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Boring music or boring hifi?

James

James

Lord of the Erg\o/s
Proper hifi, as some would assert, make music sound like the musicians are playing together and having fun. Do they always? I very much doubt it. How do those who value rhythm and timing above all cope with such recordings?

Can we please have some stellar examples?

James
 
As so much music is not even recorded at the same time.... it's hard to see how any system can do that. Which is my personal gripe.... We need musicians to play together not to a machine or mixing desk.
 
This is a thesis best tested in reserve; ie if you have music made by people playing together well and having fun, but which actually sounds like Laughing Leonard Cohen, you know you've got a crap system. Especially if the amp's got green writing on it.
 
it always makes me laugh about popular band porcupine tree, as people describe the music as if it is a band all playing live together but they assemble their music in different studios....if it sounds like it's all 'pratty and live' there is something wrong.
really good article on them a while ago in sound on sound.
interesting that someone on another forum said they could here the snare drum strike and the stick on skin on a particular track and it turns out that the snare sound is a layered sample of 3 different snares edited in the studio software.......
 
337alant said:
2. You have no rythum
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Ah, OK. I certainly have no rythum.
However, currently listening to an original TICO pressing of Cecilia Cruz con Tito Puentes y son Orquesta "Quimbo Quimbumbia", which rather suggests that I do have rhythm :)
 
James said:
Proper hifi, as some would assert, make music sound like the musicians are playing together and having fun. Do they always? I very much doubt it. How do those who value rhythm and timing above all cope with such recordings?

Can we please have some stellar examples?

James
Click to expand...
Who asserts this?
 
The problem is that most audiophiles have nothing interesting to say about music, because all they're really interested in is sound. People who bang on about PRAT are especially guilty of this.
 
I'd say that proper hi-fi will make the recordings sound more like actual instruments and actual people singing and less like an electro-mechanical reproduction of this.

One of the results of this is that it will sound more emotionally engaging. Fun with the Macc Lads, relaxing and calming with Leonard Cohen.


There's a biological reaction that happens when listening to good hi-fi on a range of recordings that doesn't happen as often with lesser hi-fi.

A sparkle in the eye.

The children spontaneously bopping around the room.

An automatic tapping of the foot.

A flinch from a smartly hit drum.

Shivers down the spine during delicate musical moments.

A mind meld between yourself and the music.
 
sideshowbob said:
The problem is that most audiophiles have nothing interesting to say about music, because all they're really interested in is sound. People who bang on about PRAT are especially guilty of this.
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There's also the 'detail freaks', who are in a classic wood/trees situation. But none of this would matter in the slightest if people simply accepted that tastes in hifi differ, and that one man's meat is often another man's poison.
 
Musicians in a symphony orchestra don't especially have fun. Neither do the buskers you see in the metro nor many a house or pub band. Studio musicians don't have a lot of fun, either.

The Beatles didn't have fun in their later albums, in fact they didn't record together.

However, bashing out a drunken version of jingle bells on the keyboards at Christmas with the family, now that's fun.

I await the recording contract.
 
i agree , i remember meeting an old gentleman with an amazing pair of huge speakers in his bungalow and an amazing jazz and classical collection after i sold him a cd player many years ago.
he played this piece of music to me it was quite unervingly moving - it was a piece by ligeti - stunning.
i was pretty gobsmacked at how good his system sounded at the time i was selling linn / naim gear but his system was a physical experience.
he had a quad 44 pre amp into a woodside valve amp and these massive corner horns and he had bought of me a simple rotel cd player (the first 1 bit one) that i was delivering for him.
an eye opening experience.
 
sideshowbob said:
The problem is that most audiophiles have nothing interesting to say about music, because all they're really interested in is sound. People who bang on about PRAT are especially guilty of this.
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Cobblers ! Music is arranged sound; no more, no less. Even pratty PRATs would be unlikely to listen to a recording of a dog barking for long; that is, unless they're also barking.....:)

Caribbean steel drums are/were discarded oil drums banged with a stick; music and rhythm emanate from this unlikely source.

A car crash is a terrible sound, but is music to the ears of body repair shops.....oops..........must change my prescription.....
 
Music is considerably more than arranged sound, and the meaning of a given piece of music is not given by what it sounds like.
 
sideshowbob said:
Music is considerably more than arranged sound, and the meaning of a given piece of music is not given by what it sounds like.
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So we'll know more about a given piece of music if we listen to something different?

Profound.
 
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