Why would I put together a system that makes music that I love hurt my ears to listen to them? Sorry, I know that this is not an answer to your post.
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Needless to say most songs are just of average recording quality and many more are relatively poor.
The only thing one can do practically is try to build a system that allows one to enjoy as many recordings they might care about as possible.
If you are an "audiophile" then you also seek a system capable of delivering on the really good recordings as well.
If done right, you might get it all out of one system. Its a good goal! |
Well, one classic example was Dylan's muddy sounding Street Legal album from 1978. It did get a much needed remix in the 90s, but even that doesn't sit well with everyone.
The Mamas and Papas back catalogue suffers badly from too much 'bouncing down'. Vocals are OK, but that's about it with the background being muddy. Ditto the Loving Spoonful, but a little treble lift on your amp can certainly help with these "difficult' albums.
Most Punk Rock was recorded indifferently, but unfortunately sound quality wasn't the main point. Never Mind the Bollocks is also a bit muddy sounding. I tend to be far more forgiving of bright/ thin sounding records because they don't tend to obscure lyrics.
Heavy Metal/Rock can also push recording quality to its limits. Far too often the dynamics and bandwidth suffer from poor recording. I do remember once hearing an album on vinyl, by Tankard I think, where the crystal clear dynamics were amazing.
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to onhgwy61: I have a system that I listen to but not everything sounds "peachy", and you don't know how music is gonna sound till you hear it; there are so many recordings of music on different labels from different years that just maybe someone's heard a better version of a song than I have - and I'd like to know that...
and to mapman: thanks for possibly saying in a 'clearer' way for me to understand what onhgwy61 was attempting to say... |
I hate to beat a dead horse here, but most CDs in the last few years are engineered with DR range compression that makes them hard to listen to and impossible to correct. No system can significantly enhance what doesn't exist in the recording.
Both of Alabama Shakes albums come to mind. Great stuff. Great writing. Great performing. Bad engineering. And there is no excuse for it. |
"Can't Find My Way Back Home" from the Blind Faith album. The best vinyl copy I have, a first UK Polydor, is an improvement over the original US pressing, but the cymbals still sound like trash can lids. The song and performance still shine through despite that. (It's not an ear bleeder, just an awful recording). |
I just keep the poorly recorded stuff in my car.
With road and wind noise, and other distractions,
(singing, too?) I am not expecting an audiophile
experience anyway. The good recordings never
make it to the car...
Could segregating your collection by recording quality
be the answer? |
@sgordon1 , the narrow DR stuff does sound okay in the car and probably for the reasons you mention.
Its the stuff, like Alabama Shakes' Sound and Color, that would lend itself to hi-fi listening but is poorly engineered that drives me crazy. I don't really want to listen to that in the car or at home. |
@whart, I don’t own the Blind Faith album, and haven’t heard it in many years. Are the really bad sounding cymbals on only the one song? I ask because Ginger Baker’s cymbals, starting on the Graham Bond Organization albums, and continuing in Cream, always sounded bad. He doesn’t have very good taste in cymbals, and/or doesn’t know how to pick them out. The Zildjian cymbals he plays are infamous for being extremely variable in sound quality amongst examples of the same model; they need to be hand-picked. Ginger’s Zildjians are amongst the worst I have ever heard, both on recordings and live (I saw Cream twice, at the original Fillmore and Winterland). |
Whole album is pretty bad sounding but i rarely listen to the whole album. That song, Can't Find My Way, is, to me, the best thing on the record and occasionally i'll play the entire side one. Side two is a disaster: Sea of Joy is ok, but Do What you Like-- kinda like Ron Bushy's 48 year long drum solo. :) |
I love all the Hendrix albums from a compositional and performance standpoint but I never understood why Mitch Mitchell's drums always seem so poorly recorded. |
@three_easy_payments---It may partly be the recording of Mitch’s drums (1960’s Ludwigs), but also how he tuned and (didn’t) damp them. His drums sounded about the same live (I saw him twice) as on the Hendrix albums, high and ringy, with lots of sustain and resonance. That’s how Jazz drummers tend to like their drums to sound, the heads tensioned tight (which results in the drums being high pitched) so as to get maximum stick rebound off the drumhead with every stroke, and undamped, leaving them free to ring, which plastic drumheads do. Ginger Baker tuned his Ludwigs the same as Mitch. Ringo liked his drums to sound more dead, common amongst Rockers, myself included. Many apply some form of damping to their drumheads, to kill the high ring. Ringo used pieces of towel, others use less drastic damping like folded up tissue taped to the heads. I use sanitary napkins ;-) . Compare Levon Helm’s Gretsch drums on The Band albums to Mitch and Ginger’s. Levon’s sound very low pitched and "thumpy", with shorter sustain and far less high ring. By the way, after his Hendrix days, Mitch switched from Ludwig to Gretsch. |
@bdp24 some good inside information there. With the Beatles it's easy to forget that most instruments were regularly recorded in unique ways with speed variations and reverb used freely, eg the piano on Sexy Sadie.
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i never thought blind faith was badly recorded--jimmy miller, andy johns and other such luminaries did the engineering. now, of course, i'm gonna have to go back and listen to it critically. what i will say is that winwood never sang better + i always sorta liked do what you like, esp. after a couple coktails.
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+1 Whart
I own a first pressing copy and it’s bad.
The original Ziggy Stardust on RCA is not particularly good either. |
@wcfeil-- I went thru a Ziggy phase a while ago to find a good one. The 4E/6E UK is very good sounding, as was the reissue from several years ago which, I believe, was based on an analog tape. (It has subsequently been reissued again, but I don’t know the provenance of that one and didn’t buy it). The only problem with the reissue from a few years ago was that there was a batch with defects so the song "Star" was reduced to gibberish. I have two copies of that with the same problem. The 4E/6E in top condition is typically a hundred dollar record, whereas the reissue is cheap-ish. There may have been an EMI Centenary issue as well, which I don’t have- some were analog, others pulled from a digital transfer. (I think Hunky Dory on the EMI 100 Series is all analog but it still sounds more ’modern’ than the older UK pressings). |
How about "Surrealistic Pillow"? A great record but suffers from too much reverb, low levels, poor mixing, muddy bass and no snap to the drums. And the better the system, the worse it seems to sound. You can't make it better with tone controls. All you can do is get the volume to the right level and don't sit too close.
This is a record that I've never bought on CD, let alone any remastered versions. I'm afraid to hear what they've done to it. But I still love it, even after all these years. |
It's not the recordings, it's the playback settings folks. |
Michael, in some cases it is the particular issue- safety copy or needle drop (or CD pull), plus bad mastering. I have many records where there are significant differences in sound --from horrible to great- depending on the particular issue. And, it’s not always the fancy audiophile issue, or the "first pressing" (whatever that means in a particular context) that has the best sound. |
Hi Whart I use tunable systems, so I simply adjust per recording when I want to. Doing this I very rarely experience bad recordings. |
It doesn’t matter on what system you play any recording of Ginger Baker’s drums, how you "tune" that system, or at what level you set the volume, his cymbals and drums will still sound terrible. Here’s an interesting fact: while audiophiles decry compression, it’s use on the overhead mics used to record cymbals results in each tap on a cymbal with the tip of a drumstick (as opposed to striking the cymbal with the shank of the stick) creating a very percussive "click" out of the cymbal. Listen to Jazz recordings from the 50’s and 60’s, you will hear that cymbal sound on many of them. That click is very important in the ability of a drummer to create the very fast swing/shuffle cymbal pattern used in that music, and in Blues and Traditional Country. Some cymbal makers are renown for their cymbals inherently producing the "click" sound, foremost amongst them the K. Zildjians made in Turkey. That was the cymbal preferred by many of the old school Jazz drummers, Elvin Jones, etc. Being hand made, each and every K. Zildjian sounded different, some great, many bad. The best drummers know the sound they are looking for, and hand-picked theirs from a pile of cymbals. Some drummers either don't know how to listen for cymbal quality (like non-audiophiles and hi-fi gear), or have "bad" taste. That may make me sound like I think my opinion is the last word, but you'd be surprised by how universal that opinion is amongst drummers. Rock and/or studio drummers whose recorded drum sound features that cymbal sound include Jim Gordon (Derek & The Dominoes. His cymbals and drums so SO good on that album), Levon Helm (The Band), and Hal Blaine (everybody ;-) . Now listen to Ginger’s cymbals and drums. Trash. No offense, Ginger Baker lovers! Two albums with great music but horrid drum sound are the debuts of The Who and Nick Lowe, both of which have drums that sound like garbage cans crashing down a flight of stairs. |
Ime, the playback system has a large influence on the contrast. The better the system, the smaller the contrast. Through my Acoustat Monitor 3 and DD servo charge amps, Oppo 205, it's more of a difference rather than a contrast.
I'm not a Ginger Baker fan or Lovin' Spoonful fan, but I just happen to play both the other day. Ginger's drums and cymbals were great and no missing top end on the Spoonful.
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michaelgreenaudio: please explain how you 'adjust' with a 'tunable system' |
Yes, michaelgreenaudio, I too would like to know how any system can compensate for elements in a bad recording. I hear this fairly often but it doesn't make sense to me. I don't doubt that there are things that can be done to help some. But especially in the case of compressed DR I don't see how any system can make a big difference there.
As I mentioned in another thread I can see how an equalizer might be able to take advantage of the fact that different frequencies will have different perceived volumes at the same system volume setting. (I'd like to try my hand at this sometime.) But even that can't make a huge difference when dynamic range is compressed as much as in many new recordings.
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Hi Guys The average playback system (pre-tuning) plays about 1/10 of the recorded content of the source. Note that this number did not come from me only, but from others including me, who have researched and tested this same topic "real space". Real space is the actual space of a recording. Every recording has "real space/real size". Every recording has it’s own "real space" content that differs per recording. I have given the term "recorded code" to this content to make it easier to comprehend, but this understanding goes back to the beginning of the playback soundstage, mono, stereo and multi-channel. In the 1990’s I toured with several audio reviewers to other reviewer’s systems uncovering the real space of given recordings. We tuned these systems, per recording, using a variable method called "Tuning". Tuning has 3 main ingredients Acoustical, Mechanical and Electrical, all of which host the playback signal at sometime during the audio pathway. Everywhere along the audio pathway is the physical part called the "Audio Chain". Anytime we make a change to the audio chain we affect the audio pathway. To break it down we have the "recorded code" that becomes the "audio code" once the signal becomes physical (analog) as it makes contact with physical mechanical conduits (parts that host the signal). As the signal travels through the audio pathway it makes contact with the each part of the chain. The audio code is affected by the four fundamental interactions of nature (look up fundamental forces) as it travels making the signal itself variable. Tuning is how we adjust the signal. michael http://tuneland.forumotion.com/t268-the-audio-code |
"I too would like to know how any system can compensate for elements in a bad recording" The teaching of the "recorded code" has been limited at best when it comes to quality of recordings. I would say we need to fault the teachers of the hobby, whom ever they are. It also seems that when it comes to compression, dynamic range and efficiencies the explanations are not in line with the actual "doing" of the audio chain. Dynamic range is not necessarily a function of recording compression (limiting) and efficiency but somehow has turned into an excuse for poor performance in playback systems. The term "revealing system" has been used as the justification of a system not being able to play a recordings content, when not being able to play any recording is a function of content being or not being in tune. If your system is not "in-tune" with recording content the music will sound "out of tune". It doesn’t matter what is considered good or bad engineering. Take your "great" sounding recordings to another system and it will sound different (many times majorly different). Why does it sound so different is a function of system tuning. HEA got off track when they went to discrete system component matching. Here’s why, all recordings have a different recorded code and sound different from each other when played on a system with only one setting. Let's take any recording and play it at any studio or home setting in the world. Now let's take that same recording and play it in any other studio or home setting, guess what, it sounds different. Does that make the recording or system bad? Of course not, it makes every setup different sounding. michael |
michael, I still don't understand. Sorry, I might be being dense here.
But if you take a recording with a compressed dynamic range how can you expand the range beyond what exists on the recording? If it isn't there then it isn't there. To take an extreme example: there have been newer recordings in which the compressed DR has lead to clipping. How can you get back what has been clipped, i.e. not there?
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Hi n80 Not dense at all. "But if you take a recording with a compressed dynamic range how can you expand the range beyond what exists on the recording?" You can’t. However if your setup is only playing 1/10 of the content there’s a ton of dynamic range your not getting to from the beginning. What recording are you referring to? I can get the recording and test it for you. Almost all recordings I test for folks it turns out that their soundstage is limiting the recordings "real space". If the harmonics are shut down on that setting it sounds very compressed until the stage is opened up. Let me put it this way, your system is a tool, a variable tool.
mg |
Two examples:
Newish band called The Struts. Album is Young and Dangerous. Not ’audiophile’ type music. Very pop. The Dynamic Range database, for what its worth, gives its average DR as 5. Minimum track DR is 4. Max track DR is 6.
Alabama Shakes. Sound & Color. Should be appealing to audiophiles (in terms of content). Max DR is on one track and is 9. Album average is 5. Lowest track DR is 3.
(For what its worth, these numbers are from the site referenced above. I do not know what the units of DR are, I make no claim to the reliability of the data, the owner of the site is very much in the fight against DR compression, and he sells an app to measure it. So he’s in it for the money too.)
The bottom line is that even as a new audiophile the effect of such compression is immediately apparent to my untrained ears to the point I can roughly guess the level of compression. Likewise on CDs with DR in the 12-16 range it is clearly and pleasantly apparent.
I can easily understand how you can work with a piece with a broad DR to ’tune’ how it sounds. I just can’t see how I can do anything to ’tune’ what is simply not there and was, in fact, intentionally engineered out. I can see how it can be made better....but hard to imagine how it can be made ’good’ for what that’s worth.
Thanks for your patience. |
Hi n80 Not a problem at all, this is what I do. Those will be easy to reference for me. Let me call my store and see if they have them in stock or if I need to order. mg |
Thank you. Will be interesting to see what your take is on them (or any severely compressed DR stuff). |
Jenna Jamison's slurping vocals on Pirates are overly compressed. |
Hi n80 Just ordered Sound & Color, so we'll start with that. Also picking up Boys & Girls since they had a deal. I'll see if I can find a cheaper copy of Young and Dangerous. I'll let you know when I get them on the system.
mg |
Unless you're into glam/pop you might want to skip Young and Dangerous. ;-) |
Everybody is into glam/pop. Some are just embarrassed to admit it.
Kind of like Barry Manilow.
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Just ordered Roxy Music’s first CD. No, not the compressed one, the original uncompressed one from 1984. I already have Manifesto on cassette, another super duper recording. Not to mention the second album. Cassettes were produced prior to the Loudness Wars, thank goodness.
Trivia: the model on the first RM album wound up marrying Chris Jagger many years later. Obviously Jerry Hall left Brian Ferry for Mick Jagger. Keeping it in the family! |
My name is George. I am into glam/pop. And I'm not embarrassed to admit it. The Sweet. David Bowie. T Rex. Queen......and now The Struts.
@geoffkait will look into Roxy Music. Haven't thought about them in years. |
The Sweet! Now, that is the one pulled from under the bed. I have to go and buy something from them to hear if it still moves the way it did then. |
I absolutely love "God Foder" and "Are You Normal" from Ned's Atomic Dustbin. But the SQ on both of these CDs is horrible. I rarely listen to these on my home system. But I do enjoy them on my car stereo and also via iPod and earbuds while mowing the lawn. |
Received my "Sound and Color" a couple of days ago. I was working on Mick Ronson recordings so needed to finish that up first. Put the SC recording on for it's first pass. I usually let the system make about 3 passes before I start referencing, but could hear certain things right off the bat before getting serious. Sound and Color works best, in my room, with the subwoofer crossed at around 68-72 hz. If your not able to adjust that range you might find the stage too shallow for you. A lot of modern recordings can fall apart easy without the use of a good subwoofer. The recording has no problem filling the soundstage without black holes. If a recording is over compressed black holes will appear in the stage when you go to stretch the depth of the stage. Again no holes. Next I looked for a percussion instrument to follow. On the 3rd track I found a nice cymbal splash that covered the stage front to back and left to right. This is another sign that the playback compression is ok and not squeezed. You can clearly hear compression used as an affect applied to certain parts of vocals for example, but that's an on purpose effect and not part of the general soundstage presentation. I'll give an overall soundstage size after a couple of play throughs, but the stage itself is not compressed on the recording. So far that is. michael |
That’s interesting Michael. I have to say, soundstage is not my main criteria for SQ so I can’t say much there.
I do not have a subwoofer.
My system is fairly high end circa 1990. No EQ. My immediate impression of the album is volume. Way out of proportion to CDs with broad DR. The next immediate impression is harshness and loss of expected subtlety on some tracks. My reaction to that loss of subtlety and some separation is to turn up the volume a little. That does not help and in some cases makes it worse.
I found the CD so unpleasant the first time I played it that I have not played it more than a few times from the CD player. I have played it from a rip of the CD through iTunes with EQ adjustments that make it more palatable.
I’ll listen to the CD again later today and listen for soundstage and pay more attention to clarity (particularly of bass which is one of my main criteria) and separation.
My thoughts, however, are that I have a system that seems to be well selected for the playback of a wide range and variety of CDs without significant DR compression and it does so, in my limited experience, superbly. I would have a hard time saying that such a system is flawed because it will not reproduce high SQ from media intentionally recorded without DR.
I understand your point that there is more to a recording than most systems can (or do) get from it. But if a recording has a dynamic range of 5 then a recording with a (log) dynamic range of 12 is certainly going to have a lot more available to exploit (it seems to me). |
Hi n80 I'm on my 4th pass on this recording and no dynamic range problems what so ever, so it's definitely your system's setup. Cool recording btw!
mg |
Got out my Fresh Cream lp for a listen on my system Bakers drums and cymbals are as good or better than any other rock lp from 67. Lets not forget too that this was probably a first for recording power rock.Maybe the problem is in the system you are listening on.
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michael, thank you very much for looking into this. You must have a wonderful system.
Reviewers have complained about this album and it has similar DR to the Metallica album that first set off the contemporary loudness wars. Three measurements (two CDs and downloadable file) confirm exactly the same numbers so it is fairly clear that the DR is not there from a technical standpoint. Which could call into question the validity of the measurement software. Interestingly the vinyl has much better DR.
I guess if things continue down this road and I feel compelled to modify my system to accommodate bad recordings I will be in need of your expertise. Thanks again. You have been helpful and patient.
Edited to add:
Agree. It is an interesting album. Still impressed with the musicianship. A pretty daring turn for the band as well.
After relistening I am actually impressed with the soundstage. Quite broad and deep. Unfortunately even at about 1/3 volume I'm actually hearing some distortion of the bass, if not clipping. Not sure. And for the record, my system renders most bass very accurately and pleasingly to me.....even under torture tests like Saint-Saenz's organ symphony. |
@johnto, recording Cream (and Hendrix) WAS a challenge for the old school engineers in ’67, but it wasn’t because of the drums. Clapton and Hendrix hadn’t learned that their stage amps (Marshall stacks) were not appropriate or best for recording. Jimi was probably still recording with them when he died, but Eric soon enough learned that a small combo amp (low power, a single 12" driver) makes for much better recorded sound that a high powered amp and 8 drivers (what is in a stack). The amps/speakers were so loud at such a low volume setting on the amp, that to get "good tone" (tube distortion), they had to use stomp boxes, which simulate the natural distortion produced by a low-powered tube amp, at which they are only partially successful. Hendrix and Clapton sounded much better live than on record. Recording Ginger Baker’s drums was no problem; Buddy Rich (and Keith Moon) played MUCH louder than Baker. As for his drum sound, that is of course a matter of taste. Levon Helm’s drums and cymbals on The Band’s Music From Big Pink album (recorded in early ’68) sound the way I like drums and cymbals to sound. Ringo Starr’s taste aligns with mine, but you are entitled to your opinion. My opinion on the sound of Baker’s drums and cymbals is not based on hearing them through hi-fi speakers alone; I saw and heard him in Cream twice, in ’67 and ’68. Live, his drums and cymbals sounded just as they did and do on my system. That system has, over the years, included McIntosh, ARC, Atma-Sphere, NYAL, Herron, AVA, Levinson, Esoteric, and Music Reference electronics, AR, Thorens, VPI, and Townshend Audio tables, SME, Decca, Well Tempered, Formula 4, Rega, Helius, and Zeta arms, Decca, Grado, Shure, assorted mc, and London cartridges, and Quad (original), Magneplanar (Tympani T-I, T-IVa), Fulton (Model J), ESS (Transtatic I), Infinity (RS-1b), and Eminent Technology (LFT 4, LFT-8b) loudspeakers, and Stax (Lambda Pro) and Beyer Dynamic headphones. I don’t think "the problem is in the system you are (I am) listening on", it’s in your taste in drum and cymbal sound ;-) . |
Hi n80 I'm glad your liking Sound & Color more, I messed around with it off and on today. Pretty cool recording! Thanks for turning me on to it. I'm not having any problem with the bass, kind of reminds me of "FUN". Once tuned in a little it's an electronic membrane type of sound. I can see where someone would say distorted till they get it dialed in, but when tuned in it blends nicely. I'm able to turn mine up or down without any issues as long as I adjust the bottom slightly. michael |
So would you say that with the right system tuning the quality of the recording, in terms of DR compression and loudness, is of no real consequence? |
Hi n80 "So would you say that with the right system tuning the quality of the recording, in terms of DR compression and loudness, is of no real consequence?" DRD and quality of a recording are two different issues that somehow got mixed together. Or at least mixed together in the mind of the guy spending bucks on a typical HEA system after "discrete systems" were pushed by the reviewers and certain designers. Basically the whole discrete system era was incredibly flawed and High End Audio has never recovered, they just keep digging the hole deeper until HEA is no more. BTW the reviewers who no longer review admit to the failed push of non-flexible systems. The interesting part for myself is watching the industry starting to turn back to Tuning. There has always been listeners who understand that all recordings have their own unique set of values that require tuning. Take almost any recording and give it to 100 users. You'll find that this recording will rank differently depending on how someone's system is tuned in. What is not universally understood, with the current HEA audiophile, is that most of the audiophiles have moved on from discrete "one sound system" setups and from these forums and magazines that support them. HEA (High End Audio) has been in rapid decline mode since the late 1990's. It's not because recordings are bad, it's because a system that only produces one sound can't play all these different sounds without some type of adjusting. In other words there's no auto adjust in "discrete audio" only thousands of different sounding systems, and the pushers of these systems. This doesn't make any component good or bad, or better or worse. It simply means if your going to play a large range of recording types you need a method of tuning that allows you the flexibility needed. Michael http://www.michaelgreenaudio.net/ |
Excellent information in this thread guys. I concur with the above, most Hard Rock, Metal and Punk is poorly recorded (low-fi approach).
Happy Listening!
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What do you guys think of the SQ of Bruce Springsteen's - "Nebraska"? I know he intended it to sound that way, but listening to it always makes me wonder how a high-quality audiophile version would have sounded.
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