Many of us got into this hobby because we fell in love with a bunch of music at some point and discovered that the music we loved could be more enjoyable and fulfilling if it was played on better gear than what was playing the music when we fell in love with it. As such, we started getting better HiFi gear and then started learning more about the available gear by reading hobbyist magazines, books, websites, forums, blogs, and even the marketing material high end brand gear was providing to us.
This is what led to many of us joining this forum, or one of its several predecessors.
To better enjoy our new gear, tuned properly and put into better rooms that we ever thought we'd have, we started listening to demo material which took advantage of everything we were spending our time and money on, and that took us to ethereal heights we hadn't known before. But we still loved that music that got us hooked on the art form and all the gear and knowledge we acquired.
However, it can be disappointing to hear what we thought was the greatest music of all time played on a perfect audio system. The leap in the level aural ecstasy we experienced going from FM Radio over a pair of Sony earbud headphones, or from our parent's huge Kenwood separates stereo with poor performing faux 8-way speakers, to a gear separates system of our own with a great pair of Paradigm or Advent speakers and that amazing NAD integrated amp - a leap in excitement and thrilling experiences that got us into this hobby - get's harder and harder to reproduce with the same music.
I remember distinctly a former active member of our group sitting with me at a listening session in Atlanta in front of a pair of Dynaudio C1 speakers after I completed the 73 minutes of my speaker auditioning CDs leaping up and declaring it his turn. He put on his iPod and played his beloved Radiohead album and was so disgusted he got up and walked out just a few minutes into the music. He expected that music, which sounded a little lifeless and lacking airy treble and punchy bass on his midrange home rig to sound amazing on this set of killer speakers in a relatively well treated room. He had the prior music as reference, and was eager to be blown away by his favorite music.
But, it was horrible. The music was dead, flat, dull, honky, and drab. Everything you could imagine wanting in the sound quality of a recording was absent. He was devastated.
But, I argue that is just how it is. Great music is great music even if it isn't as clear, dynamic, punchy, shimmery, or aurally delightful as the demonstration tracks used by audio stores to impress you. The fact you loved it over your car audio system or the factory earphones that came with your iPhone doesn't mean it has to sound better on a $5,000 set of speakers in a well tuned room.
However, it is disappointing when you realize the bass drum in that Motown song will never sound any better than it did on the AM radio in the dentist's office when you first hear it and fell in love with it. It can be frustrating to realize that you may never understand what the drummer yells during the break in that song you discovered in a movie soundtrack.
What I find strange is that this topic has come up with no fewer than 5 people over the past couple of weeks, including some of you guys. Some of you are disappointed enough to talk about wishing it were different. Some even boost the bass or treble, or, buy dynamic range expanders, or, go looking for different versions of the same songs you love which are better recorded. You buy remastered versions of albums thinking they will be more dynamic or have more bass and treble than the originals. You think acquiring high resolution version or going back to vinyl will somehow restore the excitement the first time you heard those great tunes.
But I argue, it is what it is. We don't go removing the brush strokes and adding colors to paintings by Renoir or Monet to make them look more like photographs. Ted Turner thought colorizing old black and white classic movies would make them better, but today we rarely see those renditions and instead see restored black and white versions. Art isn't about making one thing into something else because something else might have some characteristic you like an awful lot.
I see it like this...
The more perfect I make my reproduction system, the less likely I am damaging the original recording when I listen it to. Sure, for much of my favorite music my listening rig is extremely over the top and unnecessary. But I know it can never, ever sound better no matter what I do. I like that. The Kinks' "The Village Green Preservation Society" album cannot sound any better than it does on my rig even if it doesn't any worse on my uncle's old Kenwood separates system with faux 8-way speakers. However, when I do put in a recording which tests the limits of my system, I get to enjoy that more on my ultra-precise system than I ever would on my uncle's old system. In fact, there are literally hundreds of albums I own which I don't think I would enjoy very much at all if I didn't have very good to supreme reproduction systems on which to listen to them.
So, the more time and money I spend on my listening system, the greater my ability to enjoy more recordings. I don't need to "improve" the lower quality recordings to love them every bit as much as I did in 1982 when I first heard them and fell in love. But, to my surprise, some music I assumed was recorded poorly, like early Van Halen, turns out to be really damn amazing on my high end system. It is delightful to unexpectedly get a shock like that.
What about you? Do you feel the need to "improve" your favorite old recordings which are lacking in the sound quality department? Or, are you like me and happily accept their limitations?
This is what led to many of us joining this forum, or one of its several predecessors.
To better enjoy our new gear, tuned properly and put into better rooms that we ever thought we'd have, we started listening to demo material which took advantage of everything we were spending our time and money on, and that took us to ethereal heights we hadn't known before. But we still loved that music that got us hooked on the art form and all the gear and knowledge we acquired.
However, it can be disappointing to hear what we thought was the greatest music of all time played on a perfect audio system. The leap in the level aural ecstasy we experienced going from FM Radio over a pair of Sony earbud headphones, or from our parent's huge Kenwood separates stereo with poor performing faux 8-way speakers, to a gear separates system of our own with a great pair of Paradigm or Advent speakers and that amazing NAD integrated amp - a leap in excitement and thrilling experiences that got us into this hobby - get's harder and harder to reproduce with the same music.
I remember distinctly a former active member of our group sitting with me at a listening session in Atlanta in front of a pair of Dynaudio C1 speakers after I completed the 73 minutes of my speaker auditioning CDs leaping up and declaring it his turn. He put on his iPod and played his beloved Radiohead album and was so disgusted he got up and walked out just a few minutes into the music. He expected that music, which sounded a little lifeless and lacking airy treble and punchy bass on his midrange home rig to sound amazing on this set of killer speakers in a relatively well treated room. He had the prior music as reference, and was eager to be blown away by his favorite music.
But, it was horrible. The music was dead, flat, dull, honky, and drab. Everything you could imagine wanting in the sound quality of a recording was absent. He was devastated.
But, I argue that is just how it is. Great music is great music even if it isn't as clear, dynamic, punchy, shimmery, or aurally delightful as the demonstration tracks used by audio stores to impress you. The fact you loved it over your car audio system or the factory earphones that came with your iPhone doesn't mean it has to sound better on a $5,000 set of speakers in a well tuned room.
However, it is disappointing when you realize the bass drum in that Motown song will never sound any better than it did on the AM radio in the dentist's office when you first hear it and fell in love with it. It can be frustrating to realize that you may never understand what the drummer yells during the break in that song you discovered in a movie soundtrack.
What I find strange is that this topic has come up with no fewer than 5 people over the past couple of weeks, including some of you guys. Some of you are disappointed enough to talk about wishing it were different. Some even boost the bass or treble, or, buy dynamic range expanders, or, go looking for different versions of the same songs you love which are better recorded. You buy remastered versions of albums thinking they will be more dynamic or have more bass and treble than the originals. You think acquiring high resolution version or going back to vinyl will somehow restore the excitement the first time you heard those great tunes.
But I argue, it is what it is. We don't go removing the brush strokes and adding colors to paintings by Renoir or Monet to make them look more like photographs. Ted Turner thought colorizing old black and white classic movies would make them better, but today we rarely see those renditions and instead see restored black and white versions. Art isn't about making one thing into something else because something else might have some characteristic you like an awful lot.
I see it like this...
The more perfect I make my reproduction system, the less likely I am damaging the original recording when I listen it to. Sure, for much of my favorite music my listening rig is extremely over the top and unnecessary. But I know it can never, ever sound better no matter what I do. I like that. The Kinks' "The Village Green Preservation Society" album cannot sound any better than it does on my rig even if it doesn't any worse on my uncle's old Kenwood separates system with faux 8-way speakers. However, when I do put in a recording which tests the limits of my system, I get to enjoy that more on my ultra-precise system than I ever would on my uncle's old system. In fact, there are literally hundreds of albums I own which I don't think I would enjoy very much at all if I didn't have very good to supreme reproduction systems on which to listen to them.
So, the more time and money I spend on my listening system, the greater my ability to enjoy more recordings. I don't need to "improve" the lower quality recordings to love them every bit as much as I did in 1982 when I first heard them and fell in love. But, to my surprise, some music I assumed was recorded poorly, like early Van Halen, turns out to be really damn amazing on my high end system. It is delightful to unexpectedly get a shock like that.
What about you? Do you feel the need to "improve" your favorite old recordings which are lacking in the sound quality department? Or, are you like me and happily accept their limitations?
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