So all the craftsmanship of Fleetwood Mac has been lost to the millions of people who have bought their albums, CDs, and streamed their music playing it back on less than stellar equipment? Is that what the surviving members of Fleetwood Mac think?
Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?
I visited a friend recently who has an estimated $150,000 system. At first listen it sounded wonderful, airy, hyper detailed, with an excellent well delineated image, an audiophile's dream. Then we put on a jazz quartet album I am extremely familiar with, an excellent recording from the analog days. There was something wrong. On closing my eyes it stood out immediately. The cymbals were way out in front of everything. The drummer would have needed at least 10 foot arms to get to them. I had him put on a female vocalist I know and sure enough there was sibilance with her voice, same with violins. These are all signs that the systems frequency response is sloped upwards as the frequency rises resulting in more air and detail. This is a system that sounds right at low volumes except my friend listens with gusto. This is like someone who watches TV with the color controls all the way up.
I have always tried to recreate the live performance. Admittedly, this might not result in the most attractive sound. Most systems are seriously compromised in terms of bass power and output. Maybe this is a way of compensating.
There is no right or wrong. This is purely a matter of preference accuracy be damn. What would you rather, real or surreal?
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No brev, the craftsmanship of Fleetwood Mac is not lost at all (at least until Peter Green left). It is the craftsmanship of the recording engineers that is lost and the vast majority of people do not care about that at all, only people like me and donavabdear care about it. Don't you think that at some level what the engineers do is affected by the system they are listening to? If their systems are not accurate how can the work be accurate? |
@mijostyn If you record Anthony Hopkins or Tom Cruse or a famous singer that everyone is acquainted with you better believe that the producer who paid 20M$ for this talent better sound great and more importantly sound as they expected. This is another reason why accuracy is so much more important than surreal. Also engineers aren't robots they can mix in different sounding studios or stadiums to make an artist sound more like they are expected to, this happens if they are using equipment they are familiar with. |
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