Comments on: Poll: What does good sound sound like?

You don't need to be an audiophile to care about sound quality, but you do have to listen. Really listen.

[farker1]

Alright - enough of these blogs. There is half a thought in this piece, and no real reflection. I am sick of this direction that cnet has taken.

[krzanalyst]

umm. stop reading them then?

[odubtaig]

MP3s do miss out some of the high frequencies (still) but I don't notice so much because I rip to Ogg which WinAmp plays just fine.

If anyone wants to play music on a computer there are certain things that have to be considered:

- That Realtek/Intel HDA sound chip that comes as default is crap. Never mind the laptop speakers, even plugging it in to a high quality Hi-Fi separate isn't going to save you from the abysmal quality of these cheapo chips. I play everything through a Terratec Aureon #2. It may only claim 16Bit/48KHz sound quality but it's miles better and unlike the more expensive X-Fi ExpressCard (which doesn't even have an X-Fi chip) it does hardware mixing. It's not about the numbers, it's about the quality of components.

- Speaker quality. Right now I plug into a 16 year old Sony Midi system via minijack-to-phono which has always sounded good. Despite the flatness of CDs, the right audio equipment can bring a richness to them that some people wouldn't believe is there. Not bad for a display model. You just can't use the exact same audio setup for CDs or other digital formats as you can vinyl or tapes. At some point I'll have to find a basis for comparison but I can't imagine John Foxx sounding as good on vinyl. Even the right PC speakers can bring a decent audio quality, my gf lucked out on a brand I'd never even heard of some years ago (before I met her) called Mercury. They're not the most aesthetically pleasing but they're better than any other PC speakers I've heard.

[Renegade Knight]

I finally got a set of THX certified speakers. These weren't the best, just the best bang for the buck. I never knew how good speakers could be. I am not an audiophile. But it's night and day. Now I can hear the difference in how a song was mixed/recorded. Now I can hear what crap a lot of it is. It matters.

Still with good speakers even the crap sounds better (to a point...)

[baconstang]

Pure sound is a lofty goal, but you'll wind up with a small library and listening to too much Spiro Gyra. In most common listening situations some compression is needed, unfortunately. Though it's generally taken too far. All the capabilities of Pro Tools are great for commercials and movies, but pretty much the end for realism in music.

[minimalist]

Does a recording need to be realistic to be good?

Photography and painting do not have a requirement that they accurately portray the way their subjects appear in real life. Why must a CD or mp3?

[coprock]

Is this why I enjoy old Blue Note and other jazzf recordings so much? Art Blakey, Max Roach, and John Coltrane usually sound like they are right in the room. As a rock and roll musician who has recorded many times, there has never ever been a pretense as trying to make it sound live. Multitracking and overdubs rob the synergy of live musicians playing together in a trade to get perfect takes. Yes, I would prefer to have my drums sound as realistic as possible when recording, however modern recording is another medium.

[spoonie1972]

One thing is constant: If you are listening to a phenomenal performance, and you can hear it well enough to enjoy it, the technical aspects become moot.

YMMV.

[GRobLewis]

I hate compression. In their mindless pursuit of ever-louder sounding recordings (to "stand out" from the pack), engineers have squeezed all the dynamics and life out of music. It makes me sick.

It's another sad case of the bad driving out the good, because now everybody thinks they have to make their recordings sound like crap in order to be "competitive".

[krzanalyst]

minimalist wrote:
Does a recording need to be realistic to be good?

Photography and painting do not have a requirement that they accurately portray the way their subjects appear in real life. Why must a CD or mp3?

- Because, I want to hear Bob Dylan, or Neil Young or Miles Davis etc........., not an artistic impression of them. If its not an accurate reproduction of them, I might as well not buy the recording and go listen to a cover band. As a footnote, I do buy vinyl, but not cd or mp3 due to the reduced quality of the recordings.

[vinyldavid]

You can easily recreate most of what an original instrument if you do not use an EQ on a mixer, and basic dynamic microphones, Example:

You (Steve) have heard recordings that I have made, and they sound pretty darn real....and I just use microphones-mixer-recorder, and then possibly a bit of compression in post....that is it....most of what I do is direct to master, and then that is transfered to digital, normalized, and burned.

[ampjam]

Funny how knowledge can change a perspective. I have for the last year been paying more attention to how music really sounds. It all started with buying an iPod. I always enjoyed music before, some recordings and bands more than others, of course, but the guy at the Apple Store talked to me about Apple lossless and a website call head-fi and how he was making his own portable DIY headphone mini amp. Wow, I was impressed! Every since I have been upping the ante of my equipment, source, and knowledge of what I listen too. I really can't say that I'm happier now. My ability to really listen and pay attention to the details has me critical and analytical of my music that I use to really enjoy. Seems that my choice of genre is against me too. My favorite bands seem to be the worst offenders of over engineering. Even to the point that the live music from them is compressed to deal with the concert sound. Know I'm on the quest of the audiophile, I can't go back to compressed radio music any more than I could go back to pay phones.