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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 1 response by gregm

gregm
3,411 posts
 
...has the recording industry ever been interested in, or rather, concerned about, making (audiophile) quality recordings...
Oh yes. Already in the '60s companies were making concerted efforts to improve the qualty of their recordings. This isnot to say they don't do so now (some contemporary classical recordings are very good and far outclass the actual musical performance IMO).

Unfortunately, however, the cd versions of many older recordings are abysmal.
Unlike much of the classical stuff, contemporary rock/etc recordings are often disappointing (bloated upper bass, pronounced mid-highs, etc).
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