrieval of low level details is extremely important to musical happiness. If this is the case then that would perhaps explain why extremely efficient speakers and great amps can sound magical at times. One would also think that cd's would be an excellent media for this but somethings wrong here. They just don't seem to have it. Anybody know why not?
Some cd's do sound excellent but compared to master tapes or excellent vinyl they seem to come up lacking. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Would like to be educated.
Thanks
bin
4 responses Add your response
celtic66
1,615 posts
 
Within genres of jazz, classical, Celtic, some blues, some folk one can find very good to excellent mastering. Outside of these, one usually finds poor production and mastering techniques. Thus the complaints about MoFi masters of the Rolling Stones not sounding that great. Depending on your listening habits, you will find your music treated very well or very poorly.
mrderrick
292 posts
 
How's your listening room treated? Do you have any ambient noise? The slightest background noise can erase detail. For truley enjoyable listening, I wait for late evening or early morning. Turn off my HVAC system and listen contently. I also have my room treated for slap echo and standing waves. All of my gear is run off of balanced power too, dead nuts silent background.
tom_nice
387 posts
 
Mrderrick's advice sounds good to me. I'd just add that if you can manage a dedicated line, and--just as important--a dedicated ground, this will also help a lot. Standing waves are tougher to deal with, but slap or flutter echo is easier. Parallel wall surfaces, both untreated, are the villains. The solution: treat one of them. F. Alton Everest's "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget", IMHO, should be a bible for every serious audiophile, so let me recommend it to you as well. It goes into all this stuff.
phild
603 posts
 
Redbook CDs will never have the same amount of detail as the other well recorded and mastered sources because they are always going to be limited to the 16bit 44/1khz format. CD mastering has improved a lot over the years, but it's still a dated format. There are many well recorded, well mastered CDs that do capture a decent amount of detail, but the analog or hi-res digital version of the same recording *should* always contain more detail.
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