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The problem with the music

There are lots of people who frequent this site that have spent significant amounts of money to buy the gear that they use to reproduce their music. I would never suggest that you should not have done that, but I wonder if the music industry is not working against you, or at least, not with you.

For the most part studios are using expensive gear to record with, but is it really all that good? Do the people doing the recording have good systems that can reproduce soundstage, detail and all the other things that audiophiles desire, or do they even care about playback?

I know there are labels that are sympathetic to our obsessions, but does Sony/Columbia, Mercury, or RCA etc. give a rats #$%&@ about what we want?

Recordings (digital) have gotten a lot better since the garbage released in the mid 80's. Some of them are even listenable! BUT lots of people are spending lots of money to get great music when the studios don't seem that interested in doing good recordings. Mike Large, director of operations for Real Worl Studios said "The aim of the music is to connect with you on an emotional level; and I'd be prepared to bet that the system you have at home does that better than any of the systems we make records on."

Do recording engineers even care about relating the emotion of the music, or are they just concerned about the mechanics?

What do you think, and can/ should anything be done about it?
nrchy

Showing 3 responses by ben_campbell

ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
I think the point is Brian it's made to sound "powerful" on small speakers and the like-not sure exactly how that works but there is much talk of compression on here.

A good system when it seperates the sound makes it sound horribly mixed,muddy with the drums particularly affected.

I might be wrong but it's how I hear this album when I put it on my main system-it falls apart in a lot of places.

I think they did it for radio to be honest and I agree you should be able to hit both targets.
This album is as bad an example as I can find though the last Jayhawks record actually clipped out in places.
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
An interesting debate(great points by Slappy and Viridian) but I can't totally relate to Nrchy's opening point.

At the end of the day it is an individual perspective on how we view and listen to music-some have freely admitted on here they have enough music to last them the rest of their lives,others fanatically explore and others are more interested in the quality of recording than the actual music.This hobby clearly attracts people to whom the music is secondary to the equipment.
It's hard to fit everyone in one jar.

So why should we expect engineers to exhibit any less variety?-they are bound to be made up out of charlartans,greedy individuals and people with the soundest integrity and skill hellbent on getting to the core of the musical statement.

Audiophiles tend to make the kind of rash generalisations about music (no new good stuff,all badly recorded blah blah)that they wouldn't like pointed back at themselves.

As for the wider question why should the big record labels worry about a very small niche market?

In my book the responsibility of good sound reproduction lies mostly with one person or group of people-the artists themselves.
I say that with the knowledge that smaller artists struggle with this due to budget.
ben_campbell
1,169 posts
 
Nrchy I don't like the tone in a few of the posts directed at you and interesting as they are they are heading a bit off topic.

I buy a lot of new music and whilst never claimining Audiophile ears I do find the vast majority to sound at least fine and a lot of them good.
Of course there are exceptions-if you take the new U2 album which I will review on Lugs soon-it sounds decent on headphones and on my iPod speakers-put it on my main system and it's pretty horrific.
However I believe that is their intention to make sure the "sound" hits the mass market-I say it in my review U2 didn't get to be one of the biggest bands in the world by worrying about niche markets.

It's a shame because I believe there is no need for this approach but I don't find it that common.
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