Can Bad Recordings sound Good?

[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.

[Allan F]

8 hours ago, Confused said:

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.

 

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

[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.

[fas42]

5 hours ago, Confused said:

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.

 

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.

 

 

5 hours ago, Confused said:

 

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.

 

I can think of a very specific pop recording, from the 80's, here ... female vocals, for a phrase or two, has the nature of those changing; on a lower performing setup you notice this, but each is "as good as the other" - but when pristine replay occurs, the voices sound very lifelike for the most part; when the switch occurs, it's obvious that they're going through a rather crude effects unit, which adds an autotune type of enhancement - but the quality of the electronics is not good; it's almost jarring, because the instant loss of vocal integrity is too marked - it's out of context with what was there a split second earlier.

 

Ummm, a "perfect recording played on a system generating modest non-liner distortion" is where a lot of audiophile rigs playing audiophile recordings are ... 🤪 😜 . How else does one explain that a particular, "perfect", recording sounds different on different rigs; or different when they change some part of a single rig ... hmmm?

 

I use familiar recordings on an unfamiliar rig - this is fast tracking to pick up the signature distortions of that setup; and then no matter what gets put on, the same flavour keeps coming through every time - you're always hearing the distinctive seasoning of the combo of components. This means certain recordings will sound fabulous, and others will be terrible  - the two sets of distortion are either in harmony; or clash badly.

 

5 hours ago, Confused said:

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.

 

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.

[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.

[fas42]

14 hours ago, Confused said:

 

 

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?

 

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 ... 🙂.

 

Quote

 

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.

 

Yes.

 

Quote

 

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.

 

I come from another angle here too - the simplicity of the radio, as an engineered whole, means that a lot of the problems that hifi rigs introduce, by the way they are assembled, are absent ... the "nothing irritates" to me is a giveaway that what it's capable of doing, is being done very well - I give it a solid tick.

 

Quote

 

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. 

 

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 ... I have recordings that I wrote off for years, until one day I had a system in a particularly good state, thought "What the hell ... !", put it on ... and fell over ...

 

This repeated too many times - and it seems to be relatively general, IME. When I visit the audio mate up the road we work towards an optimum, and then pull the "heavy duty" albums out - these can be close to unbearable, or, a marvellous sound ride ... it all depends. Last visit, he had an LP of Ike and Tina Turner which had a last track which he didn't want to listen to ... well, it came - and it was magic; worked a treat ... he was nonplused about this - but, he had never listened to it before with his vinyl in such good order.

 

Quote

 

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.

 

I have never had a rig in the best possible state ... each set of components will have own, unique set of pluses and minuses - don't touch the pluses!! But work hard on the minuses - the latter will always be ready to creep out and bug you, because they're "built in"; what one does to counter them may be marginal, and for a variety of reasons may not be good enough, at a particular time, to let the recording shine.

 

A good example is the album Adele 21 - my Philips based rig years ago struggled with this one, only in absolutely the best circumstances did this work; yet the later NAD combo dealt with it with ease ...why should this be so? Because, the remaining distortions, from the playback chain, clashed in the first instance; but weren't an issue with the other. Note, there were recordings where this scenario was reversed - there is no simple, "one rig is just better than the other!".

 

What one works towards is a setup with zero character - I'm hopeful that the current active speakers can get pretty close; so far the signs are very encouraging.

[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?

[fas42]

7 hours ago, Confused said:

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?

 

Everyone on this forum is an audiophile ...by definition! 🙃

 

What I was getting at is that often people who are audio enthusiasts are always listening for the presence or absence of certain, audiophile approved characteristics - to me, they are often missing the point that overall the sound is bad, and all the good things about "fabulous bass!!", say, are not going to make up for that ...

 

You've said a number of times that you've had the experience of having a "lesser" recording snap into a far more positive presentation - what I'm saying is nothing different from that - it's a continuous curve, IME ... the more refined the rig, the more capable it is in pulling off this bit o' magic. And, again, why it appears to happen is that just enough extra detail comes through, more cleanly, of the event that was recorded, for the mind to switch over into the "mirage mode".

 

7 hours ago, Confused said:

 

 

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)

 

Just as we're starting to lift ours ... 🙂. The good empathy between the political areas here, the states, immediately breaks down, of course - accusing the other of "not doing it as well!", 🙄.

 

7 hours ago, Confused said:

 

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.

 

Yep, excellent idea.

 

7 hours ago, Confused said:

 

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?

 

Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" is a tremendous roller coaster ride of energy and emotion - this comes over with such power, and impact .. this should not bug one in the slightest, in any area - it's all about driving intensity, and works a treat!

 

 

[Digi&Analog Fan]

It is actually been accepted as common knowledge on some less intelligent forums that the higher resolution your system is, the worse your lesser recordings will sound because it will reveal their flaws. A case of logic or more accurately non-logic over actual experience. The bad things that make so called bad recordings sound bad usually relate to distortion products and electronic signature. Truly great equipment might be more revealing, but it also has less distortion of many different types and less electronic signature which work hand in hand to produce stingy unpleasant unnatural sounds. The net result is a relative smoothing over of the recordings faults, not by veiling them but by the system only producing musical sounds minus the distortion and electronic signature of lesser gear. Distortion and electronic signature manifests itself as grain, edge, brightness & sting and interferes with natural harmonics, making instruments and voices sound unnatural and artificial in addition to sounding unpleasant. Get rid of as much distortion and electronic signature as possible and even though the sound of that caliber of equipment will likely be more revealing, the sound will still be much nicer and more pleasant sounding. Even the sound inner groove gross cartride mistracking makes, sounds puffy and smooth, rather than harsh on an ultra clean system. It's there but not so offensive or annoying. The "too revealing of bad recordings" crowd are often "detail chasers" whosechosen systems have peaks in the frequency response in places that its terrible to have peaks, and their systems are usually too bright and have distortion unbenounced to them and they blame it all on their recordings. They have problems and they are great.

[Rexp]

23 hours ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

It is actually been accepted as common knowledge on some less intelligent forums that the higher resolution your system is, the worse your lesser recordings will sound because it will reveal their flaws. A case of logic or more accurately non-logic over actual experience. The bad things that make so called bad recordings sound bad usually relate to distortion products and electronic signature. Truly great equipment might be more revealing, but it also has less distortion of many different types and less electronic signature which work hand in hand to produce stingy unpleasant unnatural sounds. The net result is a relative smoothing over of the recordings faults, not by veiling them but by the system only producing musical sounds minus the distortion and electronic signature of lesser gear. Distortion and electronic signature manifests itself as grain, edge, brightness & sting and interferes with natural harmonics, making instruments and voices sound unnatural and artificial in addition to sounding unpleasant. Get rid of as much distortion and electronic signature as possible and even though the sound of that caliber of equipment will likely be more revealing, the sound will still be much nicer and more pleasant sounding. Even the sound inner groove gross cartride mistracking makes, sounds puffy and smooth, rather than harsh on an ultra clean system. It's there but not so offensive or annoying. The "too revealing of bad recordings" crowd are often "detail chasers" whosechosen systems have peaks in the frequency response in places that its terrible to have peaks, and their systems are usually too bright and have distortion unbenounced to them and they blame it all on their recordings. They have problems and they are great.

You are confusing bad recordings with bad playback systems. What you are saying is a seemingly bad recording can be revealed to be a good recording if the playback system is good enough, which I agree with. But GIGO always applies. 

[Digi&Analog Fan]

 I don't think I'm confusing anything, but I do agree that a recordings inherent limitation on how good it can sound, depends on the quality of what's in the groove. If we upgrade where our systems sound is adding much less distortion and electronic artifacts to the recording, it is sometimes surprising how good a recording can sound. I don't think they ever go from downright awful to great, but sometimes from near  awful to quite listenable.Some phono cartridges have trouble reproducing the harmonics of certain instruments played together like a flute and guitar where both are playing sudden and loud. There are some recordings though that are so bad that I don't think they are ever capable of sounding good. All great equip. can do is reproduce what is there. 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

On 5/22/2020 at 11:48 AM, Digi&Analog Fan said:

It is actually been accepted as common knowledge on some less intelligent forums that the higher resolution your system is, the worse your lesser recordings will sound because it will reveal their flaws. A case of logic or more accurately non-logic over actual experience. The bad things that make so called bad recordings sound bad usually relate to distortion products and electronic signature. Truly great equipment might be more revealing, but it also has less distortion of many different types and less electronic signature which work hand in hand to produce stingy unpleasant unnatural sounds. The net result is a relative smoothing over of the recordings faults, not by veiling them but by the system only producing musical sounds minus the distortion and electronic signature of lesser gear. Distortion and electronic signature manifests itself as grain, edge, brightness & sting and interferes with natural harmonics, making instruments and voices sound unnatural and artificial in addition to sounding unpleasant. Get rid of as much distortion and electronic signature as possible and even though the sound of that caliber of equipment will likely be more revealing, the sound will still be much nicer and more pleasant sounding. Even the sound inner groove gross cartride mistracking makes, sounds puffy and smooth, rather than harsh on an ultra clean system. It's there but not so offensive or annoying. The "too revealing of bad recordings" crowd are often "detail chasers" whosechosen systems have peaks in the frequency response in places that its terrible to have peaks, and their systems are usually too bright and have distortion unbenounced to them and they blame it all on their recordings. They have problems and they are great.

 

22 minutes ago, Rexp said:

You are confusing bad recordings with bad playback systems. What you are saying is a seemingly bad recording can be revealed to be a good recording if the playback system is good enough, which I agree with. But GIGO always applies. 

 

 So yet another perspective which would appear to have some explanatory power. I must say, I am biased to be persuaded by this argument in that it tends to validate having good quality gear🙂

 

At the risk of oversimplification, as I see it, a good system will reveal the flaws of a bad recording but OTOH it will not accentuate some flaws the way a bad system might do.

 

As is already popularly believed a good system will minimally introduce it's own flaws ie getting out of the way of the music. Good parts of a recording will shine. Obvious plus.  The corollary is that it will not compound or accentuate some recording flaws by negatively interacting with them. One obvious example may be a "bright" system will accentuate "bright" recordings, but you also offer other examples.

 

It will then depend on the extent and type of flaws in the recording as to whether net effect will be "improved".

[Digi&Analog Fan]

 Its more like the bad sounds are still there but they have a different character, the bad sounds don't sound nearly as bad, smoother and less nasty. More trivial you might say. No ear wince anymore. Gross cartridge mistracking noise instead of being harsh sort of sounds like a burst of tape hiss, which isn't nearly as objectionable, or at least no spikes coming at your ear. Tolerable.

[fas42]

31 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

 Its more like the bad sounds are still there but they have a different character, the bad sounds don't sound nearly as bad, smoother and less nasty. More trivial you might say. No ear wince anymore. Gross cartridge mistracking noise instead of being harsh sort of sounds like a burst of tape hiss, which isn't nearly as objectionable, or at least no spikes coming at your ear. Tolerable.

 

Precisely. ... The "bad stuff" exists in another place, or space - and the ear/brain can hear past it. A real life example is listening to a talented busker, in a busy public area, or side of a road - there's lots of sound that don't belong to the music, but your mind can zoom in on what matters at that moment - you are connecting to what the musician is doing, in spite of the distractions.

[vortecjr]

On 5/12/2020 at 7:22 PM, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Tweaking a HiFi system to make the bad bits of recordings sound "good" (less bad) = coloration.

Agree. 

[fas42]

As mentioned elsewhere, ran Adele 21 - finally - for feedback from the current rig, of a now listed, "bad" recording - and the wheels came off, 🤣. That is, it sounded, ummm, bad - confirming such a recording can't be any good after all, perhaps, 😉 ?

 

Trouble was, it was sounding well down on what the NAD plus Sharp combo delivered ... something wasn't right ...

 

And so it turned to be - a critical tweak was no longer working - and did a lot of damage. Fixed, the recording came through as remembered ... the vocal was perhaps not quite as sweet as it can be, but close enough. The visceral punch of the bass drum worked a treat, instruments were fine ..

 

So, two systems managed to get good sound from one of the usual suspects ... hmmm, have to find another contender to put into the "bad" basket 🙂.

[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.

[sandyk]

5 hours ago, Confused said:

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. 

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

[fas42]

6 hours ago, Confused said:

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.

 

Thanks for that, er, not @Confused, which is why I say "there is no such thing as a...".

 

That something sounds poor says more about the playback rig, IME. So, one uses that audible feedback as a guide to where improvements are needed - and everything gets better... 

[sandyk]

14 minutes ago, fas42 said:

That something sounds poor says more about the playback rig,

 Not in this case. The Adele 21 recording is clearly OVER COMPRESSED, and NO decent rig will ever make it sound great or do it justice, and that includes yours too, in it's original form.

 It appears to be mastered for listening via ear buds in noisy public transport etc.

[fas42]

Alex, you can't assert what it sounds like to others on the basis of what it sounds like to you - virtually all recordings are technically faulty; I have seen "audiophile" tracks with clear clipping... 

 

The mastering of Adele has been pushed, but I have heard much, much worse. 

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Alex, you can't assert what it sounds like to others on the basis of what it sounds like to you - virtually all recordings are technically faulty; I have seen "audiophile" tracks with clear clipping... 

 

The mastering of Adele has been pushed, but I have heard much, much worse. 

 

The numbers say that Alex is right:

 

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/159466 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

The numbers say that Alex is right:

 

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/159466 

 

 However, this is one of the few recent albums that can be markedly improved in about 1 minute using a suitable automated  program. The program I used was from A.S. member Graham Wilkinson of Cute Studios U.K.