[Audio_Empire[_2_]]

I don't know if any of my fellow audio enthusiasts out there have
noticed this, but even the best recordings always seem to "lack"
something. Uncompressed digital (even Red Book), promises wide dynamic
range, excellent frequency response and low distortion. It should be
possible to make recordings so good that, given a halfway decent
playback system, the musicians are in the room with you. It is
technically possible and surprisingly easy to do this, but it rarely
happens with commercial recordings. Why is it that still, in this
digital age, audiophiles cling to performances recorded more than
fifty years ago as the pinnacle of the recording arts? Recordings made
in the late 1950's and early 1960's by such people as Mercury Record's
C. Robert Fine, or RCA Victor's Lewis Leyton in the classical
recording world, and Rudy Van Gelder of Riverside, and Impulse Records
fame in the world of jazz are held in such high esteem, that even CD
and SACD re-releases of their recordings still sell very well today.
It's as if no progress has been made in the art and science of
recording in the last 55 years or so.

I have found, in building my stereo system, that this has become a dog
chasing his tail endeavor. My playback equipment gets better and
better and yet the recordings to which I listen, ranging from terrible
to OK seldom get any better than just OK. Even so-called audiophile
recordings from labels such as Telarc and Reference and Naxos, to name
a few, never sound quite as good as I think they should. Any ideas,
other opinions, criticisms or nasty comments? All of the above would
be welcomed.

Audio_Empire