Can Bad Recordings sound Good?

[Confused]

I am a bit late to this thread, but I would like to share some personal thoughts on the OP's question.

 

Like many on this forum, I spend rather too much time messing with my system in the pursuit of ever better sound, and yet for me one of the biggest variables in sound quality is the recording itself.  We then have the @fas42 view that there are no bad recordings, you should not blame the recording if something sounds bad, but look for issues in the rig.  OK - I do not entirely agree with this view, but I can see at least some merit in this as a mind set.  Consider the following:

 

There are two main places that I listen to music.  One is at home on my home audio system, the other is in my car.  The audio system in my car is not bad, tonally it is quite good, I am more than happy to listen to it.  That said, my home audio system is definitively better.

 

In the car I tend to listen to my own music collection.  I have this slightly quirky thing I do which is to load a music player with batches of tracks alphabetically based on the first letter of the track title.  I currently have my entire music collection of songs beginning with "O" in my car.  I quite like doing this because over time it means I actually listen to my entire digital music collection, plus listening alphabetically by track tile effectively gives an almost random range of artists and genres.  95% of the time, whatever I listen to in the car sound fine, I think more about the music that worrying about sound quality.  But every now and again, I will stumble across a track in the car that does not sound good.  Maybe it sounds "thin", like all the bass has receded, maybe a bit harsh, maybe too bright.  In terms of what irritates me personally, it is more often than not problems with tonality that really annoy me, to the point I stop enjoying the music.

 

Anyway, occasionally I will listen to something in the car and be annoyed by some aspect of the sound quality.  When this happens, I will very often re-listen to the same track (exactly the same track, from the same CD rip) on my home system.  So do these bad recording sound better or worse on my more competent home audio system?  Here is the key point for me, this aspect varies considerably.  On some occasions, I will listen to something in the car and think "this sounds terrible, thin and lifeless, horrible, a terrible recording".  I try the same track at home, and the it suddenly it is "hey, actually this sounds really good".  Somehow the home system is extracting something from the recording that was completely lost the car system.  This I think is broadly in line with the fas42 philosophy of "no bad recordings"  On other occasions, I might listen to something in the car and think "this sounds terrible, it sounds thin and shrill, treble to slice your head off".  I listen to the same track on the home system, and yes, it sounds terrible, thin and shrill, treble to slice your head off, exactly the same issues as picked up on the lesser in car system.  So in these cases this is not in line with the fas42 philosophy, but a more simple "garbage in garbage out", if there are issues with a recording, a decent audio system will simply faithfully reproduce these issues. 

 

Two examples above, but I find a whole spectrum of scenarios over time.

 

In terms of the converse situation, that is I listen to something in the car and think "wow, this sounds superb", pretty much 100% of the time when I listen at home it is a case of "wow, this sounds superb".

 

So in conclusion I think it is impossible to generalise with the "bad recording" issue, the more you dig into this issue the more complex it will look.  Plus, the above text is simply trying to illustrate how I subjectively observe things.  I am quite sure that someone else listening in my car, then on my home system, would observe things I do not, or maybe observe things a little differently.  Things that irritate me might not bother someone else, with the reverse also being possible.  A fascinating topic I think.

[Confused]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

This is the coalface ... I had this thinking 15 years ago; but lesson after lesson delivered by a "bad" recording snapping into shape weaned me out of it 🙂 ... these days, I go straight to the recordings in this category - they tell me so, so much about what the rig is getting wrong; so, very little time wasted in frittering away at the edges, making "quite decent" recordings sound a touch better ...

I did say at the end of my post that "I think it is impossible to generalise with the "bad recording" issue".  So what is a bad recording?

 

Much of my post referred to my own subjective observations.  If there is something in the recording that irritates me, then a decent system will faithfully reproduce the irritation.  What irritates me, may not irritate another.  So someone else may be able be able to listen to the same track on a well optimised system, that is doing such a good job extracting every other detail of the music that the listener can indeed listen past the "irritation".  But when I listen, I still just hear the irritation, if it happens to be something I am personally subjectively sensitive to.  As a different example, others in this thread have mentioned issues with sound staging in recordings.  I love a recording with a decent sound stage, but curiously, recordings with obviously poor sound staging do not irritate me.  So I can "listen past" such problems in a recording, and still enjoy the music and the performance.  For others, the poor sound staging in the recording could be so annoying that the track ultimately becomes unlistenable.  

 

This is me, my subjective world.  As a good example of this, if a recording has truly excessive HF, the recording will annoy me.  It will annoy me in the car, it will annoy me on my headphone rig, it will annoy me using an iPhone and earbuds, it will annoy me on almost every hifi system on the planet.  With the possible exceptions of a hifi system with a treble control that has been turned down quite a lot, or maybe a system that has had the tweeters removed, or maybe a tiny radio type speaker with no HF response anyway.  But on any reasonably well set up system, if a recording has way too much treble, it will annoy me.  A decent system will faithfully reproduce the excessive treble.  With this being an aspect I am sensitive to personally, I will not be able to listen past it, no matter how "well sorted" the system

 

But lets argue this point to the ridiculous.  Lets say you had a truly bad recording.  I mean really bad.  Not a case of a 60's recording that may have a touch of tape hiss or HF roll off, or a modern track that may be overly compressed and the mix a touch hot, but something truly terrible.  Maybe a track that has the treble boosted +50dB, and all low frequencies brick wall filtered below 1kHz.  OK - A crazy example, but surely we can all agree that such a recording would sound bad on anything.  As I said, we cannot generalise either about "bad" recordings or as to how one individual may subjectively react to such a bad recording.

[Confused]

12 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

The above would appear, unintentionally or otherwise, to define a poor recording as one that is "unlistenable". Surely it does not have to be that bad to be called a poor recording. The fact that you can "listen past" one obvious flaw and someone else can "listen past" another obvious flaw does not change the fact that both are poor recordings. In each case we have an example of a poor recording that may "sound good" to some, but not because of good sound.

 

 

The example above is different. Virtually everyone would consider a recording with "truly excessive HF" of the type you describe to be a poor recording. The test is not whether or not you can "listen past it". Objectively, it is a poor recording.

 

Having said that, there are flaws and there are flaws. There are recordings with minor ones where only a subjective evaluation would  consider it to be a poor recording. With these, it is a question of personal opinion. But there are many with major flaws that can and should generally be considered to be poor recordings. The fact that some can "listen past" those major flaws does not change that characterization.

 

No, I was not trying to define a poor recording as one that is unlistenable, rather I was describing possible subjective listening reactions to certain aspects that may manifest in poor recordings.  So if that is how it read to anyone, yes, it was quite unintentional.

 

In fact, I think it is probably near to impossible to find a definition of "poor recordings" or "bad recordings" that we would all agree upon, such is the subjective nature of the topic.  Which has me thinking, maybe this:

 

All unlistenable recordings are poor recordings.  Not all poor recordings are unlistenable.

 

Of course, the above only works on a personal subjective level.  One person's "this recording is unlistenable" is another person's "ok, this is not a perfect recording, but what a great track!  There are even subsets of this, I have some recordings where I absolutely love the music, but there are flaws in the recording that annoy me so much that it makes it very difficult for me to enjoy the actual music. 

 

So perhaps this is one of the keys to the "can bad recordings sound good" question?  If one can personally listen past the flaws that define the recordings as "bad", then the answer is yes.  This also begs the question as to the systems influence on this.  I would say in some cases a decent system will simply accurately reproduce the flaws in stark detail, and if the listener is sensitive to these flaws than a decent system will not help make the bad recording sound good.  On the other hand, if a decent system extracts more detail and life from the music itself, this may enable the listen to listen past the flaws and then enjoy the music more than ever.  I think this is behind the phenomenon I was describing in a earlier post, where I mentioned that I can listen to something in the car, and think "poor recording", then listen at home and think "no, this actually sounds quite good", then on another occasion I can listen to something in the car, and think "poor recording", then when I listen at home it is "yes, this is indeed a poor recording".  So this is a result on whether or not the higher resolution of the domestic system helps the listener to listen past the flaws, or if the domestic system simply reproduces the flaws in ever greater clarity.

[Confused]

32 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

Bottom line in your opinion: A bad recording can sound good if you can enjoy it despite the bad sound [quality].

Ummm, yes, OK, I'll take that one on the chin.

 

Although in fairness my statement should be read in the context of the rest of my post, but I agree that that sentence does looks a bit odd. 

 

So more accurately, I would say a bad recording has the potential to sound better on a decent system, and be more enjoyable, assuming specific flaws in the recording do not personally irritate.  But its still a bad recording.  I guess it could then be considered to "sound good" in terms of the music itself being enjoyable, which is a rather different thing to "sound good" in absolute sound quality terms.

 

 

[Confused]

On ‎5‎/‎17‎/‎2020 at 8:56 AM, fas42 said:

The treble may be "excessive" - but the amount of non-liner distortion impacting that frequency area is absolutely critical - do everything to reduce the misbehaviour below a certain amount; the mind then accepts the energy as being valid, and compensates. Yes, this may vary per listener; but so far I've found that if I'm happy with the treble, then those around me have no issues with the sound either.

OK - Reducing unpleasant distortions in the system is a good idea, I cannot see anyone would disagree with that.  But what if there were significant non-linear treble distortions in the recording?  Granted, a system without HF non linear distortions will reproduce the recording better than a system with HF non linear distortions.

 

But if you listen to an unfamiliar recording on an unfamiliar system and you observe these non linear distortions, how would you know if they were in the recording or generated by the system?  Or in other words, a perfect recording played on a system generating modest non-liner distortion would sound the same as a recording with modest non-liner distortion played on a perfect system.

 

So yes, do everything to reduce the misbehaviour in the system, I agree.  But this does not eliminate the issue if the problem is in the recording any more than a perfect recording would eliminate the issue if the problem in the system.

[Confused]

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

What you say makes sense ... surely a recording with significant issues in the treble area will be hard to digest? ... Well, the practical side of it, rather than any theory about what may be happening, is that the mind has enough ability to "hear through" this, IME - there is a single source of the anomalies, that within the recording itself; which is not compounded, largely, by any in the playback chain ... the brain very, very quickly registers the 'signature' of the track, and extracts what it knows belongs to the music, and rejects that that doesn't. The addition of what is typically a variation of the style of treble distortion, from the replay misbehaving, is too much for the listening mind - and it gives up.

 

9 hours ago, fas42 said:

Fortunately, this is not how it works - every thing I've learned over the years supports the idea that the better the playback gets, the better the chance that an "unlistenable" recording will come good. This "miracle" has happened too many times, for me to think otherwise.

 

To be fair, we are in the realms of the subjective here.  So what one person experiences might be true for them, even if others experience differently.  How could we ever know?

 

First to say that I do see the value in what you are saying, in terms of a mindset to assist with improving a system.  Rather than "blame" the recording, look to see if there is something in the system that may be exacerbating the issue, something that can be improved or anomalies that can be removed.  Why not?  A quest to make all recording as listenable as possible seems valid.

 

With that said, I can see all this in a completely different way.  As an example, I have a small DAB radio.  It is not "high fidelity".  No recording will sound good on it, in the "absolute sound" definition of sounding good.  Yet, I can listen to almost anything on that little radio, it has quite a rich, pleasant, and mellow tone.  I can enjoy the music, and will almost never hear anything on it where I will think "this is a bad recording".  So in a way, all music and all recordings are "listenable" on that little radio, almost nothing irritates.  I guess in absolute terms, all the radio is doing is reducing everything to a common denominator of poor sound quality.  But it is not quite that simple, it is pleasant and enjoyable to listen too, but the lack of resolution and lack of full frequency response I think can mask a whole range of issues in the recording, to the point where although nothing sounds spectacularly good, nothing irritates either, so it can be enjoyable if the music appeals.

 

When you move to a decent system, the situation changes.  The resolution and full frequency response of the system will bring issues in the recording into clear focus.  Yes, of course any problems in the system will likely exacerbate problems in the recording, so it is a fine and noble quest to try to eliminate such problems in the system, but even if you achieved a hypothetical perfect system, with zero distortion, errors or anomalies, then this system will just faithfully reproduce any errors in the recording.  At this point, the ability of the brain to "extracts what it knows belongs to the music, and rejects that that doesn't" would depend on the nature of the defect, and the subjective response of ones own brain.  To this point, I have a rough idea of how my brain is responding, most of the time at least, but little idea re the brains of others.  What I am pretty sure about is that my little brain would still be annoyed by certain anomalies in the recording, even when listening on a hypothetical "perfect" system.  I know my brain, there are some things it would never listen past. 

 

Yet, I have been surprised by how some upgrades and changes to my system have improved my enjoyment of some "lesser" recordings, so I get the idea, I really do.   It is just I know my brain gets VERY grumpy in the presence of some recording problems, so this idea has its limitations, for me at least.  For example, I just know that there are some recording issues that my own brain could never "listen past", I know for a fact that it just is not possible.  OK - You could counter this by saying that I have never head a system with the full "magic" qualities, I could counter saying I know for a fact that no competent system would allow me to listen past certain deficiencies in the recording.  I do know my brain better that most though.

[Confused]

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

So far, those around me are generally in agreement when I feel a rig is in a good place - the few naysayers have always been, ummm, audiophiles 😝 ... their ability to listen to a system stinking with distortion, and "hear past it", always amazes me ... 🙂.

I'm an audiophile!  In fact, I am most definitely an audiophile in the dictionary sense of the word.  To be honest, I suspect anyone responding to my recent posts in this thread must be an audiophile too.  Maybe you are referring to some kind of sub-set?  Actually, thinking about it, having the power to hear past a system stinking with distortion could save a lot of money, and presumably make recordings stinking in distortion sound just fine too?

 

16 hours ago, fas42 said:

Well, I would be curious what I would hear if I listened to one of your "bad" recordings on your rig, and then have you listen to that same recording on a setup that I was happy with the tune of ...

 

Here I can only agree. This would be far more interesting and enlightening than debating on a forum in text form.  A bit tricky at the moment though, I suspect you are over 10,000 miles away, and at the moment I risk getting arrested just for traveling any further than the local supermarket.  (due to the pandemic that is, I am not wanted by the police or anything)

 

Noting the above limitations of all this, I think it would be interesting if anyone could post some YouTube clips or similar, maybe including bad recordings that they could happily listen to, or maybe some examples of recordings so bad or annoying in some way that they are not considered listenable, or any examples and variations of the theme.  Pairs of recordings each side of ones personal "listenable" divide would be excellent.

 

OK - I know YouTube quality is not ideal, but in the context of recordings on the margins of listenability, it should not be too much of a limiting factor.

 

Is anyone interested in doing this?  It might prove to be a catalyst for some interesting and enlightening discussion?

[Confused]

15 hours ago, fas42 said:

A good example is the album Adele 21

 

I have never listened to Adele 21.  Does this mean I am not an audiophile after all?

[Confused]

Inspired by the recent posts here, I had a listen to Adel 21 at the weekend.  In fact, I tried it on my main system, and for comparison on a Dell PC using a cheap Jabra Skye headset.

 

As I mentioned earlier, I had not previously listened to Adele 21, but I was aware that as a recording it had a poor reputation, in some circles at least.

 

To my ears, I would not say it was a "bad" recording as such, although I felt that it would be (could be) a better recording if it was less compressed.  The things that really irritate me in some recordings are tonal inaccuracies, too bright, too thin, exaggerated bass etc., this kind of thing.  In this regards, I found Adel 21 to be fine, so I could happily listen to it either on my main system or my cheap headset.

 

In terms of the "can bad recordings sound good" question, yes, it sounded a lot better on my main system than on a cheap USB headset running off a stock PC.  But did the main system resolve all of the recording issues?  No it did not.  Although it sounded much better on the main system, the main system did nothing to disguise the fact that the recording is overly compressed.  So a good system can make a recording sound better, but there are limits.  Yes, more can be extracted from the recording, but garbage in garbage out still applies.

 

Also, although I have my own personal niggles that can make a recoding "unlistenable" , and Adel 21 did not offend those niggles, I can easily imagine a listener who is very irritated by overly compressed recordings may very well just want to change tracks and listen to something else.

[Confused]

On 5/27/2020 at 12:11 AM, sandyk said:

Confused

Adele-Rumour Has It. This is what SeeDeClip Duo Pro did for this track.

Note the improved soundstage too. It can also be played directly using the Dropbox player

Alex

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zwhkyr2cp3vzfo0/102. Rumour Has It_2.wav?dl=0

Interesting, thanks for posting.  I only got around to listening to this today, but yes, it is subtly better I think.  At first listen I thought it was much the same, it still sounds like a decent but overly compressed recording, but I did notice a better separation and clarity of instruments, in particular some guitar sections were easier to follow, and similar with piano.  To be honest, I would not describe it as transformational in any way, but certainly a touch clearer.  As I said, very interesting, and thanks for sharing.

[Confused]

OK - Here is another track as an example.  I would not say this is "bad" recording as such, but for me it is mixed way too bright, which makes it somewhat fatiguing and unpleasant to listen too.  I also recognise that in all probability, nobody reading this thread would want to listen to Neneh Cherry anyway, but  that is not the point, I offer this as an example of  specific recording mastering issue.

 

There were some posts earlier in this thread that were making a point that I essentially agree with, that tweaking a system to make "bad" recordings sound "good" can potentially be the same thing as adding coloration.  With the particular track below, I can actually make it sound a lot better on my system with the simple act of turning the treble down a few dB's.  In this case I am fortunate that I am running an amp that features tone controls.  In this specific case, I would not class this as "coloration", but a simple case of tweaking the system to compensate for issues in the recording.  A bit of crude "on the fly" remastering if you like.  Plus of course, when listening to a recording that does not suffer this kind of tonal imbalance, the tone control goes back to flat. 

 

Of course if you have a system with treble issues, fundamentally too bright, HF distortions or whatever, then tweaking the system will help improve this track, or any other.  But even if a system reached perfection, the issues in the recording would remain, and tweaking the treble down would help.  Conversely, I guess this track might sound just fine on a system with a few issues, such as intrinsically dull or recessed treble.  A "good" system won't save it though....

 

(as an aside, I also wonder if this might be an example of un-decoded pre-emphasis?)

 

 

[Confused]

24 minutes ago, firedog said:

Why? I like her. Not everything she does is like her 80's pop hits.

 

Actually, I just made this statement in an attempt to stop the thread being derailed by going off topic with people responding that they do not like this kind of music or that kind of music..  Rather I was hoping people would focus on the actual point I was making, rather than commenting on genres or whatever..

 

Well, it looks like that backfired! 

 

As it happens, I picked up on this particular recording sounding overly bright, to my ears at least, when listening to it myself recently, I like Neneh Cheery too. 

 

As a rule, I tend not to comment on this forum regarding music I do not like.  I am sure that many on this forum would dislike 90% of what I listen too, and similarly I would not like 90% what they listen too.  But so what?  There is plenty of music out there, and we can all listen to what gives us pleasure, no need to get in an argument about it.

 

So yes, apologies for how I phrased that one, I think I broke my own golden rule, I should have been more careful with my words.

[Confused]

21 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

You should be better able to judge the mastering from the 529kbps audio

 

P.S.

 According to Sound Forge 9 there is no obvious clipping.

 

Outré Risqué Locomotive-0x0002.aac 4.74 MB · 2 downloads

 

As it happens, I picked up on this track sounding overly bright when listening to my own red book version.  I listened to the YouTube version, and with respect to this particular recording annoyance, the You Tube version also sounded overly bright.  OK - my red book version sounds better, but what is interesting here is that the aspect of this recording that I found to be annoying was apparent and pretty much identical to me in a You Tube clip and in a 16/44.1 version, so the recording issue came through regardless of format, and was similarly annoying to me regardless of recording format.  This perhaps goes against Frank's observation that linear distortions in the system itself dictate how I subjectively observe recording issues?  Perhaps true in some cases, but not all I think.

[Confused]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

"Too bright" to me always means that there is non-linear distortion in the treble region - a bargain basement car radio will sound too bright, when the 'wrong' track is played - and it's obvious why: the sound is unpleasantly distorted; the treble sounds in the mix are miles from what they should be like. And the solution is also the same here - just wind the tone control right down ... the distortion hasn't gone away, you've just made it less noticeable.

What do you mean by non-linear distortion exactly?  If you are referring to harmonics, this will make little or no difference to how bright something sounds in absolute terms.  For me this point is simple, very simple.  If you have a low distortion system, with a flat frequency response, and feed it a "bight" recording, it should sound bright.

 

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

IME, tracks with even extreme levels of treble content are not a problem with a fully capable system; the ear/brain adjusts quite unconsciously to this 'imbalance', and it's fully enjoyable to listen to. However, all bets are off if that treble material is audibly distorted by the playback chain - it rapidly becomes impossible to listen to; you'll hit the Stop button ... it's, "bad" playback …

 

I have never found this.  My ear/brain system does not adjust unconsciously to this 'imbalance'.  In fact the opposite happens, it eats away at me and drives me crazy.  We are not all the same.  OK - you could respond here with something about sorted rigs and non-linear distortions, but this misses the point completely that you have no idea how MY ear / brain system reacts to things, or anyone else's ear / brain system for that matter .  To be clear, I have listened to some very decent and well set up systems, these systems sound fine with some recordings, overly bright with others.  I could just as easily state that your ear/brain system will adjust unconsciously to non-linear distortions in the system, but this would be nonsense, and I would have no basis to make such a statement.

 

I cannot comment on your experience, but it would perhaps be of benefit to you to at least to try to understand that not everyone will perceive things as you do.

[Confused]

21 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

My system is very transparent and quite low distortion, and like Frank I am left wondering if something in your system may have been emphasising this problem further ?  Yes, it is a bright and dynamic sounding recording with a  wide stereo image.

 Perhaps John Dyson can verify if it has an improperly decoded Dolby-A problem.

 

What does it sound like on your system exactly?  You say it's bright, is it too bright?  All I am saying is that it sounds too bright to me, and too be honest it does not look like you are saying anything that different.  At what point does bright become too bright?  Plus, it might be a pre-emphasis issue, not Dolby A.

 

One thing I would say, 99% of what I listen to on my system does not sound too bright to me.

[Confused]

20 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 It does sound bright, but I was left wondering if it was an artistic intent as it is quite dynamic with a wide stereo spread.

IOW, a high energy recording. Going by your description I did expect to see some clipping, but this isn't obvious in Sound Forge 9.

I just found the recording to be too bright, which is different to detecting clipping or distortions, which I did not in this case.

 

I am not sure what it was in my description that lead to this conclusion, but if it was the words "fatiguing" and "unpleasant", I can find this with overly bright recordings without obvious clipping or distortion.

[Confused]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

So, the question is, if you listen to live, acoustic music making, where there is intense treble energy - does this "drive you crazy"?

 

No it does not.  Plus for the record (accidental pun), I have listened to plenty of live music, both acoustic and otherwise amplified.

 

So, I am never bothered by treble energy in live music, but I am on occasion bothered by overly bright recordings.  I am pretty sure I am not unique in this regard either.  Plus I guess treble energy in a live performance could be annoying if it was purposely designed to be so.  maybe I could start a band, the fingernails on a blackboard trio, or something?  But no, I cannot ever recall being bothered by treble in a live performance.

 

As for if it is the linear distortions in my rig or whatever, we will never know.  Obviously systems can be optimised in this regard, but this fact does not logically mean that it can never a recording issue.  What I can say is that when I do find a recording that sounds too bright, it tends to sound too bright in my car, on my headphone rig, my main system etc., whereas recordings I do not find bright tend to sound OK on everything, in this regard at least.  Using the power of logic, it would appear most likely that the irritating thing is in the recording itself.

 

In terms of the track I posted earlier, one person found it bright, another found it too bright, and I found it too bright.  There really is nothing controversial here.

[Confused]

8 hours ago, John Dyson said:

Okay, if the subject changed to the 'Locomotive' thing, when listening, I heard the woody midrange that is my now strongest indicator of FeralA.  I just did a quick online/realtime deocde, and it shure sounds FeralA.   Below is  a 30 second snippet of a decoded copy.  BTW, the basic compression used before FeralA DOES sound like artists intent.  The stats coming out of the decoder do tell me that there ARE dynamics in the sound.  My guess is that there is compression before mixing, and some careful mixing going on.  I don't think that the material is 'loudness wars' compression of the whole thing.

Outr-demo.flac 2.87 MB · 4 downloads

Thanks for posting this John, interesting.  
 

So, as an open question, how does anyone find this version versus the one posted by myself or @sandyk in post #205?

[Confused]

10 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Okay, this is where I'm going to say the problem is with the playback chain, then ... I find it offensive too, when a rig shrieks at me, or makes me aware, in a bad way, of the high frequencies. But that problem disappears, for that specific recording, if the distortions, the non-linear ones, have been got under control - I have experienced this subjective behaviour for decades; so I feel I've got a pretty good handle on what's going on.

 

The high treble energy in a recording creates an 'intensity' in the sound - it should never come across as being disturbing, irritating, unpleasant. This is why I have an ongoing disagreement with John, about "feralA" - competent playback never sounds distorted, unless intentionally part of the mastering - but it may be fatiguing, because a lack of dynamic range, over compression, removes all the light and shade in the music; we humans are not designed to be constantly pummelled by sound, 🙁.

 

 

Fact: some recordings are "difficult" - I have a pile of them here, ready to throw at any system that I'm working on; or that I may go and have a listen to. These allow me to immediately identify the signature distortions of a setup; once I'm aware of what it's "doing wrong", then I can hear the same damage being done to everything put on, even though this will be far more subtle with "good" recordings.

 

In terms of identifying the specific problem, your response here has given me an idea regarding a rather obvious and very simple test to try.  TBC …..  (probably at the weekend)

[Confused]

On 6/1/2020 at 11:45 PM, fas42 said:

 

Okay, this is where I'm going to say the problem is with the playback chain, then ... I find it offensive too, when a rig shrieks at me, or makes me aware, in a bad way, of the high frequencies. But that problem disappears, for that specific recording, if the distortions, the non-linear ones, have been got under control - I have experienced this subjective behaviour for decades; so I feel I've got a pretty good handle on what's going on.

 

The high treble energy in a recording creates an 'intensity' in the sound - it should never come across as being disturbing, irritating, unpleasant. This is why I have an ongoing disagreement with John, about "feralA" - competent playback never sounds distorted, unless intentionally part of the mastering - but it may be fatiguing, because a lack of dynamic range, over compression, removes all the light and shade in the music; we humans are not designed to be constantly pummelled by sound, 🙁.

 

 

Fact: some recordings are "difficult" - I have a pile of them here, ready to throw at any system that I'm working on; or that I may go and have a listen to. These allow me to immediately identify the signature distortions of a setup; once I'm aware of what it's "doing wrong", then I can hear the same damage being done to everything put on, even though this will be far more subtle with "good" recordings.

As mentioned in post #242 I thought of a very simple test to shed some light on the above.

 

I mentioned earlier that I did not like the treble in Neneh Cherry's Outre Reisque Locomotive.  Is this a bad recording?  Is it in fact non-linear distortion in my system?  

 

Unfortunately I have no way of measuring non-linear distortions in my system, but I did try a simple test changing just one variable in the chain, the listener.

 

I had to hand another human being, with a different brain and ears to my own.  I asked her to listen to the subject track, I did not want to prompt  too much, but I did hint by saying "listen to this, tell me what you think it sounds like, not the music as such, but more the production and mix".  As an aside, my listening victim here is a musician of sorts, and can play acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass.  As it happens, she knows very little about hifi, but I do know from visits to dealers, A/B testing equipment and similar, she does have a very good ear for picking up subtle details and differences.

 

Anyway, I played the track, the comment I got back was "some of the electronic sounds are a bit too prominent in the mix, taking away from the vocals a bit."  We discussed this for a bit, and it was clear that this observation was not related to the particular aspect of the track that annoys the hell out of me, specifically the synthesized snare drum type sound.  

 

Then to an experiment.  You can set a Devialet amp so that the remote control knob adjusts treble.  As the amps display is not visible from the listening position, this forms a kind of blind test.   I played the track again, my blind test victim adjusted treble up and down, and eventually settled on her preferred level.  Remarkably (and probably a bit of a fluke), the amps display showed treble at the normal 0.0dB adjustment.  (I have tried this test myself on a number of recordings myself, I normally get within 1dB of 0.0, but on this particular track prefer maybe -3dB)

 

Now here is a bit I found interesting, I pointed out that the thing that annoys me in the track is the  synth snare sound.  I asked my blind testing victim to try the track again, this time adjusting the treble until the snare sound was "about right".  This time, the amps display showed a preferred level of -3dB.  Interesting that the preferred level of treble changed, just by influencing the focus of the listener.

 

So if the system does suffer from non-linear distortions, it would seem maybe I am more sensitive to these than others.  As it happens, I have for years been annoyed by overly bright mixes, in every system I have ever owned or listened to, I am definitely personally sensitive to this.

 

As an aside to all this, I have heard a system identical to mine in two other rooms.  There is a audio dealer about 30 miles from me that stocks both Devialet and the KEF Blades.  They have a very large demo room, the Devialet / Blades sound quite different in there.  They then have their "medium" sized demo room.  By coincidence, this room is has an almost identical width and height to my own living / listening room, although my room is a little longer.  I have listened to the Devialet Blade combo in the "medium sized" demo room on very many occasions.  The Devialet / Blade combination in that room sounds very similar to what I have at home, but I have noticed that the dealers set-up does sound a little "darker" than my own.  Why?  Well, maybe the length of the room is a factor, but I suspect the main reason for this is the dealers room has far better room treatment to my room at home.  

 

I have been thinking about some time and money on the room.  Thinking about my own apparent treble sensitivity and the fact that the dealers room seems tp mitigate this to a degree, I can only think this is a good idea.  Can good rooms make bad mixes sound better?  I suspect yes.

 

Some of the above is a little off topic, but getting back to the "Can bad recordings sound good" topic, I think the answer to the question depends massively on what subjectively annoys a particular listener within the subject recording.

[Confused]

This post is just for a bit of fun.  Much talk of bagpipes in this thread, and I have to confess that I am not a great fan of the bagpipe sound.

 

However, I stumbled across this the other day, and I rather enjoyed it:

 

 

So can bad instruments sound good?  Maybe if burred in a dense acid house mix.

 

@gmgraves  - I have strong suspicions that you will not like the above track!  As it happens, you have written a lot in this thread that I fully agree with, despite the fact we do not share the same musical preferences, it's all good.

[Confused]

Rather more serious than my Acid Folk post, John Dyson posted this on another thread.  

 

 

Very interesting in terms of being a 1940's recording.  Any thoughts anyone?

[Confused]

1 hour ago, beerandmusic said:

INRE topic, every time i try something new in my audio chain, i always go to eva cassidy fields of gold.

Her voice just pulls you in like no other artist i have ever heard, but there are usually 1 or 2 "shrilling" moments...don't know if its the recording or just her voice, but that one or two notes kind of kills the song....wondering if have a tube preamp might help.

I don't know if she has any really good recordings...seems like most out there are amateurish recordings, which is a shame she never signed with a major label....

 

 

Would a tube pre-amp help with some types of recording?  Maybe, there are some interesting results from Archimago's recent "is high harmonic distortion in music audible" blind test.  Some of the results indicate that harmonic distortion may have some euphonic properties.  I know from performing the test myself that my reaction to the 3.2% (be that positive or negative) was dependant on the sample track used, and what specifically I was listening too in the track.  So, as a cheaper option to buying a tube preamp to try, why not try running a few chosen tracks though the Distort software, adding a touch of THD, and see how it sounds.  This could be a very interesting experiment if tried on a selection of "bad" recordings, or recordings with specific issues.

 

I have no idea what this might do to Eva Cassidy's "shrilling" moments, but it might be an interesting experiment to try.  Plus, if the results are terrible, it saves you the cost of the tube preamp!

 

https://distortaudio.org/

 

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/01/internet-blind-test-is-high-harmonic.html

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/05/blind-test-results-part-i-is-high.html

https://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/06/blind-test-results-part-ii-is-high.html

 

 

[Confused]

In terms of how distortions (or lack of them) in the system enable us the hear or disregard distortions in the recording, there is some evidence in Archimago's recent "is high harmonic distortion in music audible" blind test.  (see links in post #261)

 

As mentioned some earlier posts, most modern hifi electronics exhibit very low levels of distortion.  Al lot of kit has measured THD in the 0.01 to 0.0001 range.  In fact, if you want significantly higher levels of THD, you almost need to purposely select kit that has it.

 

That said, in a "typical" system, the component with the highest level of distortion in almost certainly the speakers, and on top of this room interactions will add to the distortions from the speakers themselves.

 

Headphones should perform better, intrinsically lower distortion than a typical pair of full range speakers, and no issues of room interactions.  Plus there are some reasonably low cost headphone amps with very low levels of THD.

 

Back to Archimago's recent "is high harmonic distortion in music audible" blind test.  One clear indication from the results was that those that performed the test with headphones comfortably out performed those that performed the test with speakers only.  Indeed, the speaker only group overall failed to pick out the sample with 3.2% distortion as "worst".  Taking these results at face value, it would appear that a touch of distortion in the system actually masks the listener's ability to pick up THD in the recording, whereas the headphone listeners with lower overall THD in there actual listening apparatus did rather better.

[Confused]

8 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

It took a survey by Archimago to tell us that ?

Maybe, and it might depend on what you mean by "us".  I have seen it asserted that distortion in the playback chain will make distortion in the recording more apparent.  The results of the Archimago survey indicate that the opposite is true.