How much is about the recording


For myself, I'm comfortable in knowing I have arrived. At my own personal audio joy through years of empirical data and some engineering knowledge and application. I just wonder how many like minded individuals find as much joy in finding the best recordings vs the perceived next best gear. Peace.
pwayland
@ russ69
Could you make a slightly more arbitrary meaningless statement"

i.e. WHICH, Diana Krall version of "Garden in the Rain" I have found 6 versions in 30 second of looking? I stil haven’t found one cut being use d in multiple collection. And if one was shared between collections was it REMASTERD, and in that Remastering, someone did some butchering?
Just listened to the one from "Love Scenes’ and I think what you are hearing is Krall’s STYLE of STROKING the keys. I have shown many friends over time how she strokes the keys rather than Pounding/striking the keys. Then when she does strike at keys, it does come over with more emphasis. Watch some of her live concerts and you can see it.

Also on studio albums there should be little to NO noise suppression used to begin with. SO possibly if you do hear some, it is likely on a Live cut. Then on that note is it really ’Noise Suppression’ or is it ’COMPRESSION’ that you are pointing out?

I'd like to take it one step further or at lest clarify the issue. I can easily tell a BAD recording from a great recording, but there are also those whose mastering is terrible as opposed to excellent mastering. I have seen it so clearly that even on a CD you can hear the difference. I find so may sources that take a LoFi recording and just save it at a higher resolution trying to pawn it off as something prime. Also it doesn't take an Audiophile setup to notice it. A dumpy Walmart computer speaker on my Rather good computer setup plays a totally different and noticeable sound when a recording comes from better source material as opposed to something where the source was LoFi to begin with.

Good music is such a joyous experience when it's well recorded/engineered.  At the same time when good music like Eric Clapton's classic Layla is poorly recorded it makes me cringe.  Recording and engineering is such an art.  I would recommend an interesting book:  "Making Rumors" by Ken Caillat.  What's interesting to me is that the book tracks one of the most famous rock albums of all time and it's written by the sound engineer!

@russ69 

What does the noise suppression in garden in the rain sound like? I just listened to it and nothing sounded odd to me. Is it throughout the whole song ? I have Rockport Avior ii speakers with a Boulder 866 int. Incredible detail and clarity.
 What components are in your system? 

 

Ron

i.e. WHICH, Diana Krall version of "Garden in the Rain"

Love Scenes Impulse CD IMPD-233

What does the noise suppression in garden in the rain sound like?

The tape hiss like noise is fully suppressed, then as she takes her breath, you hear the background level come up and she starts singing. Someone/some device is definitely gain riding to reduce the background noise on the quiet segments in between her singing. I find the whole album just a tad over-produced.

You'll need some really good tweeters, a system with good extension, and you'll need to turn it up a bit. It hits me over the head but if your system is fairly average you may not hear it. It sounds great on my lessor systems.