I listen to music that I love, not the fidelity of a recording for the sake of its sound. The very idea of Audiophile recordings makes me disgusted. My kit is very resolving with a Brinkmann Balance, OTL amplifiers, and field-coiled loudspeakers. Now do I hear that some recordings are better than others? Sure! Do I wish some of my favorites sounded better? Also, a sure thing! Now I find that say, a line-contact cartridge, setup properly with good SRA and zenith alignment, and having a “right” pressing makes a huge difference, perhaps a decided one, but I never pursue sound over performance and my particular music favorites. Never(.) Often this way of retrieval reduces the noise and dramatically increases the fidelity, but there are no simple and universal answers. Guess that’s why I bristle at the idea of being an audiophile. There may well be more forgiving equipment in its portrayal and yet still be highly resolving, but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured.
So how can a great system solve less than great recordings
It seems no matter how good a system is, the quality of recording quality takes priority.
Formsome reason nobody talks about challenges of making older recordings sound better. Classics from 70s and 80s are amazing tunes, but even remastered editions still cant make sound qualiity shortcomings all better. Profoundly sad. Some older stuff sounds quite good but lots of stuff is disturbing.
Formsome reason nobody talks about challenges of making older recordings sound better. Classics from 70s and 80s are amazing tunes, but even remastered editions still cant make sound qualiity shortcomings all better. Profoundly sad. Some older stuff sounds quite good but lots of stuff is disturbing.