So how can a great system solve less than great recordings

@jumia,

"Hi end (and the rest) systems remain at the mercy of lesser quality recordings, past and present."


As they must. Such is life.

I think we have to assume that the people making the original recording got it right.

If they didn’t then no system will ever get it right. Therefore a remaster (or even shock! horror! - a remix) might be required.

But with so many different editions of popular albums now available it often becomes a question of which one is the best.

George Harrison’s 1970 All Things Must Pass album (triple LP) has been reissued many times since and yet there is no clear consensus as to which version is the definitive one (so far).

The original UK vinyl release on Apple might still be the best, but copies are rare.

Some of the digital versions have been simply awful, yet new ones keep on coming every few years.

@audioguy85,


"Some of my best recordings are from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They knew how to record and master back then, today it is mostly a lost art and most remasters suck in my opinion."



Good points.

It had to be an art back then because of the huge number of variables involved.

All the way from different studios, microphones, mixing desks, tape decks, cutting lathes etc.

Year after year superficial reissues and remasters keep on coming with great fanfare but eventually the usual consensus settles on the originals being the best.

There's hardly ANY reissue today that doesn't suffer from some compression of dynamics. 

They just cannot help but tinker and as a result something valuable has often been lost.

How many times is it the case that the 'period feel' of the recording is the first thing to go.

Do we really want Caruso, Callas, Crosby, Sinatra etc to sound as if they were recorded yesterday?

Thank you very much but I want my music to sound the way it was intended to. As much as I admire the Vic Anesini Elvis remasters they don't sound sound like the Elvis I grew up with.

Close, but not quite.

So just how many reissues of the Beatles, the Kinks, the Doors, Dylan etc do we need before they actually deliver an actual all round definitive improvement? 

Until they actually do this, all that ANY system can do is to increasingly highlight this tinkering.

It's hardly surprising that so many music demos feature a carefully chosen but rather limited repertoire, is it?

Even worse, this tinkering is hardly ever designed for high performance audio systems.

Is it also any wonder that once the novelty has worn off that mounting disappointment gradually brings home the reality that so many of the 1980s CD transfers are still the best along with the original vinyl transfers?

Put simply, it's rather pointless to flog a dead horse.

The recordings matter more than the system, and the considerable  differences between them can only be magnified by better playback gear.

@stuartk ,

Agreed. On a couple of occasions I have put tracks through the open source Audacity software to add a little treble to those which seem to desperately be lacking treble.

It’s a bit of a long-winded process of trial and error to see where the sweet spot in adjustment lies - add too much and you start to lose even more resolution elsewhere.

Sometimes, on certain albums, it’s just bewildering how they came to make such appalling mastering choices in the studio.

You wouldn’t want to remaster your entire collection, but once in a while it could be worth the effort to DIY.

@r_f_sayles 

"..but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured"

That's just it.

I think thought that digital manipulation of sound is a lot more difficult when it comes to audio than when it comes to images.

However when I took a good look at some initially impressive digitally enhanced family photographs it began to look as if it was more of a case of diverting attention rather than any extra resolution. 

Therefore I'd say that image enhancement works better when it comes to removing damage than it does to actually adding resolution.

Perhaps remastering works on the same way? Once you have the lowest generation master tape - the best you can do is to try to remove damage.

The rest is simply case of diverting attention. A practice which has led to the disastrous dynamics crushing 'loudness wars' as well as sometimes adding gross treble artefacts (new, improved etc)

Here's an article that describes how enhancement seems to work.


https://www.lumenera.com/blog/the-truth-about-enhancing-images-what-s-possible-and-what-s-not