What you buy to listen to music on....
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I'll throw this at all of you...
For those of you who //don't// listen to or record classical and jazz --
what, exactly, is it that you use as your standard for a "good"
recording? That's not a rhetorical question.
That's a good question. I'd say I listen for arrangement, with the
recording supporting that.
My musical perception was trained around radio, so whatever would work
on radio works for me.
I'll say it again... Once multi-track recording became commonplace, any
lingering belief that recordings should sound like a live performance
went out the window.
It was a new toy. People tried to do things that could not easily be
done in live performance.
I was not around, but I imagine that Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High
The Moon" caused quite a stir. And I think it sounds marvelous.
Records by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra used relatively close-micing
"crooner" vocals.
This has been going on for a while.
The introduction of CD, which removed the
limitations of LP and CC, should have "reset" the industry to Living
Stereo and Living Presence, but it didn't -- presumably because
recording engineers "knew" that multi-tracking made a "better" recording.
Should have? Not after people because accustomed to nonlive methods of
arrangement and production.
I'd say that CD eventually brought back live performance as a revenue
generator*. And that there are certainly DVDs of live performance where
the sound is of high caliber.
*CD plus home CD burners with the Innernets thrown in...
It's interesting to listen to the Solti Ring in the order the operas
were recorded -- R, S, G, W -- because "Reingold" has the best sound. As
Decca's recording equipment got more complex, the sound became subtly
less-natural.
The superb sound of the best SACD and BD recordings is partly due to the
improvement in recording equipment over the past 20 years, but is mostly
the deliberate result of engineers making recordings they know will be
most-often played on good equipment -- that do not need to be
compromised for listening on compromised equipment.
I have no way of evaluating the truth or falsity of that.
The title of this thread is "What you buy to listen to music on...
[affects the way the recording is made]". This has /always/ been true.
The recording industry (with a few exceptions -- mostly smaller labels)
has /always/ pandered to the lowest common denominator of playback
equipment.
Right. And I have no problem with that myself.
--
Les Cargill
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