Can Bad Recordings sound Good?

[Confused]

20 minutes ago, fas42 said:

My experience is that the mind is remarkably capable of registering what is truly valuable in the recording, and discarding all that which has no bearing on "the important stuff" - a CD I got from the library had a historical artifact on it - the first known capture of Charlie Parker playing ... incredibly primitive, this was well below cassette tape standard - but the talent of the man shone through; it worked, as a listening experience.

How did you know the recording was well below cassette tape standard?

[Confused]

In an attempt to nudge this thread back on topic, I thought I would have listen to some of sample recordings that have been posted recently.

 

The Art Tatum track (post #293) clearly has lost of issues with noise, crackling, hiss etc. so is clearly not in the "good" category.  I tried on both a moderately cheap pair of headphones on a PC set up, and on my main system.  Perfectly listenable on both, although the recording issues are there and clear.  One thing that interested me was that listening on my main system there was a slightly disturbing "rumble" in the track, which was not apparent on the cheap headphones.  A simple case of the main system being truly full range down to very low frequencies, and hence reproducing the rumble, the headphones simply could not reproduce it.  So for the cheap headphones, a case of garbage in, not garbage out.  So in some specific cases, maybe a bad system can improve poor recordings a touch.  (I could probably have cut the bass on the main system for a similar effect)

 

Regarding the Eva Cassidy tracks posted by @beerandmusic (from post #259) I have to be honest and say that this is not the kind of material that I normally listen to.  Not quite that simple though, at no point did I pick on anything that I felt was a "shrilling moment", and I found each of the tracks perfectly listenable.  I think that technically they are not the best recordings, but perhaps the only thing that bugged me slightly was the "close mic" type vocals at some points.  The thing is, I got to the Fields of Gold track, and I was completely mesmerized by it, quite superb.  As I mentioned above, this is not the kind of material that I normally listen to, but I really did enjoy listening to this track.  I tried it later on the cheap headphones, and yes, maybe there were a couple of "shrilling" moments.  So however we decide to categorise the Fields of Gold track as a recording, I would say to my ears a decent system made an enormous difference in this case.  On the cheap headphones, not much, the kind of music that does not interest me, on the main system, I was completely pulled in and mesmerized.  Thanks for posting beer, I will probably be checking out more of here material.  Actually, that is more than a probably, I am listening to (and rather enjoying) "Wade in the Water" as I write this post.

 

I also found a copy of the remastered (30th Anniversary Edition) of Outre Risque Locomotive that @Rexp mentioned in post #206.  This drifts into personal preference I think, I can see why Rexp states the remastered version sounds worse, it has lost something.  To me, the remastered version effectively mitigates the rather bright synthesized snare sound that drove me bonkers in the original recording, so despite the drawbacks, I found the remastered version far more listenable.

[Confused]

16 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Welcome to a minority of one who thinks that Frank is right. Again, I don’t pretend to know anything about pop and rock as I don’t listen to it, and I’ve never accepted a gig to record it, but in the classical and jazz world, there are many more bad recordings than there are good ones. It’s mostly about economics, I believe. It takes talent, a deep understanding of microphones, and the willingness to spend the time necessary to set up to correctly to record a musical performance. One has to instinctively know what microphones are right for what instruments and be able to “read the room” in order to set the microphones up correctly. That takes time. Most record companies don’t want to spend the money to take that time. They would rather get the talent in the door, get the performance captured without regard for the room or the sound (usually using many microphones) and then get the talent out the door! Then the engineers and producers can fiddle with, and vacillate over balances at their leisure, till the cows come home! And unfortunately, the recordings sound like it too.
 

Are you sure that you aren’t a sock puppet? 😇

 

Out of interest, would you be able to offer some suggested recordings that you think are "done right" with respect to microphone set-up and recording technique? 

 

To be honest, the vast majority of music I listen to is multi-track studio type material, but I would genuinely like to try something that you consider is good in this regard, in particular something reasonably modern.  Much talk of MLP and TELARC on another thread, I presume there are better examples now as recording technology improves?

 

I guess having explored the can bad recordings sound good thing, I fancy hearing what a more state of the art type recording might sound like.

[Confused]

6 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

On my NAS, I have about 600 tracks with DR of 20 or more out of about 75000.  Less than 1%.

That's an interesting statistic.  Inspired, I checked my own digital library in Roon.  I cannot match your 600 tracks with DR 20 or more, but my percentage came out at 1.1%.

 

This surprised me, the vast majority of my listening and digital collection are very much in the genres that you would think are most impacted by the "loudness wars", the proportion of jazz, classical and similar in my collection is relatively small   So I was expecting a much lower percentage than yourself.  Maybe 1% is a typical figure irrespective?  Maybe a fluke?  (maybe you are a secret EDM fanatic?)🙂

 

It was also quite good fun looking at the kinds of things lurking in my collection with high DR's.  Mainly classical, as you might expect, but then Jimi Hendrix's Moon Turn the Tides Gently Gently Away (which is not really music) (+24), Pan Sonic's Comparative (+23 and not really music either!)  Then, topping the DR charts in my collection for non-classical & actually music, Daft Punk's Adagio for Tron. (+23), closely followed by a John Dyson ABBA decode of "happy New Year" (+23)  (well done John)  

 

Get to the +20, +21 range I have all sorts of stuff, Led Zeppelin, Moby, Divine Comedy, Doors, Kraftwerk, Bowie, Peal jam, Blur, Pendulum (!), Foo Fighters, NIN, Junkie XL, Skunk Anansie, Iron Maiden I could go on.

 

Statistics can be misleading though.  Another check on my digital library indicates that 87% of the tracks are DR=10, or below.  I might be wrong, but I am guessing your percentage would be somewhat lower by this metric?

[Confused]

9 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

FWIW, I have not gotten a complaint from my neighbors in more than a decade and I live in an apartment!   I don't do it all the time and I don't do it late in the evening (or later) but my wife is OK with it and my neighbors deal with it. 

Your neighbors are probably scared of you because of that hat.  I would not dare complain to a neighbor about anything if they had a hat like that. 🙂 

 

Joking apart, many years ago I did have a complaint from a neighbor about music noise levels.  We had a quick chat about good times to be noisy and bad times to be noisy, after that, all was fine for years.  A bit of mutual consideration can go a long way.

[Confused]

19 hours ago, ssh said:

Where is the Hendrix track from?

It is on Electric Ladyland.  With respect to the specific version Roon picked up as DR 24, it is a rip from a CD that I have.

[Confused]

On 6/19/2020 at 11:37 PM, sandyk said:

 The attached Classical track isn't state of the art, but it has close to the widest dynamic range you will normally hear on the CD medium.

It was recorded by the BBC..

It is a .wav file sent as an Uncompressed Zip.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gawsr167ixi59c6/Mahler Resurrection 2-2a.zip?dl=0

 

Thanks for this.  I had a listen to this yesterday.  Maybe not state of the art, but it sounded sensational to me.  It would definitely be in my "good recording" category.

[Confused]

10 hours ago, bernardl said:

I don't think there is a direct relationship between DR and sound quality.

 

The DR is mostly impacted by the lack of background noise (which is impacted by recording quality) on the low end and by how loud the music gets in the high end. This is strongly impacted by the type of music.

 

Sound quality is controlled by the quality of the recording equipment, the placement of the microphones, how good the venue sounds, the mastering technology, the media,...

 

Usually, the DR of records with good sound quality is pretty high, but there are cases with some quiet music, a solo guitar for instance, where low DR doesn't mean low sound quality.

 

One example of that would be Lute Works by Sylvius Leopold Weiss played by Eduardo Eguez on MA recordings. Out of this world sound quality... with a DR of 6, or Masterpiece of Folklore music by Mario Suzuki, again a DR of 6... but truly amazing sound quality.

 

It is also often believed that we need 24 bits high res music to achieve great DR, but I have many XRCD rips whose DR goes above 15 vs many 192/24 high res material with DR around 10.

 

I do monitor the DR displayed by Roon when I add a record to my collection, but I now feel I should pretty much ignore it as it can convey a negative impression of some records with low DR although the sound quality can be amazing.

 

Cheers,

Bernard

 

I would tend to agree with this.  I certainly have some tracks with a high DR that do not sound particularly good, indeed, I have some tracks with a high DR that actually sound like they have too much compression on them.  Probably a simple case that the actual music a includes long quiet section(s), this bumps up the DR number, but the louder sections might still sound compressed, or actually be loud because they are compressed.

 

That said, if I am comparing different versions of the same track or album, I do tend to have a very strong bias towards preferring the version with the highest DR.  Even comparing two versions of the same track, the highest DR version may not be preferred, it might be messed up for some other reasons, but maybe 8 or 9 times out of 10 the, the highest DR version tends to sound best I think.

[Confused]

17 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

I do not agree.  Since this began with a suggested Mahler movement, let me say that I have heard this particular movement live many times and the impact is tremendous and entirely thrilling.  There is no difficulty live, of course, nor on any recording I have.  On recordings, it is not even the most challenging of Mahler movements, even in that symphony, in terms of DR.

 

I had JRMC rank all my Mahler recordings by movement and DR.  The clear winner is the last movement of the 6th.  I was surprised that none of the movements with chorus and/or organ were prominent at that end of the DR listings.  That said, of the many recordings I have of the 6th, the last movement of 10 of them had DR of 18 or greater with 3 of them tied at 22!  Strangely, the recording that has the most visceral impact on me (Bernstein/VPO) has a DR of only 11.

 

However, high DR is not just loud but must also be quiet. I have chamber music with DR in the 20's.

This one?  (apologies for the YouTube version, just easier to share) - As an aside, I spotted a recent comment under another version of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 that simply stated "Appropriate plague music". 

 

 

[Confused]

6 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Isn't that funny, in the car is one of the only places I can listen to very bad recordings.

I actually mentioned in an earlier post that I have some recordings that actually sound better in the car.  (and many that do not, of course)  I quite like the sound I get in my car, although my car system does lack headroom, so very dynamic material can distort on louder sections.  99% of the time this is not an issue, because what I tend to listen to in the car does not have a high DR.  I guess at a audiophile level, we complain that music is compressed to suit radio / earbuds / and in car listening, so should it be a surprise that listening to a lot of modern material in the car is satisfactory?  

[Confused]

5 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Yup.  Not a surprise, is it?  I'll not comment on headphones but noise levels in moving vehicles are the big issue.

Sometimes my car is quieter that my house!  🙂

 

Joking apart, there are some modern cars that have very low ambient noise levels.  (I recently traveled in a friends Audi A8, it was almost silent, quite uncanny)  Indeed, it has been argued that some cars are so quiet that they are dangerous, because they insulate the driver from an appropriate sensation of speed.

[Confused]

17 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

My '92 BMW had a speed-adjusted volume. It worked just fine at 120mph. And to reduce road noise, the car would roll up all the windows automatically when exceeding 100mph. Didn't sound distorted at all at those speeds

 

Which might be terribly bad news for your dog if he is enjoying having his head out of the window as you accelerate past 99mph.

[Confused]

I was looking at this Darko video yesterday, see link below.  It occurred to me that his subjective observations Cambridge CXN (V2) streaming DAC are pretty much on topic for this thread.  There are some relevant points throughout the video, but the key section is from about 7 minutes.

 

In summary, he seems to be saying the DAC is a little warm sounding and rounds off the detail, but then goes on to list a whole range of recordings for which these characteristics are desirable, making bad recording sound good if you like.

 

One interesting aspect is that he had the CX2 set up to a Hegel amplifier, such that he could select running the CX2 either digital or analogue out to the Hegel.  So effectively a switchable solution, one DAC (Hegel) for "good" recordings, another DAC (CX2) for "bad" recordings. (or "hard" remasters seemed to be his bad recording category)

 

Maybe a coloured DAC, or a DAC with poor definition?  Garbage in, some garbage does not make it out.  I would be interested to know exactly why this DAC has these characteristics from a specification / measurement perspective.

 

 

[Confused]

OK - I think I can now summarise much of this thread.

 

All recordings sound good, except for "audiophile" recordings of the type liked by audiophiles.

 

However, all recordings sound bad on audiophile rigs, because of the distortions added by audiophile rigs during playback.

 

So far all is clear.  Yet, I would consider myself an audiophile, but I have very few "audiophile" recordings, they simply do not seem to exist within the type of genres I listen to.  Now I am confused ....

[Confused]

On 7/10/2020 at 11:46 PM, fas42 said:

I enjoy the seasoning of the recording, it's the seasoning of the rig that I don't like ... if they were guilt free in doing this, then every high end system you come across would always sound the same as all the others, 🙂.

I think all audio systems, high end or otherwise, contain many compromises in their design.  So depending on how the designer addresses and priorities these compromises, systems will sound different.  On top of this, you have the influence of the room.  I have listened to 100% identical systems in differently proportioned and treated rooms, and the differences are obvious.

 

I think personal preferences play a role in our selection of systems that relate to the compromises in the design.  As an example, I can think of people I know that have a preference for stand mount speakers and are not bothered about bass power or extension, I can think of others for whom "lean" bass is a compromise to far.  

[Confused]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

Gotta stop looking into the mirror ...

But how could I trim my audiophile beard?

[Confused]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

It seems we have jumped from "sounding good", to "Awesome!" ... of course, everyone will have their own interpretation of how a technically poor recording comes across - which is why I started that other thread; but I can sum up how such a recording comes across when replayed on a highly optimised system, in a number of ways: when listening, virtually nothing about the technical side of the recording disturbs one - one may be aware of defects if one chooses to focus on them, but they don't make the listening unpleasant - as a simple example, the phrase "too bright" never comes to mind - I'm looking at you, @Confused 😁. Next plus: there is a strong sense of depth - George may wish to indulge in a furious tantrum at this thought, but even the most ancient of recordings have this in evidence; in quite a different way, highly manipulated, pure studio recordings will conjure up remarkable spaces. Last in this short list: unfortunately for those who wish to disbelieve, even for the worst of the worst the speakers do indeed disappear - the reason for this appears to be that the acoustic of the recording space still has sufficient integrity, even on a compromised track, to convince the brain that it has its own existence. Now, whether this combo of pluses registers as being "good", or "Awesome!", is up to the listener - it satisfies me as in allowing me to enjoy what I hear as being a witness to the musical occasion - I call it, "conjuring" ... 😜.

 

Comment noted.  I have to admit that on the odd occasion when I find a recording overly bright, I do tend to blame the recording, especially when it sounds too bright to me in the car, on my headphones, and on the "main rig".  But I will resist this thought, and will continue to sort my rig.  If the excessive brightness goes (in the very small number of recordings that do annoy me) and the magic appears, you will be the first to know.

 

Meanwhile - I am so glad I can use the horrible fudge of turning the treble down a touch for the very occasional recordings that annoys me.  Not a correct or purist approach I know, and I may just be masking non linear distortions in my rig, but -3dB usually does the trick and at least this lets me enjoy the performance and the music.

[Confused]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Contact noise is the killer, in audio. Can't do anything about that, on the recording side; the damage has been done. But that doesn't mean you don't eliminate it on the playback path. There's plenty of research out there, by people who spend their lives on this - Electrical Contacts, by Holm, is the bible on this stuff.

 

I can run my system wirelessly with just speaker connections to worry about.  Or maybe with one connection, source to amp, then another from amp to speakers.  OK - It is agreed that these need to be good connections. But it occurs to me that there might be hundreds of cables used in a recording, and maybe thousands of connectors.  In other words, there are an order of magnitude less connections in a typical system than are used in the recording. 

 

So if connectors are an issue then it is clear that this can adversely effect the recording, indeed you have stated this yourself above.  So how does this fit with the "there are no bad recordings it is always the rig" statement?  This is fine as a mindset for system tweaking maybe and keeping the mind focused on the possibility that issues may indeed be with the rig, but as an absolute truth it cannot be so.

[Confused]

11 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Let's revisit where I'm coming from ... over 30 years ago,  I had very conventional, decent stereo sound. Then one day it transformed - and one of the symptoms was that the speakers were completely invisible, in every audible sense. Everything I've done since is based on that initial experience - and I work on understanding what I need to do to repeat that level of performance.

If you have been doing this with success for over three decades, Why have you not retained any of your old systems or kit?  Seems a bit of a shame. 
 

Genuine question, by the way.

[Confused]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

As an absolute truth indeed it can't be - but IME it has always been possible to squeeze a bit more performance out of a system than whatever state it is in currently ... I'm sure someone will be able to dredge some recording, some time, which is so dire in some area of intrinsic distortion that it can't be rescued - extreme levels of dynamic compression, as a deliberate "creative choice", are one of the hard edges to all of this - but I do assume there was at least some desire to maintain a bit of accuracy to the original sound making, 🙂.

I can only agree with this!

[Confused]

13 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

The Edifier speakers point out how much things have evolved, in terms of value for money - silly money unnecessary, unless "real" bling is your thing ...

 

Apologies for the slightly off topic question.  I have read very positive reports of the Edifier’s, how would you say they compare with your previous systems?

[Confused]

16 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You do realise I have a thread about what's going on with them 

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

You do realise I have a thread about what's going on with them, here,

 

 

No, I had actually missed this one completely.  I’ll take a look.....

[Confused]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Riiight! - yep, the bloke with the orange beard, and green hair! - nothing like making a statement, I thought ...

We have now established this was in fact green beard and orange hair, I can only attribute this unsorted vision to non linear distortions and intermodulation, after downing a few too many Coopers ….

[Confused]

8 hours ago, fas42 said:

Just tried, as a test, how a "bad" album worked on a good value for money rig, from a dead cold start - mentioned this on the Edifying thread - how long does the setup take to stabilise, from the previous day after quite significant off time ... same album ...

 

Third track, zero time given to let the electronics warm up,

 

 

Much better than yesterday, the PRaT is fully in place, but the treble still a bit sharp - tolerable, rather than good ... this is at room pounding levels; we're partying, maaan! ... Bev is a couple of feet away from one of the speakers, tidying something - and is completely comfortable with it, this is projecting tremendous energy ...

 

The point? This is what it's about, letting stuff like this rip, and it punches like crazy - without ruffling a single hair in your head, so to speak 🙂.

 

Interesting. Curiously, as someone who's rig and brain have already been established in this thread as being overly treble sensitive, I did not find the treble to be a bit sharp in this recording.  In fact, I felt it could benefit from a touch more treble, not much, maybe +2 or 3dB. 

[Confused]

I am not the OP of this thread, but I have to say that I find the premise of the topic fascinating and something I think is worth exploring.

 

In particular, what do others consider "bad", how does this relate to preferred audio equipment, and are there different types of "bad", some of which are rescued to a degree with more accurate and resolving kit and some of which are made worse.  For me, these are topics worthy of free and open discussion

 

It now occurs to me that much of this thread has descended into an offshoot of this thread:

 

 https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/54473-fas42’s-stereo-‘magic’/#comments

 

 

As I said, I am not the OP, but may I suggest that some of the "off topic" stuff proceeds in the above lined thread?  So maybe anything relating to "rig criticism" or anti-audiophile generalisations?

 

Oddly enough, I think Frank is not so different to many I see posting on this forum, in terms of individuals listening to their systems, identifying things that are not quite satisfactory and experimenting with solutions.  I do this myself, and I see very many variations of this theme throughout this forum.  This is one thing that makes audio and this forum so fascinating.  Frank has his own approach, but many others have their own approach also, there is room for all I think, but who is to say who's method is best?  I guess many of us learn form others, share experience and work out what is best for ourselves, but we do not need to be told.

 

I'll be frank here (a rather lovely but accidental pun), I am getting a little fed up with what appears to be so very many posts with anti-audiophile generalisations, on a forum that is clearly aimed at being a home for audiophiles.  We are all different, with our own ideas and objectives, but endless posts with phases such as "trapped into audiophile thinking", "more money than sense audiophiles", "makes sense why you like audiophile recordings" appear to me just to be audiophile bating, and this on an audiophile forum.  

 

OK - I believe in freedom of speech, and would not wish to censor anyone, so I do not object to anything that might be posted in the thread linked above.  However, the converse is true, if lots of anti-audiophile rhetoric is spammed into other threads, it serves to act as effective censorship by shutting down and derailing discussions between otherwise (more) like minded individuals.

 

As an aside, my brother has a friend who's hobby is to collect generalisations.  He had a little notebook, and whenever he hears or reads a generalisation, he writes it down.  A very cheap hobby in comparison to collecting cars, stamps, coins or anything else, but the collective result of generalisation collecting is quite remarkable.  Reading them all listed together is utterly hilarious, and demonstrates just how ridiculous generalisations can be.

 

Rant over.  In my next post I will actually try to nudge this thread back on topic.  I'm ever the optimist....