Poll: What does good sound sound like?

CNET News Poll

Sound quality: Does it matter?
Does sound quality influence your music and/or audio equipment buying decisions?

Yes: Sound quality is more important for audio gear.
Yes: Sound quality is more important for music.
Yes: Sound quality is equally important for hardware and music.
No: Everything sounds good enough for me.

View results

You don't need to be an audiophile to hear the difference between average-sounding and great-sounding recordings, but you do have to listen. Really listen.

First try this experiment and set a benchmark: Listen to someone playing an acoustic guitar, in your room. Then play a recording of an acoustic guitar. Notice any difference in the sound quality between the two? Yeah, it's not even close. If your real, live guitar player can sing, next compare the sound of that person's voice to the recording's vocal. The recording's singer will most likely sound small, tonally thin, like the voice is coming out of tiny boxes. It might be hard to tell the singer has a flesh-and-blood body connected to that voice. The live guitar sounds big and clear, very clear, without any edge or harshness. Few recordings of guitar sound like the real thing.

My point here is to first establish a standard of what good sound sounds like to me. I like recordings that sound realistic. After all, if the musician on the record is playing a Gretsch Synchromatic 400 Acoustic Archtop guitar, I'd like to hear its unique sound. But if the producer and engineer recorded the Gretsch through a pickup instead of a microphone, equalized its sound, compressed its dynamic range, added digital reverb, and processed it to death--there won't be much left to the Gretsch's sound. Then it's just a generic guitar, which is why I would describe the sound of the recording as "bad."

Most commercial recordings (purposely) distort the sound of vocals and instruments. And sure, they might even do it in a way that sounds great. That's the idea after all, but sometimes it's a treat to hear a recording that sounds like the band is in the room with you. If they're great players, I want to hear them play. That's what good sound sounds like to me.

I rarely get to hear that so I settle for less, usually a lot less. When I'm reviewing receivers and speakers I listen to all sorts of music and movies, but I keep a few audiophile recordings on hand to get to the heart of the matter. It's hard to tell how good a speaker is if the recording sounds bad.

I will in a future blog run down a few of my favorite recordings.

There are objective standards that define sound quality: Low distortion, wide frequency response, and uninhibited dynamic range. Those are hardware-oriented standards, but they still apply to recordings to some degree.

But the business at hand today is to get feedback from Audiophiliac readers as to what you think constitutes "good sound." What qualities make for great-sounding recordings? Ultimately, we like what we like and that's fine. When you don't like the sound, what turns you off?

[TomClement]

Thanks for reminding me of how processed and homogenized most records are. I'll have to bring out my old direct recorded vinyl record of Thema Houston and Pressure Cooker. The sound quality of it (not to mention the hot arrangements) always blows me away.

[TomClement]

Thanks for reminding me of how processed and homogenized most records are. I'll have to bring out my old direct recorded vinyl record of Thema Houston and Pressure Cooker. The sound quality of it (not to mention the hot arrangements) always blows me away.

[DNestlerode]

Compression is the worst of all of these developments. It kills dynamic range and increases overall volume to no great effect except to tire the listener's ears. It also squeezes any emotional content right out of the music.

[venuesdotorg]

The sad reality is that recording engineers must choose the target audience. Great recordings just don't cut through radio and into car stereos / mp3 downloads. They need to be artificially beefed up. If your target audience is radio/mp3, big beefy tracks sound better. When you play them in a proper audio environment, they fall down. This is why "remixes" of classic recordings are so popular.
It would be nice if every recording had 2 versions: a pure version and a radio version.

[feverboy777]

Hey Steve,

Simply put ... the eyes are more forgiving than the ears.

FB777

[traxx09]

You've got that backward, feverboy. On a project I produced last year I had to cut the middle part of a track out to make it fit the video content at that point. There is a cut there and I can hear it because I know where I put it. Nobody else picked up on it. Not even my co-worker who is very into audio from years of working in the radio and music industry and producing spots for radio.

Now if I put a jump cut in the video, even the least astute viewer will notice. Video cuts are very obvious and have to be done precisely.

As far as the question that Steve asks, the above poster got it right. Different genres are produced differently for their different audiences. The American Recordings of Johnny Cash, although they don't sound like Johnny sitting in your living room, sound a lot more pure than a Hannah Montana recording. Also, a lot of engineers these days use a lot of compression. I guess they think this gives them a lot more highs and/or peaks when in reality IT MAKES EVERYTHING SOUND LIKE THIS.

[SlimGem]

I use to have my best stereo setup in a spare room just for critical listening. My chair was positioned in the sweet spot of my Magnepan speakers with a pair of NHT 10" subwoofers.

With my eyes closed, some of my audiophile LPs would literally make me feel like I could reach out and touch the performers. It was awesome, but I finally got to the point where I realized I was buying recordings for their acoustic perfection and not for the pleasure of the actual music.

I eventually switched to all CDs, then digital downloads, and now I listen to music wirelessly from my computers, on iPods, and even USB thumb drives plugged into my car stereo. I'm a lot less anal and enjoying my music more than ever. But, to each their own.

[ejbeutter]

Finally...someone (TomClement) who has the 'Thelma Houston and the Pressure Cooker' album. My copy of this direct-to-disc recording is in pristine condition and is what I would use to compare all other sound. It is outstanding -- even with the occasional page turn or spit expel from a horn. Now THAT'S great sound quality.

[SkyeRider]

Simple: Linn LP12 turntable with Naim Audio electronics and speakers. Musical heaven.

[ccwsoftware]

I'm afraid that my old, tired, and much abused ears just aren't as discerning as they once were. That influences my buying and listening decisions. Where once I might have winced and muted, now I just shrug and listen, usually happily. Not everyone old guy around here may have spent too many hours stranding too close to the guitar amp way back when, but aging ears are probably a factor for many consumers.

[fazalmajid]

I listen mostly to classical music so I am not as exposed to compression and the loudness war as someone who listens to more popular genres would. Nothing beats a live performance, but my definition of good sound includes faithful and accurate reproduction, without overly equalized bass or the other horrors you see too often.

[alegr]

But some recordings, especially live symphony performances, can have so wide dynamic range, that to hear the softest passages you jave to have the loudest places almost unbearable. For example, Mahler's Sympony 9.

[spoonie1972]

Lately, AM radio has started sounding good to me. I listen to news.

Maybe it's time to pull out some Miles Davis records and remind myself how good recording engineering *can* be.

>>>>>
Finally...someone (TomClement) who has the 'Thelma Houston and the Pressure Cooker' album. My copy of this direct-to-disc recording is in pristine condition and is what I would use to compare all other sound. It is outstanding -- even with the occasional page turn or spit expel from a horn. Now THAT'S great sound quality.

heh, there's a great, I believe RCA-Victor recording of Copland's Appalachian Spring, you can hear the bass of delivery trucks rumbling outside of the building as they go by, a few feet/page shuffles, and some coughs. None of it (to me) takes away from the overall performance.

[terminalblue]

seriously, i would say its all in the enviroment...recording or playback. you can take something that just sounds OK from where it was recorded and make it sound phenominal for playback and vice versa.

some modern albums sound VERY dubious, but there are a few artist in modern music that have a great appreciation for the art of playback.
Ben Harpers Albums "LifeLine" and "there will be light"
Muse's "black holes and revelations"
Inara George and Van **** Park's "An Invitation"
The Roots "Rising Down"
Blue States "Man Mountain"

All of these album sound incredible on even the most remediable hardware. and artist like these generally respect the recording and compression process enough to follow their albums through to release.

I dont think that your average artist really understand the entire mastering process. and those fans of that music get what they pay for.

[terminalblue]

lol...THANK YOU CNET AUTO CENSOR!
the name is Van D_Y_K_E Parks

[1egalbegal]

And who was that guy that played Mary Tyler Moore's husband . . . oh yeah . . . it was **** Van ****

[baconstang]

Wasn't it ***** von Lesbian?

[Tui Pohutukawa]

Thank you for this article. As a recording musician, I am too often disappointed with what passes for "professional" recordings these days. Even with many classical and crossover pop/jazz recordings, all emotion has been EQed, compressed and normalised out of the music. Modern tools such as Autotune and unlimited cutting/pasting/comping don't help with creating a sense of realism either. Additionally, a high-end analogue recording chain still sounds better than the very best digital equipment. What to do? How can we get THAT sound back - the sound that made recorded music great?

[fumelo]

First, it was listening live in an acoustically correct environment. That's exactly what the artist sounded like, no distortions, compression, noise, etc.

Then, it was vinyl. Wonderfully close to perfect - for the first 5 listenings or so. Then there was all that hiss and pop, and the needle started to wear on the hills and valleys of the sound grooves.

Tape was good, but more for mobility than for sound purity. My friends and I were in the practice of buying vinyl, cleaning it well and recording to high quality tape. You listen to the tape until it wore out and only then played the vinyl again to make another recording, thus saving the vinyl from degrading too fast.

Compact discs were the next step. Smaller, more durable, and supposedly no degradation of sound. If recorded from analog you could still hear the noise, but then digital recorded music came out and the silent parts were perfectly silent, highs crystal, lows booming. Sound got colder, but it was also very clean. The audiophiles didn't like it though. I had a hard time with it, too.

But then I started to realize how I listen to music 99.9% of the time. No longer in an acoustically perfect room with high-end equipment, just sitting there listening. I was in my car, in my house doing something with music in the background, out and about, etc. Using headphones more and more. The years of live music and age starting to erode the sensitivity I used to have. Now, I listen on pretty good headphones using an iPod at a high bit rate. I still enjoy the sound and listen to music more than I used to. And that's the key point; I listen more often, even though I may no longer hear the click of the pick striking a guitar string or the soft thump of a thumb plucking a bass. But I still hear the music and enjoy it in a different way.

So what is good sound? Your favorite artist/band live. But in lieu of that, good sound is your favorite music. A chance catch of it on a crackly radio, playing on a too-loud bar sound system, in the background barbecuing with friends, or through your favorite headphones playing through an iPod as you're strolling down the beach. We live in a wonderful time where we can listen to any artist at any time on equipment never dreamed of by previous generations. Spend tens of thousands on the best equipment or less than $100 on an mp3 player, but just enjoy the music. In the end it doesn't matter if it's perfect just as long as it's enjoyed.

[mojobone]

My experience has been similar to Fumelo's, above. I'm in favor of high quality reproduction, and demand it from the equipment I purchase; as a recording engineer/musician, my livelihood depends on it. But I think the expectation that a recording be merely a reproduction of a performance and nothing more misses the point. Why settle for real, when we can make it better than real? A given piece of music can be presented as a documentary or as a Hollywood blockbuster, and I think there's ample room for both approaches; I'm willing to let the artist decide. Not saying I'm a fan of overcompression, but all the tools have their place. Bob Katz, the dean of mastering engineers, has quite a good discussion on the principles of good audio housekeeping on his site, http://www.digido.com . There's also an Honor Roll list of great recordings that you can use to tune your system, or your ears.

[Archrisan]

I have a unique situation in that I am deaf in one ear from birth. But I can tell the difference between mono and stereo or even multi-channel. I mixed live sound for 16 years too go figure. Anyways I can't always hear subtleties such as scratching or normal breathing but what does come through is the feeling or vibe. Many CDs sound thin and flat. I have only been to one opera in my life. Don Giovanni at the Santa Fe Opera. I had standing room only tickets but I was blown away with the music and singing so much that even though I didn't understand what was going on for 4 hours it was well worth it. It is a benchmark that I have used ever since when listening to systems and CDs. When it comes to popular music I have only found one CD that I consider exceptional recording; Suzanne Vega, 99.9 F(degrees). Another favorite is Madredeus, Antologia.

[minimalist]

I could care less about realism.

In the context of a recording, "good sound" is the result of the artist(s) treating the recording as a part of the artistic process. Even if its processed and compressed and and sounds like an old gramophone it can still be "good sound" as long as its being used in the service of the art. There is no real standard except "does it work"?

Recordings and live performances are both forms of art but they are not the same. Claiming that a studio recording must always replicate the sound of a live performance seems like a very narrow, overly technical viewpoint.

Good paintings and good photographs are not judged by how realistically they represent their subject matter so why the heck should music?

[minimalist]

Despite the fact that audiophiles often get so wrapped up in the technical aspects of sound that they mistake the forest for the trees (the recording engineer is there to be in the service of the art not the other way around), I still believe a good set of speakers is a wise investment.

I always tell people to get better speakers or headphones even if it means they spend less on a receiver, mp3 player, etc because speakers and headphones give you the biggest return for your money. They are the weakest link in the chain of most consumer systems.

[chottyman]

I've been drumming for many years, but here's my two cents;
For Mono- Pet Sounds.
For Stereo- Casino Royale Motion picture soundtrack. (Google it, trust me).

[HappyPhil]

There are some wonderful sounds to be made using technology. Even my guitar sounds better with today's advanced strings, or does it? Even that, "real", acoustic sound is affected by subjectivity and location. It made me real happy hearing an E chord on my Sears Silvertone after putting on a new set of Black Diamond strings that I got at the Alpine, Texas drugstore, back in 1960. It's up to the ears that are listening and the extent of our listening experience, I suppose.

Music that has been recorded is another art form. It is an image. Whether it's realist, impressionist, or something that only electronics can produce, it can still be music, (good or bad). Some of the worst, "live", recordings I have heard, were done in the symphony hall with a couple of condenser mic's hanging from the proscenium arch. Some of the best representations of real instruments have been the result of technical enhancement. ( My favorite recorded cello sound is in the Beatles song, "Piggies".)

My favorite, "live", album is Ray Charles at Newport, the 1959 release, (Someone tinkers with the volume knob in the 1970's re-mix.)

As to compression;
There are different kinds of compression. Some amounts of, "dynamic compression", is good for the recording and can help capture nuances that would otherwise be lost. Too much and you lose space and separation.

Too much, "data compression", can produce a disconcerting effect in our auditory senses, (Some MP3 formats contain only 15% of the original sound data, leaving our brains to fill in the blanks).

I have several sound systems at home, only one is actual flat industry standard. Good recordings sound good, no matter what I play them on, (except the speakers in the TV set).

[cvaldes1831]

While I'm no audio expert, I've listened to a lot of music and first of all, live music (in a good venue) is better than recorded music (in a good venue). There's also a question about the importance of the actual performance, beyond the technical matters.

The venue (recording or live) makes an enormous difference. There are certain venues that absolutely suck (*cough* Warfield Theater in SF *cough*). There are some venues that are good on some days (when the right engineer is on the mixing console) and suck on other days (when that person has the day off). And some venues are naturally superior (e.g., Musikverein in Vienna) with zero tinkering at all.

So yeah, good sound sounds like a live performance at Wiener Musikverein. You can buy a million dollars of audiophile gear and it still won't sound much like it. Sorry about that, however keep buying that stuff. I occasionally buy used audiophile gear because of the great bargains that can be found.

[mediathink]

Silliness. Most people can't tell Mp3 form AIFF. it's the song that matters. I have Patsy Cline and Django Reinhardt records that are audibly inferior to modern stuff but the songs and performances are historic and that's what makes them great. Why not do a story on the fraud of bogus gold audio cables? Seriously. Noise is often pleasing to the ear. Vintage gear is revered even though it is measurably inferior. People should listen to what sounds good to them. You can tell them to flatten their EQ why bother? Few understand why. Boosted bass and treble sounds better to them.

FWIW Jeff Buckley's Grace is the best sounding modern recording followed closely by Lyle Lovett's Joshua Judges Ruth. Andy Wallace work on Grace and George Massenburg's work on Joshua Judges Ruth prove that the role of dynamic range-- while important --can be addressed effectively in very different ways. Sure many will argue about it --but it's pointless. I'm right. ;)

[Renegade Knight]

What made them great in turn made them historic. Not vice versa.

[baconstang]

Massenburg has always dealt with dynamics in a subtle and great way. Check out the old Earth, Wind and Fire recordings.

[flipant2]

I?ve checked out different speakers for a stereo system and compared the sound qualities of different audio systems, on the occasional weekend.

I started out be listening intently to the sound characteristics of the speakers ? did the sound of the cymbal come through in the tweeter with detail, did the pluck of a stringed instrument have a warm resonance?

But when I really found a system I liked, I forgot about all that and became very engaged with the music. The music had an immediacy and warmth that drew me in as a listener. I found it hard to categorize in terms of the sonic qualities of the speaker or amplifier, and it was not always associated with the most accurate/audiophile sound. I think it had more to do with a transparency of sound, perhaps where both the recording and play back technology was less evident.

I?d need to know more about how sound is reproduced to say more precisely what I feel good sound is, except to say that subjectively its sounds authentic, and expressive.

[odubtaig]

OK, the character encoding on this site is getting stupid. I typed that in direct and yet the apostrophes come out as question marks.

' " ?

[odubtaig]

Sorry, ignore me, just woken up.