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Vintage hifi and modern

Tony L said:
... it all went wrong in the ‘flat earth’ era where quick subjective AB dems became the norm based entirely on a PRAT criteria.
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The last time I had a dealer in my home (nearly 15 years ago), I was amazed how he could proclaim my hifi sounded broken on the basis of a quick 30 second passage of song. It was working just fine before his proclamation. In hindsight, those were the days I listened to tracks rather than whole albums. But I'm not sure if that was the cause or effect. These days, I tend to listen to a single artist/band in a session over two or more of their albums. Last night featured Lucinda Williams.
 
jair said:
In pursuit of sales and a radio friendly sound we have been subjected to 25 years of dynamically compressed recordings. Even prestige remasterings often have the dynamics squashed out of them,
Luckily its still possible to get hold of good digital recordings if you know where to look. No wonder vinyl is alive and well.
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This is so true. I have duplicate copies of various CDs and LPs and the majority of them are far better recordings on vinyl with full dynamic range. I assume the CD engineers assume that we all listen to music in the car.
 
James said:
These days, I tend to listen to a single artist/band in a session over two or more of their albums. Last night featured Lucinda Williams.
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Heh! I've always done similar, but recently discovered the shuffle button on my (new) streamer. With over 1500 albums on it, shuffling individual songs throws up some strange bedfellows. Arvo Pärt/Coil/ZZTop/Seckou Keita/etc.
 
kitemap said:
This is so true. I have duplicate copies of various CDs and LPs and the majority of them are far better recordings on vinyl with full dynamic range. I assume the CD engineers assume that we all listen to music in the car.
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Not so much engineers (I prefer "technicians", to me an engineer is someone with a higher academic degree in engineering) assuming things, but being told to do it by producers (and sometimes even musicians) who think the "punchier" and "louder" sound sells better.
 
Julf said:
Not so much engineers (I prefer "technicians", to me an engineer is someone with a higher academic degree in engineering) assuming things, but being told to do it by producers (and sometimes even musicians) who think the "punchier" and "louder" sound sells better.
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I'd be reluctant to even call them technicians in this case. Given what can be revealed by listening and analysis of the results I'd say they are all too often "fake wizards" who simply twiddle their knobs (oh-err) to impress. 8-]
 
awkwardbydesign said:
Heh! I've always done similar, but recently discovered the shuffle button on my (new) streamer. With over 1500 albums on it, shuffling individual songs throws up some strange bedfellows. Arvo Pärt/Coil/ZZTop/Seckou Keita/etc.
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Well, that is just wrong.
 
James said:
I won't be so quick to dismiss older cars. Many of the better ones (Bavarians, for example) actually feel nicer and more communicative to drive. I blame electric steering...
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I completely agree, though the changes in this area are pretty recent.

...and nanny systems.
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As an driving enthusiast I agree, but it depends on the implementation. For A to B drivers (which includes me 90+% of the time, in truth) I’m all for more nannying and fewer accidents.

But on your point about vintage hifi, I firmly believe the problem with modern kit lie with loudspeakers...
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Could not agree more. Speakers tuned to impress are a plague upon us.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
I'd be reluctant to even call them technicians in this case. Given what can be revealed by listening and analysis of the results I'd say they are all too often "fake wizards" who simply twiddle their knobs (oh-err) to impress. 8-]
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I know this area fairly well and to my mind the issue is the customer, usually a corporate record label or manager looking to make their product stand out/make a remaster “more imressive” than the last issue etc. Sound engineers as a breed tend to be decent types with a damn good ear, but as with any marketplace they only get work if the deliver exactly what the punter asks for. If that’s ‘make it louder than the other guy’s MP3’ then that is what they have to create. The groundshift has to come from the customer/end-user and sites like DR database, Steve Hoffman, pfm etc etc all do their little bit in raising awareness. We’ll get there in time!
 
Tony L said:
I know this area fairly well and to my mind the issue is the customer, usually a corporate record label or manager looking to make their product stand out/make a remaster “more imressive” than the last issue etc. Sound engineers as a breed tend to be decent types with a damn good ear, but as with any marketplace they only get work if the deliver exactly what the punter asks for. If that’s ‘make it louder than the other guy’s MP3’ then that is what they have to create. The groundshift has to come from the customer/end-user and sites like DR database, Steve Hoffman, pfm etc etc all do their little bit in raising awareness. We’ll get there in time!
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One of my friends bands once wanted some CDs pressing (or whatever the term is), that they had recorded the master for. It took them three different companies before they found one that wouldn't put the master straight though their auto re-master program prior to pressing. The first pressed the CDs without telling them!
The band simply wanted a mirror image of what they'd sent.
 
john martin said:
I'm not really a car person, although I did own a 323i at the time of the 1980s purchases. It used to terrify me. I am happier with a Honda Jazz these days!

I agree the problem is with the speakers. The Quad system I inherited from my Mother when she died in 2008. My Dad was the music lover really, but he died in 1989. When Mum died, to my eternal regret, we sent the Quad electrostatic speakers to the tip as the sheer size of them ruled them out. The sound, I remember was superb, though.
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well i hope some lucky person found them
 
The latest Benchmark paper states that both amplifier and DAC technology have now reached a point when any further improvement will be inaudible. This implies that it's pointless to spend more than $3-4000 on either an amp or a DAC (maybe you'd expect them to say that if that's their market segment) and that speakers and headphones are the only area where innovation is worthwhile.
Conversely, the '80s amp I mentioned above is now playing through the ESL57s, and if I close my eyes I can almost believe I'm listening to my own personal piano recital. The combined THD probably wouldn't measure very well by today's standards, but the music just flows.

Maybe instead of a spectrum analyser we need a machine that measures the release of dopamine in the brain: made-to-measure hi-fi, anyone?
 
I'm happy to agree that there are good engineers out there who do their best. The problem is that by the time the results get to the user they are often messed up. LOUDNESS being the most obvious example. But if you look at my webpages you can see other problems. I wonder how many HDCDs have been messed up by someone later in the chain blindly adding more compression or 'improvement' without HDCD decoding first, thus messing up the original beyond recovery. If MQA gains traction I'd expect the same to crop up with that as well.
 
James said:
These days, I tend to listen to a single artist/band in a session over two or more of their albums. Last night featured Lucinda Williams.
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I do enjoy binge listening. I like going through an artist's entire discography in chronological order, over a period of days. Then on to another artist to binge upon.
 
Yank said:
I do enjoy binge listening. I like going through an artist's entire discography in chronological order, over a period of days. Then on to another artist to binge upon.
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It's only by binge listening that you truly discover if you like the artist, warts and all, or just selections of their music. For the former, I've sought to find missing albums from my collection. The latter don't get much attention after the novelty wears off.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
I'm happy to agree that there are good engineers out there who do their best. The problem is that by the time the results get to the user they are often messed up. LOUDNESS being the most obvious example. But if you look at my webpages you can see other problems. I wonder how many HDCDs have been messed up by someone later in the chain blindly adding more compression or 'improvement' without HDCD decoding first, thus messing up the original beyond recovery. If MQA gains traction I'd expect the same to crop up with that as well.
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I am quite certain that back in the 70's, many albums were mixed with the expectation that the loudness button would be engaged when played.
 
DonQuixote99 said:
I am quite certain that back in the 70's, many albums were mixed with the expectation that the loudness button would be engaged when played.
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Perhaps so, but in the pre-disco years there was a different aesthetic, the bass drum was not prominent.
 
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