Audiophiles - Do You Care?

Of course audiophiles care about their system. But do they care about music? The performance? The recording? Watch this and see whether you really care about audio.
CREDITS
Nicola Benedetti - www.nicolabene...
Jay Ungar - en.wikipedia.o...
Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday - www.bbc.co.uk/...
Edinburgh International Festival - www.eif.co.uk/
DAVID MELLOR'S MUSIC
David Mellor's music on Bandcamp - davidmellor.ba...
David Mellor's music on Spotify - open.spotify.c...
Available on all good streaming services
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[@keithbroughton4476]

As a live sound mix person, I care! Every band deserves the best I can provide even when they may not be ...er...adequate for the gig. When a great band is playing, all that "care" can be realized and contribute to the audience experience and to my edification and enjoyment.

[@petercelestion7661]

@@keithbroughton4476 i fully agree with your statement ant it's pleasing to hear that people like you are still around. However problems starting to exceed at the moment you want to publish or release this recording you made towards a wide public You then need to go to a record label who will release this recording on physical or streaming media. And that precisely the point where things go terribly wrong The producer of this label is not satisfied with your recording and starts to ruin the entire recording into a heavily brick wall limited smashed to the limits kind of soup of recording wich then eventually ends op in a store for sale. And this my fellow is happening at the moment even with the greatest artist we know of . And yes i will be totally honest even the old live recordings were absolutely flawless but back then they were revealed by human error Today it's done deliberately.

[@carlitomelon4610]

I care about the music! There's not much I can do about how it was recorded, and the streaming service I use provides next to no information on the recording venue or techniques used unfortunately. Therefore the recording stand or fall on how they sound in my music room. I do enjoy checking out new recordings in the jazz and classical genres Occasionally one finds remastered recordings that sound better then the original digital release. I have tuned my music systems so that they sound appealing on most recordings. I can't imagine being interested in a system that is so analytical that it makes the experience unpleasant! I certainly appreciate that recording engineers attempts to capture the sound of the instrument in the acoustic space the best of their ability. Thank you! 🎵🎶😊🎶🎵

[@MrSlipstreem]

I care immensely as I've been on the receiving end of a group of musicians' sheer delight when I've captured the nuances of their performance to everyone's absolute satisfaction. This didn't come down to divine knowledge on my part or even having stellar equipment to record them with. Call it a Bob Ross "happy accident" moment, but it's a feeling I will carry to my grave of a group of lads sitting in a semi-acoustically treated bedroom with a hired mixing desk and my trusty Brenell STB-2 half-track reel-to-reel running at 15 IPS with the best tape stock I could afford at the time. We were all very proud when the recording was released on a vinyl compilation album and was, to our ears, the best sounding track on the album.

[@joseluishernandezseptien]

Thank you for the thought provoking video! I think they just wanted to make her sound “dreamy” and give more ear candy to the demographic they are targeting. In our society of immediate gratification, this is a solo that could be not that it impressive on its own. Maybe wanted to make the audience cry with nostalgia of the older days. Her solo is also lyrical and I would agree it stands better on its own for this show situations with more reverb than a dry version. I do agree it has a lot of reverb.

[@pablohrrg8677]

The more I care about the recording, mixing and mastering processes, the less strict I've became on the playing side.

[@tigertiger1699]

Mate🙏🙏🙏🙏 I do love when I get a recording that brings my system to life.. Love your lessons/ talks

[@stpeeke]

My language is not English. And i am swiftly going to my sixties. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So playing your content at lower speed really helps me out. And your voice sounds nice at that speed. Wont be of any concern to nobody and doesnt contribute to your content in se. But still, thank you because it makes it much more patable. Thx for charing your knowledge/ opinion ( which ever people think it to be). And I do care about the recording. I happen to have a friend trumpeter who is recording music and who showed me a little into the world of recording and mastering and mixing. Let me hear different mic recordings etc… some artists i like have nice sounding recordings on my phont but shen i get home i hear the reverb and it distracts from my audio pleasure. Now, no, i am not knowledgzble and i dont have great hearing and no super resolving equipment or room. So if i can hear it, i guess it must be an issue. Still i here it a lot. Why do they do that? Does it make it better on tablets and phones or so? So yes I care and looking forward to more content about that. Fascinating profession you had. Thx.

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

I have to slow down anyone speaking French and read their lips to catch a word they are saying. That includes when they are in the room with me. Your English is fine StPeeke! Reverb is great because it is a cheap way to fill in the sound with the same notes the musicians already played/sang.

[@zizendorf]

Enjoyable as always. Thank you! Love the uncommon dynamic of some humans - common sense! In answer to your question: Yes, all of the above - the artist the piece of music the composer or writer, the era in which is was written, by whom, for whom and all of that before the performance and recording. Yes, all of the above and yes to your questions.

[@gwine9087]

I, always, enjoy your, very different, approach to the subjects.

[@laurieharper1526]

The C214 is a budget microphone. Decent for its price, but no studio worth its salt would use one in any important capacity (such as for an instrumental soloist or singer). An engineer will spend time selecting a mic' that best suits the sound a player or singer creates. Unless by some quirk a budget mic' does the job best, it won't be something like a 214 (a 414 perhaps, but probably a modified or vintage one). As a musician, I've heard a lot of tripe from "audiophiles" over the years. Many sit in immaculately-furnished homes, listening to zillions of pounds worth of equipment and some can barely pitch a note accurately. I've even been told that musicians are not able to judge how good audio equipment is because our brains fill in the gaps in what we are actually hearing. (rather akin to claiming a blind person is better able to appreciate a painting because they don't have preconceived notions of how it should look). Train your ears and learn what real music, played by real humans on real instruments, sounds like. It can be a shock how "raw" it is. The truth is that any recording, barring real budget stuff or computer-generated tripe that is churned out purely to make a few quid, is going to be better than most peoples' playback systems and ears are capable of reproducing or appreciating.

[@guyboisvert66]

With what like seems to be majority of recordings falling into "loudness war", i deeply care about the recording and mixing of music. I assembled a flat and revealing sound system. When a recording is done well, it really shines. I have many recordings being well above the average and it's a real pleasure to listen to them. You feel closer to the artists and their art, close to feeling, texture, dynamic, in other words, closer to the message they express. That's what music's all about! Digital format being the best and by far, when they care and do the job properly, you end up using all the advantages of the media, all its quality, superior dynamic, superior separation, etc. But these days, the digital media is more abused by the loudness war and the incompetency of people recording music and literally destroying to it... The limitation of vinyl makes it a bit more "protected" from those abuses, being limited in bass, dynamic and in general, they must "turn down" the abuse a couple of notches below what they do to digital. I don't regret a single second selling all my vinyls along with turntable and previous gear. I'm now searching for music recorded and mixed by people with talent and caring, by talented musician having a chance to express their art with the quality it requires. I have recordings from Three Blind Mice, Patricia Barber and others on the same quality level: It's addictive like a drug! The only downside after listening to this quality is that majority of the music we can get/have suddenly feels disappointing, feels they didn't care about recording/mixing and the end result... Recording / mixing well is hard. As an example, drum is not easy to record and so many recordings just have that "flat" in the background with no clarity, no precision, NO FEEL! Too bad... Just hope we'll get more of those masterfully crafted recordings done by competent people that really love music!

[@socksumi]

I think of an audio playback system like links in a chain. When any one link or component is weak the whole system suffers. So yes, it all matters from the source to the speakers including room they play in.

[@ConvinceMeAudio]

An excellent topic of choice You should care, especially if you are invested Even your summit tear equipment will bring out more life from various recordings and change accordingly

[@DeMorcan]

I used to own a recording studio. So, I often hear thing the quality of the recording, mix, and mastering. On old recordings, I hear the album mix or the radio mix. Live recordings I listen to hear the ambience and mic placement. I like hearing the singer move some as live vocalists I have watched (Iam old, Hendrix at the Stephen Center, then Elvs and Sinatra at the ACC among many others) and singers moved as they sang. So that sound is realistic to me as I can close my eyes and see the dinger moving on the stage. Although not front row as the movement is smaller live mid auditorium. I love and prefer live music (and know if the swinger is holding a mic it is already not really live) and hifi that I can close my eyes and see the performance whether vocalists or a orchestra is ideal to me. Although singers who perform with an orchestra sometimes I would like them to sound like they are on a stage behind the orchestra pit. So many musicals disappoint because the orchestras are wet sounding and behind the performers.

[@STR82DVD]

Fantastic! Thanks young man.

[@ron5493]

Good work as always!

[@jondu-sud274]

Welcome back, hope you are feeling better.....better....better

[@naturalverities]

In my experience, a top quality reproduction system makes good recordings sound better and bad recordings sound worse, which makes perfect sense to me. And I do care that wonderful musicians and performances are too often underserved by the choices made in the process of recording, mixing, and mastering, e.g. Linda Ronstadt (often) and the Moody Blues (sometimes). There is a place for multiple renditions of recordings, each optimised for a different level of fidelity of the reproduction system.

[@weatheranddarkness]

I disagree. I think a top quality reproduction system should also make bad recordings sound better than they otherwise would. Yes, some stuff is mixed with the express intent of being sold to people who's primary listening method is, their car radio; or apple earbuds; or a 45rpm single on a midmarket all-in-one; depending on the genre, era, production budget. A good system should be able to engage with those mixes/masters in a way that captures the intent and still offers the headroom in terms of like S/N and dynamic range, and ability to resolve timbres that comes with good high end gear. Though, to be fair, it is relatively easy to end up making decisions in system building that end up doing as you say, making crummy old recordings unlistenable. But it is my firmly held opinion that that's user error, and not a question of technical limitation. When you audition stuff bring out your garage sale guilty pleasure vinyl, dig into your CDs for that CD-rR playlist from an old flame, scour your streaming account for songs you used to like. See how your system change treats each. I think it's a mistake to take that experience and then decide that you no longer like an artist, or bootlegs, or what have you. Of course if your only goal in system building is to point at it and say "I have the best system in the world" and only ever play "audiophile" recordings on it, then that's your prerogative

[@dananskidolf]

I think I can enjoy whatever positive aspects are present in what I listen to, but the music and the performance come before the recording. The recording and production from good, modern studios might capture my attention even in something I'm musically indifferent to, but recordings of Rachmaninov from around 1920 are amazing to listen to because of his performance. As for taking an interest in how recordings are made and the microphones, yes, mostly from of a practical point of view as I'd like to make my own recordings, however understanding techniques and picking them out of music I'm listening to is quite satisfying too.

[@mhdrianputra1051]

Surely, i care, because good recording can produce prominent sound while play to your audio devices, even your audio devices just under $50, you can get properly sound and still enjoyable, recording, mixing, mastering is really important, for people who care about audio quality and hi-fi audio experiment

[@hansfijlstra5932]

Number one is the quality of the recording. Number two is if it meets your preferences. And at quite a distance is the quality of your listening system. But a bad recording will always sound bad, even at the most expensive system. So again, the number one is the recording!

[@leonardopapantoniou4227]

Yes but some equipment are more forgiver than others

[@hansfijlstra5932]

@@leonardopapantoniou4227 Absolutely true. That’s why I have a dedicated acoustically treated listening room with a very high end system and a ‘normal’ (albeit high end) system in my living room. I enjoy both.

[@TradeLogix207]

The Best most & Honest video you have ever posted, just one thing $300-$500 can provide a resolving playback system

[@brugj03]

A system nevertheless.........what do you have in mind.

[@memcdm]

Many entry level systems do a very nice job with descent recordings these days. Most folks are perfectly happy with systems under $500 AND are absolutely pleased with systems under $1000.

[@brugj03]

@@memcdm Let me ask again.....what do you have in mind.

[@thinkIndependent2024]

​@@brugj03I'm a electronic technologist and former studio engineer I build my own DACs but speakers & amplifiers today are primarily solid in performance With tweaks my under $1000.00 Systems sound only slightly less than my $50,000 technology has changed with cleaner digital sources passed through the right circuits that add proper harmonics.

[@ridetonight33]

@@thinkIndependent2024 Speakers got better compared 25 years ago, but there is still a lot, well A LOT of crappy speakers out there. Very few inexpensive speakers sound good in my ears.

[@ridetonight33]

Lots of modern recordings are oerloaded with effects. And most of the recordings are acoustically strongly compressed (Dynamic range reduction). Both I do not particulary like. But some labels care about natural sound, like Chesky Records. Some albums are recorded in a little chirch (some acoustic folk music) with just a stereo pair of microphones. Another good example of a label taking care of recording quality is Octave Records. They try to make natural sounding recordings in a studio. So in the end you have a bit of a choice. But nowadays it gets more difficult to find well recorded music, BUT not impossible. Well, you think I care?

[@albanana683]

As soon as she started playing, I thought something wasn't quite right. It wasn't a bad sound but did seem overly processed. The mike and its positioning could have been improved, but it was the reverb settings that seemed to be the worst culprit.

[@carminedesanto6746]

Music is the software that runs our audiophile systems..so better software…along with decent hardware yields great performances.

[@petercelestion7661]

I do care i am not buying or listening to anything released in this Era It's either pitch corrected autotuned or brickwall limited at best Instead i am looking for original first releases of any kind of music or recordiings prior to 1995 Those were the days that the recording engineer producer and artist cared about the recording

[@marcbegine]

Octave Records record all in DSD 256, you can buy these files in DSD 256! (39$ for about 10 pieces)😎

[@EricIolo]

David, I care about music, the performance, and recording. I will keep this simple. I have just listened to a randomly selected track on a playlist on Tidal: "Night Shift" by The Commodores. The music, the performance, and the recording are, in my opinion, all optimal. In terms of the recording and production, the instrument separation is excellent, and the stereo mix is also really good! I listened to the next track on the playlist: "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" by Bobby Bland. I love the music and performance, but the recording, in my opinion, is less impressive. Then there’s "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire. Once you hear those congas (Philip Bailey) in your right ear, there is no unhearing them! It all has to come together, and the listener also needs to break it apart if they wish through critical listening and good audio equipment. Kind wishes, Mark

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Yep ... one of the best sound mixes I've heard was in "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits. Good news is it's also one my all time favourite songs 😁

[@ShaunNgKF]

I find quite a few classical sound guys tend to yank the reverb up quite a bit for solo (unaccompanied) recordings. It’s really not my taste. This is not to say I dislike reverb, but I really enjoy the detail these expensive mics produce that disappear when too much reverb is added. Of course, these mics also pick up every ‘mistake’ too, and that is sometimes not tolerated in recordings despite how ‘noisy’ acoustic instruments truly are. I find the recordings I master tend to sound like as if the performer is actually in the room, and that’s often with as much 2 seconds of reverb.

[@ZeekMX]

I'm the worst of the worst, An Audiophile and a Guitarist with an IEEE degree who thinks he can pass the Tom Scholz test. I use full blown digital mixers instead of OP Amps to control delay and reverb on the fly to fit what I see on the screen. It started out innocently watching Ashford and Simpson sing Solid as a Rock. That's when I started changing things out in my signal chain. I have to be as good as them or face musical backlash. I need all the help I can get from the Audiophile collective. This audiophile channel speaks my language.

[@Lif-999]

If I was a recording/mixing engineer, these things would be the cause for great care and consideration. But I am not! These decisions are not mine to make. And it would be foolish - possibly even delusional - of me to start hand wringing over that for which I have no control. However if, from my mere consumer of music point of view, the engineers practical and/or aesthetic choices happen to produce music that is in conflict with my own sonic listening preferences, his/her material may well only get the one play through.

[@nc3419]

I care about the music, the effects it has in my space, but am I obsessed with making a recording sound as if I were there...no. I love the piano but I do not want to reproduce what an actual piano might sound like in my room. Aspects of tone, space, etc., with placement effect is nice at lower than life SPL levels to paint enough of a life like picture for me to enjoy is fine. Knowing the sound is already processed by recording equipment and the technicians, its not always the stereo equipment to blame.

[@A_RosnerNZ]

There is so much reverb on that recording that I initially thought it was two recordings being mixed together badly. They wrecked it.

[@cedricboniface2081]

I care about music both live and recorded. However if the only available recording of a piece of music has technical flaws, I will accept them if I enjoy the music enough. The reverb makes it sound almost double-tracked to me. That said, the melody is fantastic as is her playing; which makes me overlook the reverb. (Edit) However, I'm sure she has recorded the piece in a professional/commercial studio and would track that down, if I wanted to listen to it repeatedly.

[@6643bear]

Very interesting content , how the mic positioned distant etc . Regards mark

[@JohnSmith-of4vh]

I have often preferred original vinyl LP's to remastered CD because it does not sound 'right' or rather how I think it should sound. SACD was an improvement tonally over CD, all 3 of them! Source & recording is important but I personally rate preamplification as of great importance, more important than say a cartridge or transport.

[@jocool7370]

Well, she's beautiful.

[@connorduke4619]

The microphone?

[@spudpud-T67]

She is beautiful , the microphone ok, the reverb not good.

[@rayzimmerman6740]

The old adage still works for me - rubbish in, rubbish out - the source matters. Secondly, the positioning of the speakers, and then a decent pre and power amp. My preference has always leaned towards neutral amps, such as Cyrus. Not to everyone's taste I know, but I'm a happy bunny..

[@johnfisher3929]

I care about how the music makes me feel. My system is pretty good. I listen to my system as a system and think, “This is pretty good.” But then I put on “Nebraska,” for example, and the system doesn’t matter anymore. As for how it was recorded: how was “Nebraska” recorded? On a cassette tape, as I recall. And it is one of the best records ever! And what about Toscanini and all those recordings with the NBC Symphony Orchestra In whatever horrible studio it was? The sound is wretched. I think many, if not all, are only in mono. What matter? His version of Beethoven’s 7th is the best ever.

[@billmilosz]

If more music were presented in ATMOS format. consumer equipment might become available to change the overall mix, as ATMOS can be used for distributing multitrack recordings.

[@cinepaulis]

Another great video ! Well explained and as always with some interesting questions. Another question could be : how is music (any piece of music) *supposed* to sound ? Sure, I care about the recording. Sure, I care about the sound quality of my hifi system and what it *can* do for me in terms of getting me emotionally connected to the music. I believe this is a very personal thing. Some music gets me more involved with some reverb while it may detract from my experience with another piece of music. And there's the question of how it is intended to be experienced by the creators ? And would I personally (still) like it if it would sound *exactly* as intended through my hifi system ? I care a great deal about audio and recording quality, but in the end my goal is to get as much emotionally involved as I can. For me, that doesn't always require proper choice & placement of a microphone, but can be a great number of other things in the music.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

To know what music ... real music... actually sounds like you need to go to concerts. But not these modern spectacles... real concerts with live musicians playing their instruments in real time. I used to love the 'bar band" thing. Went and listened to as many as I could. Some were amazing, most were mediocre... but they all gave us a good listen to real instruments played in real time. One anecdote stuck with me from that... A friend and I took his 18 year old son to a bar for his first "night out with the boys". The band was an acoustic jazz ensemble and were playing for a while when one of the musicians cut loose on an acoustic guitar. It was a pretty decent solo. The poor kid was sitting there with his jaw on the floor: "I had no idea!" ... he'd never heard live music before.

[@cinepaulis]

@@Douglas_Blake_579 Good point 🙂 visiting concerts is indeed a good way to get some sort of reference as how things should sound. I've enjoyed quite a number of performances of live jazz music, singer-songwriter music etc. in modestly sized rooms. The funny thing is, that those performances are often also using mic's for the singer, acoustic quitar etc. which is mixed and played through speakers, so the seats in the back of the room can also hear it well. So in the end you are partly listening to the live sound in combination with the sound coming from the speakers, as mixed by a person who makes choices about the balance and sound of it all. This is also not always flawless and the experience may differ quite a bit, depending on where you sit or stand (usually it sounds best near the mixing console).

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@cinepaulis Yep ... that can happen. But the point remains ... how do you know if your home system is even close to accurate if you don't know what real instruments sound like? Sure the mixing and mastering of the recordings changes things -- rather a lot actually -- and, as you point out, the sound reinforcement at live venues has its effect as well. But never hearing actual live music seriously deprives you of that understanding. Thanks for the reply.

[@jpdj2715]

I care a lot, but also am aware that I should not dwell too long in the "audiophile" mood but should move into musical space. I'm extremely aware of microphone placement, attitude and whatnot. And how our technology impacts what we record and what we hear in playback. In the 1950s or 60s, RCA started a series of recordings under "Living Stereo" label. These got recorded with the best technology of the time using two microphones and tape recorder tracks (or 3). This documents acoustic information extremely well. The challenge is how to get the orchestra's dynamic range on a 50 dB usable vinyl disc (called LP). And maybe the analogue tape recorder has a dynamic range of 60 dB at best. A single trombone at 1m distance (~40") can produce 140 dB when playing ffff (loudest in music notation). Try that with your F16 and afterburner. Now you need to record a Mahler symphony with 120 people in the orchestra. With two microphones. They solved this by rehearsing the performance with the orchestra in that they played pppp (softest) louder and ffff (loudest) softer. They also rehearsed adaptations to loudness dependent on the position of the player (instrument) in the orchestra (distance to the two microphones. At some point after rehearsing with the rehearsal conductor, a famous one stepped in for a trial recording and assessment and then they would do the real recording thing. On a good playback system that can handle the complexities and musicalities very well, this sounds awesome and had great spatial clues that are perceived correctly in the volume level (micro dynamics) as wel as in the time (phase) domain. Fast forward to multitrack recording in the 70s with 24 or even 48 tracks. Dozens of microphones placed in the orchestra where each instrument (group) now has some 60 dB of recording dynamic range available. For tomorrow night's Mahler just place the microphones next to the chairs, groups, etc. and Just Ffing Do It. A musically trained recording engineer reads the score and subtly adapts recording levels. Musicians typically love this. As they listen to music analytically in a way that parses note patterns and how these are played, relative toe memory of sheet music, most of them actually don't hear the "sound". They're unaware of how an orchestra sound in a 1,000 people concert hall in the middle (L/R) at row 11. While the "Living Stereo" sounds as if recorded from there and beautifully depicts a coherent soundstage the 1970s Mahler sound like a muddy mess in that respect to the discerning (caring) listener. There's a recording of Pete Seger & The Weavers (probably 1950s) of their performance in Carnegie Hall (seats some 2,000 people). It's a bit hill-billy, however note that Pete was the predecessor of Bob Dylan, culturally as protest singer. At one point in this recording we hear the band in the right channel. Here the recording was made from the side of the stage. The band plays - it's the s950s and their audience love it - Old McDonald had a farm. Played back on a good stereo system, you can walk along the right speaker, front to back and point where the individual instruments/voices are. Then you hear somebody in the audience cough and it dawns on you how big that hall is, while acoustically being depicted in your living (or music) room that is considerably smaller. Yes, and the audience sings along at some point. Most of the contemporary recordings are like that Mahler in the 1970s I used as example. The result is "synthetic". Time and phase information got lost and everything is done in the volume domain. I saw a pianist chose the instrument for the next performance out of a group of 5 Steinway D pianos. The concert hall had replaced 2 in the 5 of the year before. The pianist test-played and at #3 noted "I played this one last year". And the repertoire of the performance to come was different so the choice this time was different. Such differences need you to spend some 10,000 hours with such live acoustic instruments. Your standard Steinway D goes down to 27.5 Hz, like your Bluethner, Bechstein, Fazioli, Kawai, or Yamaha concert grands. A Boesendorfer "Imperial" has additional range below that. There are no classical compositions using those notes, but they influence the instrument's overall sonic character. When a journalist from a high end magazine specialised in reviewing high-end audio writes that he could hear the difference between the first and second row of violins then that sounds like a gimmick. But it is about experiencing a live performance as if you are there. Should we care? Yes, about so-called reviewers who don't understand all this, cannot hear the difference and only use synthetic music to "review" kit. Now lets get back to playing some awesome music, because I care about that much more.

[@memcdm]

Love most classical recordings using 2 mics . Sometimes they place a "grace mic" on a solo instrument so it can be heard on the recording . Still, in the mastering process compression is employed to limit the dynamic range in .ost cases. The range of sound from very soft to very loud is too much for most playback systems and in an average room in a home that hugh change in loudness might not be comfortable even if the playback system can handle it. A small room and a large auditorium are radically different listening environments.

[@stephengriffin1541]

Enjoyed your video. Over the last decade or so I've listened to loads of genres from classical to hard house, country to thrash, easy listening to drum and bass etc etc .......🤣 And listening on mobile sources from the cheapest phone to expensive daps and with class d amps and class A valve amps and horn bookshelf speakers and floor standing speakers, with or without equalisation, with or without sub woofers and cheap to more expensive headphones and I.E.Ms with dynamic drivers or planar magnetic and even using Bluetooth portable speakers I have come to the conclusion I enjoy and embrace the different qualities of everything I listen to. If it has some quality that appeals to me that's great. If it sounds really awful to me after a few listens I give it a miss. I am in awe of the abilities of the recording engineers. They are seriously uptight but without them we wouldn't get to be the sad old gits we love to be👍🤣

[@AndrewHubbardBadger]

Brilliant video and really good fun, did you know that she has bought over 20 shoulder rests & like me she can’t find one that suits her, according to her videos. My preference for Violin Mics is to have them about a diagonal metre to 1.5 above the Violin, shooting down towards the base F hole. Violins shouldn’t be listened to closely as they’re designed to project indoors. They have a ‘carrier signal’ loud rustling/scrapping noise which falls away after about a meter or so.

[@AudioMasterclass]

I thought at three shoulder rests I should probably just accept my fate but I can see now there’s further to go.

[@rudyponzio5871]

I use a wired beyerdynamic M88 TG microphone for my live vocals. And a full analog old school rack. Electro voice wired speakers. Ha. It's just un- fudged.

[@geoff37s38]

I have been into audio for many decades and now have a top quality system. However, I have never heard a convincing recording os an acoustic only performance at a live concert. From a full Symphony Orchestra to a small Ensemble, there is just no substitute for the audio experience of a live performance. No recording or playback system comes close to the experience of actually being in a concert hall. More modern music performances are quite different. When you attend a live amplified performance you are listening to the audio system at the venue. You hear the microphones, amplifiers and loudspeaker stacks. A recording of the performance is probably largely extracted from the venue’s electronics and the home playback audio is therefore closer to the experience. All you can do to build your home system is to settle on the equipment that sounds good to you, but recognising that no home system can come close to a live classical performance.

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

Yes naturally. If you consider how air is being moved around a venue and then consider speakers firing in your room. This is patently different.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Yes, I care. My usual advice to "audiophiles" is to criticize their source recordings before criticizing their equipment. Most often the flaws they like to attribute to their gear are actually flaws in the recordings...

[@jayedgar2373]

I absolutely agree that the source mastering is the issue with many recordings. From the capture device, to the final mastering, your stereo (no matter how "high end" it is), will only reproduce music to it's full potential when a well mastered recording has all the information in the signal path required to achieve the high levels of detail (DB) and frequency response ranges arranged/mastered properly. Even poor recordings can be "re mixed" and remastered to a much higher level. However, a lot of artists/record companies are unwilling to spend the money to re-do it properly. The old saying goes "garbage in, garbage out".

[@memcdm]

The greatest difference I hear in sound is the quality of the recording. The quality of most pop stuff is terrible. High definition audio systems make the problems more obvious.

[@jayedgar2373]

@@memcdm I agree. High end stereos will amplify poorly mastered music. Perhaps better put... "garbage in, amplified garbage out".

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@jayedgar2373 Indeed, a lot of today's music is just awful. (There is a reason why my pop music collection ends in 1998) Remixing a poor recording is not as simple as it sounds. To do a proper job you will need access to the original unaltered tracks. There is no undo for stupidity like AutoTune, compression or quantization.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

@@memcdm The good news is that your system does show you the flaws in the recordings.

[@gabrielgodwin9953]

You've hinted at the most important question an engineer faces... which microphone for which application? And if you don't care... well good luck. My personal tastes are a bit odd, and I totally understand those that may disagree. I go to my old EV RE 10, 12, and 16 all the time for various purposes. I've never been particularly fond of the RE 20. I know it gets a lot of love, deservedly so, but not my flavor. If one can get their hands on one of these vintage mics, I strongly encourage it. One may be surprised at how versatile they can be when utilized in the right scenario. Of course, you're still going to need the ribbons, condensers, etc. in your arsenal, but the old RE series is still amazing if you can find them for reasonable price.

[@TheAntibozo]

I think a significant problem with the reverb is the incongruity between the sound and the camera position. We're right up next to the player; the dry sound should be quite strong. In this sort of production, the visual needs to be factored into the audio treatment.

[@zroter]

I obviously care about the music and how it was captured and mixed. A good mix allows me to only care about the music, the musicianship, the technique, the composition, the singing, the writing of the lyrics, etc. Nothing is bothering me.

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

Well, since you mentioned FailArmy it is suddenly appearing in my suggestions from YT for the first time. So I am watching same... the audio is not quite up to our standards typically, but the Schadenfreud is high bandwidth hilarity.

[@AudioMasterclass]

I mentioned FailArmy as a good channel for anyone to watch if they want to waste time, or perhaps learn what not to do in life. But if KZbin is inflicting it on you just because I mentioned it, well that's a new one on me. Oh... I mentioned it again.

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

@@AudioMasterclass That's OK -- I was up half the night and it colored (not coloured, mind you!) my nightmares when I realized I had misspelt Schadenfreude above. I imagine that because of your high-end audio production chain and the infallibility of the $40 soundbar positioned under my deaf-mute monitor for watching YT my phone misapprehended that you were physically in the room with me.

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

The most neutral mic pre and analog to digital chain i've ever heard is using all Forssell units. The best choice of Mic and placement is, naturally, going to depend upon the situation and subject. But if you can get yourself a recording made with Forssell gear and by someone who is competent enough to understand it's neutrality and how to feed it properly, you will get as close as is possible on this planet to a faithful reproduction of the audio as it sounded in the room from the Mic perspective. What you then do with that is up to you.

[@timelesstruths]

Fantastic Post.

[@CarlVanDoren61]

Static King 🤴 Mark Linkous 😊

[@IndigoDavei]

I think I can see what's going on here. It's for Sunday morning TV, not for attentive listening. Someone has made the decision that they want to the violin to sound distant and (maybe) ethereal. I suspect the intent is to convey a 'mood' in a TV way rather than in a strictly musical way. At least, that's my theory. I don't think I like it much. Those old mono recordings of the Russian violinist Mischa Elman have more immediacy... and I don't like the sound of them either! (But people with better ears than I will pay hundreds for an Elman LP - as I was fortunate enough to discover a few years ago.)

[@noctisarcanus7894]

You talked a lot about why should we care but... how can we care? How can I know which mic did the band I'm listening to used in their recordings? What can I do if the songs I love are recorded with not the best settings? Do I start searching for artists that use the best mics and start enjoying their music? I genuinelly don't get how should I care after all you said.

[@AudioMasterclass]

You start by thinking about what you like and why you like it. If you can find info on the technique and equipment used on a particular recording that you like, which is often possible on KZbin, then so much the better. It's an interest, not for everyone, but I'd recommend giving it a try.

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

Care about fidelity. That your equipment is reproducing what the artists intended the recording to sound like. That's the end of it really.

[@C-man553]

What is your current system, nominally? Answering is mandatory.

[@bobkitchin8346]

Could you comment on whether miking should try to capture what a virtual listener might hear, or should it try and replicate what a performer might hear? For instance, with the single violin, would placing 2 microphones near each of the violinist ears be better?

[@AudioMasterclass]

When I write my PhD thesis I might cover this. It's a HUGE subject.

[@l.s.1709]

That's a philosophical question on the subject of aesthetics. What I see is that it is very dependent on music genre. As a guitarist, I often think about this: the norm is to place microphones not at the location of the performers' ears (this goes for classical, western and electric guitars) and *what if there's a famous or less famous recording of an acoustic guitar at the player's ear location

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

The question of 'should' is false to begin with. There is no should. It's merely a choice made by the artists and engineers. If I want a drumkit to appear to the listener as if they were sitting at the drummers position I would mix it that way, it would be a sound design and mixing decision based on how I want the material to be perceived.

[@earthoid]

I care more about how the sound is recorded than many producers apparently do. I used to think that the goal was obvious: make recordings that sound as natural as possible because to do any less than that would be a sacriledge. Now I'm much older and a bit wiser.

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

That can still be the goal depending on what you intend to do with the resulting recordings. If you colour the sound at the source then this is a choice you make, but it does fundamentally limit what you can achieve with the recording down the line. For this particular application I'd have gone for an Earthworks QTC50 and a Royer ribbon mic used in stereo. Each channel with a different character obviously but it would give this so much life. If that were the objective of course .. to make the initial recording as interesting and high quality as possible, rather than just capture it entirely and then decide later what to do with it.

[@l.s.1709]

This does not apply for many music genres like hard rock, metal, EDM/IDM, hip hop etc etc. Even micing a single grand piano is hugely complicated and cannot be encapsulated by the highly subjective term "natural".

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

What's a grand pack?

[@l.s.1709]

@@PROJECT-de9pd grand piano with autocorrect

[@PROJECT-de9pd]

Well, I think it's entirely possible without too much grief, to record a piano that sounds natural. It's not really highly subjective at all. If you identify that the piano sounds a certain way from a given perspective and your aim is to capture that then there are myriad tools and techniques to accomplish it.

[@FatherOBlivion]

Now I keep hearing angry Scot telling me to back off. Ha!

[@atoptip6193]

That AKG mic in the video looks like a prop, the way it sadly droops, as you mentioned…are we sure the actual, working mics are not out of view, hanging somewhere from the ceiling? I am only saying this because, at least on US TV, most visible mics are props.

[@PeterCamberwick]

Well, I'd say with 99 percent certainty that that was a close mic sound, so probably theAKG, but positioned badly.

[@simonheffernan1767]

Or both? It's possible to care about both.

[@albiepalbie5040]

Unfortunately / fortunately perfection is a thing in the head to be strived for The Fantastic Nicola Bennedetti sounds here like some Scottish grannies heilan hame caricature that the sound engineer had in the recesses of his / her head from a Scottish kitch soundworld more akin to Disney / Tartan Tat memory than anything that a Scottish fiddle / or the Stradivarius here sounds like

[@albiepalbie5040]

I didn’t say - I kinda like it !!

[@trabouliste1037]

I once saw a snippet of a space movie, where the astronauts talked outside the shuttle wich each other (i.e. in the open space) and their voices were heavy reverberated, which is impossible in the open space. I talked to others in respect to this scene, but nobody cares. And it seems to me, that this may be no singular phenomenon, movies often symbolize wide emptiness with reverberation in the acoustics. And reverberation is very popular in all kind of music too, maybe it’s our cavemen heredity.

[@l.s.1709]

What about movies where you clearly see single or twin cilinder engine motorcycles and the sound that they put on is a four-in-line. That's hugely frustrating for people in the know. Btw it's of course a common trope that there's no sound in space while sci-fi movies and series add sound effects and engine noises to space ships and space battles but I actually prefer the added sound even though I know it's wrong.

[@timf-tinkering]

The microphone shown is probably just there as a prop, and isn't being used at all.

[@Three-Chord-Trick]

What's the informed thinking on the Schiit EQ boxes? The Loki Mini+? The Lokius? The Loki Max? Are they worth having? Do they do what's claimed? Most importantly - Do they take away from or distort or add noise to the source? I'm thinking of adding one to a KEF LS50, LEAK 230, Rega P8 setup.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Equalizers in general are good for room-level corrections, such as when you have a dead spot for mids or something similar. You can use the level controls to compensate. They won't do anything to improve excessive reverb or room echos and they certainly won't correct for distortion or phase issues. Overall they're helpful in evening out frequency response, either in the room or the recordings... but not much more.

[@improbablehandle]

The reverb level seems to dip for a bit near the end of that clip.

[@weatheranddarkness]

This feels like a funny framing. At the end of the day, there's no (economic?) value to caring as there is no power to influence material that has already been recorded. I might also add that as something of a musical omnivore, I don't think there's such thing as "A correct" way of recording. It is certain that there is better and worse executions, and more and less well suited to the artistic intent. I have my tastes, from listening to both recordings of divergent qualities and experiencing live music in a wide range of ways. But I can't write Miles Davis a strongly worded email and ask him to do better on Bitches Brew next time I put it on my TT. In the case of our goofily recorded violinist, the whole presentation is aimed at the show's target audience, which is most likely your gran who wakes up early and likes soap operas and Celtic Woman specials on BBC. That reverb is intended for her, not to replicate a concert hall. Just so we're clear, I also find it atrocious. But if I spend too much mental effort engaging with the technical side of the recording process I'm immediately ignoring the musical value. Does it count within the framing of this video as "caring" that I choose not to play my Fidelio sampler CD because it sounds like all of the performers are too closely mic'ed? As I see it, my entire audiophile journey has been to get my system to maximise the potential of every piece of media it transduces as I want to give everything a fair shake. And to keep myself from being bored by only liking certain things. I guess for that reason I tend to gravitate towards things described as "even handed" rather than as "flat" or "neutral" :shrug:

[@preuton]

There are also euro's. You know, this is the sign: €

[@djcata7474]

nah you can see the sound guy / gril / whatever riding the reverb / send fader. It's funny how it's suddenly dry and mono

[@PeterCamberwick]

Hahaha yeah. He was like, "Oh, that's way too much ........ damn, that's too little.".

[@shanerorko8076]

I'm only at 40 seconds in, but I want to say, I bought some fairly cheap headphones, $70 they cost me, I pluged them into my PC so using the MOBO sound card, I put on Tidal, the rolling stones starts, then ends, then Led Zepplin, Cream ect, they all have noise, but when the track changes, the noise disappears, so the noise is put onto the track by the producer, and my headphones are silent. Why would any better THD or SINAD matter? it's all BS.

[@ianl.9271]

What a question.. Trying to be an audiophile when I was little led me into the world of pro audio and studio monitors. You get better bang for the money. 😂

[@christianduval8374]

Oh! An audiophile afterall 😁

[@GavinskisTutorials]

Hmm, interesting pronunciation of 'reverb'. You're putting stress on the second syllable, but I've only ever heard it with the stress on the first syllable 🤔

[@AudioMasterclass]

I suggest you try it your way with the word in full - ‘reverberation’.

[@GavinskisTutorials]

@@AudioMasterclass ah yes, but it is very normal for English words to change their syllable stress in different forms. Check the dictionary and you'll see that, at least according to standard British English, you were using it as a noun, in this talk, but pronouncing it as a verb. Let's not fall out over it though 😂 I enjoy your vids 🍻

[@AudioMasterclass]

@GavinskisTutorials Yes we mustn’t make it a controversy. See what I did there?

[@GavinskisTutorials]

@@AudioMasterclass Hahaha, full marks if you're pronouncing that the British way rather than the Yankee way 😂

[@utube4andydent]

Yes I do care. Having recorded using the bare bones of equipment and microphones I've learnt that placing is really important. That and making sure long cable runs are secure to avoid trips and falls. Yes there is far to much reverb on the clip. I would say that the producer read up about the music and this gave an insight as to how it would be broadcast. It's an amazing thought that I use to volunteer for a radio station whom were lucky enough to broadcast live concerts using just one microphone above the orchestra. This works well. Last time I heard a live concert it sounded like a really worn vinyl record due to it being relayed to the studio over analogue Land Lines. To capture audio from one drummer and drum kit takes a few more microphones. I have found myself in the odd position of being both broadcaster and musician. The sound guy from the radio station did not appear so I was left holding the mixer and playing the organ at the same time. I'm not sure what catogery that puts me into.

[@razisn]

Good one, thank you. You are quite right about too much reverb for the mike distance. I would be interested to hear about your preferences with regards to the recording of symphonic orchestras. Old fashioned distant miking vs 70s - 80s medium-close miking vs today's unfortunate, imo, but very common too close miking. My preference lies in the second.

[@gracenotes5379]

I was immediately horrified by the amount and duration of reverb.

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Yeah, that almost sounded "country and western".

[@Andrew-rc3vh]

@@Douglas_Blake_579 I thought it was Country and Western!

[@johnbrown6189]

I think it's kind of funny that today most people listen to their audio from a file.

[@adambrown8867]

Why do so many KZbin content creators release these videos with clipping/distortion so drastically present just from them talking? Do they not know how to properly set microphone preamp levels? Do they not know how to use an audio compressor? Are they using junk microphones?

[@AudioMasterclass]

Haha, I have a junk voice.

[@seedney]

When I want to listen to something - I can't care to extend that I want the master engeneer to do stuff... How would I check if he's statemants are even true, and this isn't just a scam to grab my money out of my wallet?

[@obscurazone]

The irony, is that very high end equipment will ALWAYS expose a poor recording, and almost always will make everything sound worse. Less "revealing" equipment will almost always iron out "imperfections" and allow for a (generally) more pleasant sounding experience. Ultimately, regarding this "do you care" question, I think you really should be asking yourself this; Are you listening to the music, or are you listening to the recording of said music. They're two very different things, and I'd argue that some of the most powerful and emotive music ever made was recorded terribly (speaking by modern technical standards) or very primitively - deliberately or otherwise. I've spent years going down the equipment rabbit hole, decades, and I still get a buzz when I hear something that has clearly had a great deal of attention put into the recording/mastering, but to be honest getting emersed (borderline obsessed) in the equipment has really taken the overall shine off music for me. I long now for my teenage years, where all I cared about was hunting for records, and I really couldn't care less what I played them on, so long as I could play my music loud. It was purely and simply about the music and the experience of it. Having a fancy HiFi actually felt a bit passé - like we knew it was for middle aged people with too much money (what's changed!), and it's for that reason I stopped buying new gear around a decade ago, and I scratch my sonic nirvana itch nowadays by playing with speaker/room layout and treatments instead - and when I say treatments I mean rugs and wall hangings, plants even. All that being said, whatever makes you happy. There's too much snobbery about, and whilst I do believe all the great things in life are indeed an acquired taste, subjective views are still very much innate and our own experience is all that matters. If someone loves to spend hundreds of thousands of £$¥€ on gear and "thinks" they are experiencing music in a way that everyone else cannot - they are correct, but it's not (and never will be) a "better" experience.

[@brugj03]

I guess you got it figured............buy the cheapest crap from china an your on roses. I wonder why i didn`t figure that out myself.

[@obscurazone]

@@brugj03 I think there's a middle way as it goes. I've always been a firm believer in buying the best quality I can afford - I'm a designer, and I hate the culture we now exist in where "newness" drives everything, as opposed to things in the past that were built to last and/or easily fixable. So no, I have never/will never buy "cheap crap" from China or anywhere else, BUT neither would I now spend more than €600 on an amplifier, same for speakers - and I always buy used. One could argue that I am STILL in the game of chasing unicorns by buying "audiophile" quality, just used and at a fraction of the price second hand, so the only difference is that I'm being a bit smarter with my cash. I can't argue with that. But, I haven't bought anything for years now. I haven't felt the need to update or upgrade or whatever you want to call it. I'm weaning myself off that desire for difference. I think a lot of folk are just addicted to buying shiny new toys if they're very honest with themselves. We are very magpie like in our habits when it comes to this sort of thing.

[@RennieAsh]

@@obscurazone Yep it's tough to change once you end up with gear that is almost perfect for use but trying to not buy the next interesting thing and comparing it and fretting over if it's something to keep or not ;p

[@brugj03]

@@obscurazone Maybe.......i guess. Sure..... You see i`m in the game as long as i hear wortwhile differences, cheaper or more expensive, i don`t care. I`m in for the sound and quality has it`s price. Hifi has gotten a lot more expensive lately.

[@obscurazone]

@@brugj03 I'm of the firm belief, that as our hearing deteriorates with age (fact) our confirmation bias and "worthwhile differences" we hear in hifi increases exponentially. My tip, just add EQ into your system if you have amplification without tone control. Bingo, your sound can be tweaked exactly as you desire. The end!

[@ricktotty2283]

That is my big issue. The recording! We spend lots of money on great organs and wonderful concert facilities. All for nothing, to have some person to ruin it with a poor recording. The symphony with two bassists. Yes with no bass. Van Halen with no bass. Led Zeppelin and on and on. I hate it when recording with EQ ing. Get the musicians to play EQ. Nothing worse than seeing musicians playing that you can’t hear. No attention payed to phase cancellation or refraction. Some are excellent but most are not. You can’t fix bad recordings with good enough Kit. Anyone can sing or play loud. It takes real skill to do it softly.

[@kawmic7]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 There! Laughtrack!🤣🤣😎😎

[@MC-jv6fs]

Plastic reverb . Instead of it they could have put an x-mas tree button on her shirt, with golden glimmer LEDs.(But not on the top of her mountains)

[@Albee213]

This makes me think of remixed (not remasters) albums. And usually it's albums that had some serious production problems that get this treatment. Problem is that no matter how much "better" the new remix of and album sounds it never replaces the uniqueness of the original no matter awful it might have sounded. There are a few exceptions. I listen to a lot of different types of music but my meat and potatoes is metal music. Many metal bands first albums in the early 80's were poorly produced and they didn't get the sound they wanted due to many limitations. However this created a unique sound and in ways sculpted the production styles that would follow. Some bands have gone back and remixed them and sure they sound bigger, cleaner and more modern, but to me it becomes another version and makes me want to listen to the original. Many of the recordings that we listen to and think sounded so great were not carefully engineered in the studio by the created producers and mixers. So much music is created and shipped with little review of quality yet we go back and talk about how great it sounded. Many times is almost by accident. Like watching a cheaply made B-movie that is awesome regardless of the budget limitations.

[@yc-tai]

I also cared about the instruments that produced the sound, sorry the music... Just saying...

[@C-man553]

You were a middle child.

[@philthompson8574]

On first hearing it sounds like it's pre recorded but overly brash

[@AudioMasterclass]

Can’t rule it out but it seems like an unnecessary complication.

[@razisn]

'Harsh' or, better, screechy is pretty much how the violin can sound when closely miked or closely listened to for that matter. If it's a baroque violin it sounds even 'harsher'.

[@DWHarper62]

I hate the AKG214... bright, harsh, not pleasing... 414 definitely better... Any decent engineer could set up any number of stereo arrays for the broadast and keep the mics off camera and you get NATURAL REVERB! (you have to know that they were not in a small room)...

[@halflitre65]

Dear Mr Mellor, could you PLEASE tell me where in the North of England you were born or spent the majority of your childhood? Why? Because I pride myself on being able to tell where people from my native North-East were raised to within a 5-mile radius - but your accent has got me baffled, presumably due to your many years of living "darn Sarf". You could be from parts of Cumbria, Geordieland, Co Durham or Teesside/North Yorkshire but I can't nail it down. Fancy putting this "accentophile" out of his misery mate...??? PS: I'm from Hartlepool originally if it's a case of "you show me yours and I'll show mine"..! ;)

[@AudioMasterclass]

Thank you for your question. I can confirm that I’m from north of 52.3069130, -1.1194000

[@halflitre65]

@@AudioMasterclass I was excited when I saw the co-ordinates, but once I realised they were preceded by "north of" I guessed exactly where they'd be. Very good. OK then, somewhere within what was known as the North Riding of Yorkshire when you were born...?

[@sidesup8286]

What some people do not know (even though they think they know), is just how much of a recordings mediocre sound is due to the recording, and how much of it is due to the equipment used to play it. The equipment is almost always more to fault than the recording. I have not many cds that were released during "the loudness wars." Because I mostly like older music. You wouldn't believe some of the cds which previously sounded like garbage for sonics, that sound like pretty darn good recordings now. Now that that I made many improvements in my sound quality. It requires the proper tools to evaluate, and not many people have gear great enough, to qualify aa a proper tool. tool. Even if you have equipment that would make Stereophile magazines Class A category, us extreme tweakers know there are many grades above that. So even Stereophile Class A equipment is not necessarily good enough as a tool to evaluate what kind of sound recordings are capable of. Getting rid of distortions, both identified kinds of distortion and non-identified types of distortion distortion and electronic signature and glare is the key.

[@thomprd]

I don’t consider any recording “perfect.” :)

[@robertmcmillan7746]

Agree totally with your comments, but I'm triggered by your music selection. In America it was one of the main themes of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. I don't know how long your civil war lasted, but the Burns documentary was 11 hours and thirty minutes. They played this theme every five minutes which means... well you do the math. kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4vQqY2KncdjbpY

[@chrisdoyon7556]

Some context for non-Americans is that this piece of music was the recurring theme of a hugely popular (in America, at least) documentary series on the American Civil War that featured narration and the voices of actors over sound and atmospheric effects over slow pans over period photographs. I recall the theme in the tv show had gobs of reverb to create the idea of echoing off of mountains, valleys and rolling hills of southern battlefields. So the excessive reverb on this tv show may well have been a creative choice and not like the other audio problems you have identified

[@Eliotime3000]

Yup. Even the reverb effect seems to be ideal for the violinist that can enhance and/or decrease the reverb in a more accurate way with the violin playing style. That's something that typical "audiophiles" didn't realize at the first listening.

[@hepphepps8356]

The AKG 214 is a decisively bad microphone and not up to soloist work in any serious capacity. The BBC had better mics 80 years ago. For real. It is harsh sounding and veiled at the same time. Quite peculiar. Placement looks absolutely perfect, it is precisely where a violin soloist projects the sound towards the audience. Mono and quite close is appropriate for a mediocre radio talk-studio. It is actually rather too far away, and the «small room sound» which you can’t really remove forces the engineer to use excessive long reverb. Close miking of acoustic instruments combined with artificial reverberation is there on a huge percentage of records considered audiophile. From the 50’s and up! Cymbals and upright basses and pianos doesn’t go well together enough acoustically, so jazz has been closed miced since about then. Put som chamber or plate on it to make depth. From the late 70’s it was digital reverbs. And why shouldn’t these choices be made by the producers, engineers and musicians in the recording process? Why is keeping room acoustics unaltered such a holy cow? Like architects are the once best deciding how records should sound? Real instruments in real rooms often sounds uneven, raw, flat and quite chaotic. Overlapping frequencies and unpleasant resonances. Not magic and transparent. Recording is a purification process which distilles and perfects the artistic idea. It might help liberate the brain to realize that the recording, the digital audio file from mastering, approved by the artist, the producer and engineer IS the piece of art. Not some romantic notion of what happened in the room.

[@dkmi]

What really drives me crazy, is the fact there's nothing I can do about recordings. No audio playback equipment can fix a poor recording. There are some great songs out there that I just won't listen to because of the recording. For as great as some Fleetwood Mac recordings are, Stevie Nicks recordings sound 80s and unnatural. George Strait had some fantastic songs in the 80s, but the recordings are awful. I wish someone would re-engineer poor recordings. Remasters aren't good enough. I'm talking about doing what they did with Elton John's "The Superior Sound of Elton John" album. Rocket Man and Daniel are so much better on this album, there's no listening to them otherwise.

[@harrisonbergeron6577]

What a can of worms you have opened. I am, to some extent, an audiophile, but I consider myself able to determine what is bullshit and what is not. Sources are a mixed bag. I typically consider CDs the most reliable. I have at least one recoeding from apple with a niticicable glitch, so I am leery of streaming, I also have an old Direct-toDisc recording of Carlos Montoya and Sabicus, recorded with two microphones that, despite being ov vinyl, sounds fantastic. My criteria is does a guitar, violin, etc., sound as close as possible to the real thing? I attent real concerts and know what the instruments sound like. For rock music, I don't worry about it too much, since who knows how much processing went into production. If the instruments are clear and the soundstage balanced, that's as good as it gets given what the producer thought was good. In general, most of what passes for "high end" audiophile equipment are just over priced gimmicks. (I have a pair of quad esl's which do the job very well.) As far as amplifiers go, any decent amp will sound the same (except for tube amps, which will always be worse than any decent solid state amplifier. Guitarists like tube amps because of the distortion not because tube amps are very linear.) As far as the recording process goes, one has little control over that. For classical music, I've generally trusted Deutche Grammaphone and other companies known for doing good recoecordings, but in the end, all of that goes through mixing panels loaded with commodity ICs. I really believe that when people claim to hear differences in amplifiers, it's because they prefer the distortion present in at least one of the amplifiers they are comparing.

[@Synthematix]

Makes me laugh when "audiophiles" keep banging on about vinyl and "sound quality", its the most imperfect media ever made

[@LangleyNA]

Much wet mix. Much wet.

[@jdlech]

If you think that's bad, go get a comprehensive hearing test. Everyone over the age of - 50??? It probably starts at age of 20. But for most of us, it's noticeable by 50. You spend all that money - thousands - perhaps even tens or humdreds of thousands of lbs or $s on a system that is flat all the way out to 24KHz. But now your hearing drops off at 15, 12, maybe even 10KHz. Suddenly, you only hear half the music. Compensation? Good luck. You stick that slider up to +12Db and you still can't hear anything. You're dog is running away, your children can't stand to be inside the house. Every insect for miles is scuttling away.... and you still can't hear it. No better source can help, no better stereo can help. You're half deaf and nothing will ever bring it back. You spent all tha money for nothing. But I will say this - if your source is the weakest link your your system (either the artists, or the recording engineer, or their location/equipment), then you're done upgrading your system. No furhther upgrades will improve the sound. Congratulations, your system is "good enogh", you're done.

[@AudioMasterclass]

While I don't disagree with the point of what you say, losing everything above 10 kHz is not the same as losing half the music. You've lost just one octave out of your original ten.