This obsession with recording quality is surely an audiophile disease and tends to ever diminish the circle of music played by many of my audio geek friends. It's time to unlearn this emphasis on recorded quality and put the focus back were it belongs, on the music. I love my mono records of jazz from the early 50s. Much of it is poorly recorded, and some of my original pressings have been loved by previous owners that were less than sympathetic to the delicate nature of their surfaces. Honest, I don't even notice. To spend an hour with Miles or Chet, to have the ghosts of long-dead sorcerers haunt my listening room; it's really all I want. Even the rock records that I grew up with, and those screechy Columbia classical recordings don't phase me a bit. I pity all of you that are held back from becoming one with the music because of imperfections in the technology. Perhaps evolving hi-rez formats will be the panacea that you seek.
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 #$%&@ about what we want?
Recordings (digital) have gotten a lot better since the garbage released in the mid 80's. Some of them are even listenable! BUT lots of people are spending lots of money to get great music when the studios don't seem that interested in doing good recordings. Mike Large, director of operations for Real Worl Studios said "The aim of the music is to connect with you on an emotional level; and I'd be prepared to bet that the system you have at home does that better than any of the systems we make records on."
Do recording engineers even care about relating the emotion of the music, or are they just concerned about the mechanics?
What do you think, and can/ should anything be done about it?
For the most part studios are using expensive gear to record with, but is it really all that good? Do the people doing the recording have good systems that can reproduce soundstage, detail and all the other things that audiophiles desire, or do they even care about playback?
I know there are labels that are sympathetic to our obsessions, but does Sony/Columbia, Mercury, or RCA etc. give a rats #$%&@ 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?