Unexpected Results

Seems healthy to me.   If a destination has been reached and something does not feel entirely right, a bit of role play can help shake up what was behind the aspirations.

of course you don't have to put on a green wig !   I always thought that I hated country and western music but recently started collecting some and listened really hard. Now I really like it.

because you put on a green wig?

Actually I don't see anything wrong with seeking out music which is known to be well recorded/produced/mastered etc.

Having acquired it and listened to it, you will either like it and listen to it regularly, or you won't, and it will "gather dust".  Its just another way of exploring music.  But what you may find is that the quality and care in the recording allows music to connect with you in a way that it may not if it sounded rubbish, compressed etc.  Even if it were something you may not ordinarily buy or listen to.

This isn't the same thing as deliberately NOT listening to (or seeking out) music that you really like but which has poor production quality.  That would indeed contravene "its all about the music".  I think Darke Bear proposes a good solution if that scenario starts to creep in, which is to try and arrange listening sessions so you don't flip from the best recording ever to the worst.  That's like having a bottle of fine claret chased down with a bottle of plonk.  Some plonk (or lets say house wine) can however be enjoyed with a meal, as long as there's nothing else to shine a light on its shortcomings.

Each to their own of course, but that's how I see it.

hi Dave, great post! I've reached my personal end of the road system (252/300 etc.) and it sounds great, no question. but the feeling of for example first listening of the guitar solo of comfortably numb will never come back. sometimes i listen to music and think more of how good it sounds than to hear the music. growing older is a funny thing; i can buy things i have never thought i could ever afford but this (hard to explain for me in english) deep diving into the music with all senses is away. but - luxury problem, enjoy, what we have ) christoph

You still have some upgrades to go before you can reach complete audio heaven 

CD555 with 2 x PS555 DR

Dr on the 552

DR on the 500

Joking, of course.

I think DB has it 100 % right, I was not happy with my own system and started to fix all the setup and cabling issues, and it is a big step in the right direction for me, I still don't feel I am there, but at least now aware of the issues involved.

Wise words Indeed.

But I'm still going to do something Radikal tomorrow to try to recapture the musical joy I found with my first pre-Cirkus LP12 into a Naim Nait 1 and Rogers LS7 loudspeakers. 

TOBYJUG,

I'd never thought of that. I hope you this was not cut and pasted from a different type of forum. Anyway, as with all hifi decisions, I'll have to run this by SWMBO first, especially as I'll need to borrow the wig etc from her.

dave

Hi Dave, interesting thread.. There appears two themes... The life goal achievement and sence of possible anti climax once achieved? I guess there are many aspects to this perhaps mostly outside of hifi and music..

and the other of better quality audio equipment being more picky about the music/media..

to me this definitely doesn't resonate... I have found the better the system the less it cares about needing the 'right' sort of music.. it simply plays it to effectively . So I do wonder if something is not optimum in your setup set up and possibly adding to the sense of anticlimax...

As a sense of perspective my 202/200 was a little fussy with some recordings quite hard to listen or simply dull or lacking spirit, my 282/250 this happened a lot less.. My 252/250 simply plays everything such that it sounds interesting and involving... even bubble gum pop... and because of this I feel my audio goal has been reached...

This thoughts may fit in here. After several years of up- and downgrading I have found my level for hifikit is based on my "personality". As an example, I would never feel comfortable driving a BMW X5, I'm below that level, even if I could afford it.

When I have been at 252/300 level I have had big problems enjoy music and my obvious conclusion is I'm beyond the inbuild level in my head/ heart   I'd rather own several lower speced setups.

Seriously spoken And what's "personality is based on is another story.

I would be still interested Simon if you would like to be part of the 552 club or if you are content with the 252 ?

 I understand exactly what the OP means about music   I feel that people suggesting that it may be the system are missing the point  

 When I'm watching a movie one of the features that I rate it by will be cinematography 

 Undoubtably cinematography is shown off much better in the cinema than it is at home on my 32 inch television 

 I similarly  rate production values and sound quality of music and this is undoubtedly shown off better by my naim system than my Bose sound bar. 

 In fact poorer sounding recordings or  ones mastered for headphones sound relatively better on the Bose system than on the Naim system.

 I think it is a fallacy that the better system the better everything sounds regardless   

SJB

SJB hmm I do take a different view... I think top flight systems and speakers correctly set up will show recordings for what they are... And even very compressed, distorted or lowfi productions have a sort of quality that is enjoyable.. Clearly poor music will always remain poor however. I find some lesser hifi systems can make some recordings quite hard or tiring to listen to... And with my experience of Bose domestic sound systems they provide a very filtered or processed rendition.. Yes inoffensive, but not really a patch compared to a highly capable replay system.

Simon

In fact we are in agreement here, it's just that I don't like what compressed music sounds like. The better the system the less I like it. 

Low-fi is a different matter completely . Sebadoh, Pavement, Palace, etc. sound great to me on my Naim. 

However music mastered for a set of headphones or PC speakers (understandably to me) sound better on these type of systems.

Again my video analogy, video "mastered for TV" will look better on TV than in the cinema. 

SJB

But I really don't think music is ever mastered for PC speakers or headphones...and even if it was there would be so many variables the end result would almost certainly be ineffective.

i don't think it's even mastered from an eq or dynamics point of view specifically for lossy codecs as distinct from lossless ones either... again too many variables such as MP3, AAC or Ogg Vorbis and different bandwidths.

Simon

This is an interesting thing.

When a recording is issued, what is the target audience?

Mostly with classical music the recording is expected to be replayed on a high quality system with large dynamic capability, and considerable accuracy with timbre and articulation. Even - perish the thought - a capability to produce a very precise sense of instrumental separation in the stereo sound stage.

With recordings that are highly compressed, then the target is somewhat different. Car radios, workplace back-ground music. iPods and the like ... Unfortunately when you play a classical recording in these less optimal replay systems that the compressed recordings are meant for the result is usually dreadful, because the quiet bits get lost against the ambience that is typical of the listening circumstances where such systems are normally used. 

And if you play a highly compressed recording on a high quality system that is typically suitable for classical music, you are struck immediately by the artificiality of the result, and an apparently crude approach to eliminating large dynamic changes. 

I do not really think that there is a solution to this apart from accepting that the recording style may not be optimal for the replay that you have. The way that a recording is issued will be a commercial decision based on what the target audience will be using to reproduce it. The commercial imperative does not cater for minorities in reality.

ATB from George

Why do some recordings(even supposedly hi-res) have a dynamic range of 5-6 while others have one of 17-18? Is this done intentionally or is it just incompetence?

If the low dynamic range crap is intended for the MP3 crowd does it mean that the higher dynamic range stuff will sound worse? I don't think so.

All this is very frustrating.

Intentionally as a commercial decision to cater for the target audience and the sort of replay systems that they use. The intention is to please the majority of the potential audience, and indeed this may be frustrating for the minority.

ATB from George

Indeed the mastering will give a certain feel, and with a lot of rock and pop a high degree of dynamic compression will provide more energy and bite to the recording. Closely micphoned vocals are almost always heavily compressed to give a powerful and sometimes intimate vocal sound.

I am told the so called loudness wars started in the US with country and western music where special masterings of new releases were made heavily compressed so they sounded louder and more prominent than other competing releases on the radio... and ultimately evolved into many areas of commercial music and set a style and expectation of how the music sounded by much of the buying public.

its interesting the AES published some research on this based on mastering techniques and styles, and apparently the peak  of the loudness wars  was I seem to remember in the early 00s and has been declining gradually since then.

Simon

An interesting post Dave. I consider myself fortunate to own a Naim 500 series system and there is surely an aspirational aspect to it if one has to claw one's way up to this level, as most of us have - enjoying the steps along the way. My system provides me with musical pleasure on an almost daily basis; proper older recordings permitting.

Okay; I've arrived. What now?

I'm getting a resonance from your thoughts along the lines of the colours appearing to be more vivid when one is young. It's a truism. As Mr Michael Stipe so beautifully and simply states the phenomenon in 'Nightswimming' - reminiscing on the vibrant buzz of reckless youth - "These things they go away; replaced by every day".

I probably got more of a musical frisson from my BSR MP60, Prinzsound amp and a pair of Wharfedale Dentons at the tender age of 17 than I do from my current system. My first system would sound awful now, but that's not the point.

Maturity brings other/different benefits of course. Can someone please let me know what they are?

Phew. Enough with the psychoanalysis. Back to John Martyn, droning away and soothing me.

John.

It appears the destination IS the journey.

Apart from the things that went wrong in peoples life as they get older there is more I think!

Some people hang-on to these more than others, some assimilate them into wisdom and music helps with this I find.

Our Brain continues to evolve and develop as we age, unless we become rather moribund and fixed in our outlooks. If you keep a healthy pragmatic and positive outlook on life then you should have good mental health and a an older better-developed brain to enjoy your music in greater depth and width than when you were younger.

I look back positively on my HiFi journey as it sat alongside the rest of my life with large spells with what seen now was inferior reproduction, but still excellent music at the time. As I got older I wanted to explore deeper into my music and that became possible for me more towards the end of my working life as other critical things got paid-down and funds finally became available.

All personal choice as to what suits you. I essentially agree with J.N. above.

DB.

about time you start listening to classical music; totally different and way more inspiring that would be.

Mmm, this is all very interesting stuff.  I have a couple of thoughts to share.  Firstly, I think George's assessment of the motive behind the compressed recordings is spot on, it probably has less to do with the equipment used for replay, and much more about the environment and situation that replay will mostly take place in.  This is further proved to me by the fact that recordings I singled out at the age of 10, as sounding better than others even on my Tandy cassette radio, are among the recordings that fit into my highly-approved-of category on the Naim system.  I also still have a frequent interaction with lo-fi products, mainly in the form the Pure Contour D1 in the kitchen, and likewise, those I consider to be bad recordings,  they sound kind of bad, and the good ones sound pretty good.  In short, compressed overly loud and bad recordings don't sound better on lo-fi than good recordings, end of story.

Moving onto the hifi ladder climbing, and bearing in mind I am only around rung number two, and plan to hang around there for some time, I've never felt that any improvement in my system has made bad recordings sound worse.  I find that bad recordings still sound better the more revealing and controlled the system is.  In fact, i think control is the key to this.  With my previous setup, I'd often notice with compressed rock / pop recordings, that the opening bars were not too offensive, though you could hear the flaws, but when things kicked off and the mix became complex, it had a tendency to blur a little, and these types of recording seemed emphasize that far more, and it could make quite a bad noise sometimes as a result.  With my Naim system, the same flaws are present at the start of a track, and as the track progresses I am often already cringing in anticipation of what is to come, yet, somehow it manages to unravel everything so much better, and the moment of unbearable racket never seems to arrive.  

Even though one has to accept that some recordings are less than ideal, when I listen to them, I have no regrets about the not insignificant amounts of cash consumed in the process of upgrading my system over the last 12 months.  Thankfully.

http://productionadvice.co.uk/mastering-for-earbuds/

some salient quotes

• The better the reproduction system, the more music that sounds bad on it.
• The more revealing the monitoring, the more revealing it is – of flaws and problems.

How much this bothers one is obviously subjective but objectively the better the system the more obvious the flaws, the Bose speakers being less revealing, reveal less and so the poorer mastered/ recorded music sounds relatively better on the Bose than the Naim.

SJB