Rock and Metal Listening Fatigue

[Columbo]

That's a great album! I don't think it's badly recorded at all, it's recorded to sound the way they want it to. For example the heavy saturation on the end of 'Modern Girl' is deliberate but I've heard so many audiophiles complaining about it. Sad truth is that they want records which make their systems sound good, not records which the artists use to say something.

Many years ago I shifted the way I chose equipment and it transformed my system.

In the beginning I would listen to new equipment looking for more detail, tighter bass and other hi-fi niceties, which is I think the way a lot of people do things. The turning point was having two LP12s, one with an Ittok and the other with an RB300. For the bulk of the last thirty-five years I've had two LP12s and it's very instructive and it lets you find out what you prefer over protracted listening.

What I found was that the Ittok was more impressive. It had better dynamics, more apparent detail, because it was brighter, and deeper and tighter bass. On a short dem there is no way you'd pick the Rega. However, having both decks running let me play music on both. What I found was that well recorded records sound good on the Ittok but I tended not to play probably over sixty percent of my collection because they didn't sound good. They sounded like bad recordings and were not enjoyable.

When played on the RB300, although it was losing something on those good recordings, I was suddenly able to enjoy all of my records! It was a trade well worth it and stripping and rewiring the Rega clawed back most of what was lost to the Ittok and the RB3000 I have now, it's game over. I have another Ittok here just now and the difference is stark. The old Linn still shouts it's virtues but its nature hasn't changed. You still put on some records and want to stop listening to them very quickly.

I've employed the same method for decades now and it's worked well. Out with Naim CD players, in with a Rega Saturn-R for instance and the system sounds excellent, in my opinion. You can have your cake and eat it. There is equipment which will give you loads detail etc without making too much of recording flaws.

I've arrived at this point too. Before when getting new gear I'd A/B test like a nutjob, binding posts took a battering. Then a month later I'd be left wondering why the "winner" wasn't doing it for me. Now when I get some new gear I plop it in a leave it in place for a few months and listen to music like non-nutjobs do. Seems to have stopped the buying/selling mistakes.

Reminds me of the Pepsi taste-tests back in the 80s... in blind tests people preferred Pepsi over Coke nearly all the time. Pepsi thought they were on to a winner and even turned the findings of the test into a marketing campaign. But it turns out that the Pepsi was quite a bit sweeter than Coke which make the Coke seem less tasty, in the short term. Long term, drinking Pepsi was too sweet and sickly so people went back to Coke (mind you they both taste like crap to me, gimme a cuppa).

 

[Mike Reed]

he turning point was having two LP12s, one with an Ittok and the other with an RB300.

Are they the same cart's? Which ones, as you have very different tonearms (I had the Tiktok on my early LP12 with, I think, the Linn Karma). ?

You're not seriously doing comparisons with different veneers on your Fruit-boxes, are you?

Recently I've been airing records I've seldom played or not for yonks, and checking any comments I made at the time with what I'm finding now. Last evening was a case in point when I put on an old (mid - sixties?) Duophonic record. My notes from a decade + ago said 'opaque, dull, thin, dated etc' I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was no way as bad as I'd written.

As have the same ears, albeit much less efficient than then, it has to be the kit, which has almost completely changed since then.

 

[camverton]

Are they the same cart's? Which ones, as you have very different tonearms (I had the Tiktok on my early LP12 with, I think, the Linn Karma). ?

You're not seriously doing comparisons with different veneers on your Fruit-boxes, are you?

Recently I've been airing records I've seldom played or not for yonks, and checking any comments I made at the time with what I'm finding now. Last evening was a case in point when I put on an old (mid - sixties?) Duophonic record. My notes from a decade + ago said 'opaque, dull, thin, dated etc' I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was no way as bad as I'd written.

As have the same ears, albeit much less efficient than then, it has to be the kit, which has almost completely changed since then.

Interesting although, as an aside, I think for most of us our hearing is in a continual state of slow decline. Our ability to hear high frequencies will be less and that could lead to a perception of recordings sounding fuller and less thin although by the same token losing higher frequencies could lead to the impression of fuller sound. Thank goodness we have a choice of equipment to suit our perceptions at the various stages of our life!

 

[Mr Pig]

Are they the same cart's? Which ones, as you have very different tonearms...

No. When I originally tried the Ittok and RB300 side by side I did use the same cartridges on both but it's a mistake anyway. The arms have different tonal balances so need matched with different components to work at their best. It's not fair to judge an Ittok on a cartridge which matches a Rega arm better.

I'm in a very good position on this one as I've used both Linn and Rega arms on the LP12 for a very long time. Nearly forty years. Different spec turntables, different cartridges and it's resulted in a good understanding of what these arms do.

 

[Mr Pig]

As an aside, it was the last record they made before they split up and I remember in interviews at the time they stated they felt their success had been limited because they were women playing rock music.

Ha ha ha, I'm sure they did! Typical Leftist, feminist reasoning. If I am not accepted it's because other people are bigoted, racist, intolerant or whatever other character defect can be leveled against them. Truth is that their other output was not very well received because it's simply not very good. This album is different as it feels like they'd matured just enough to soften their self indulgent whining to a level that was tolerable for grown ups and not just angry dysfunctional teenagers.

But I do think it's good to encourage people who are making an effort. Just yesterday I ordered the debut album from a couple of young Irish girls trying to break through. I don't think they're that great, and they lean on their femininity a bit to hard, but they're playing traditional rock in a time when it's not fashionable and the tunes are boppy enough. I've kept an eye on them since their busking days and good on them for getting an album made. Bought the vinyl and the CD. LINK

 

[Tony L]

Rabea Massaad, who I mentioned upthread, has just stuck this Logic mix overview up, which I suspect many will be interested in/bewildered by. It highlights just how astonishingly powerful modern computer pro-audio is these days. You couldn’t have done this stuff at all 30 years ago, let alone at home on a program that only costs a couple of hundred quid (I’ve got a copy myself, though none of the plug-ins he uses).

PS IDDQD is a great title for a metal track!

 

[Columbo]

Rabea Massaad, who I mentioned upthread, has just stuck this Logic mix overview up, which I suspect many will be interested in/bewildered by. It highlights just how astonishingly powerful modern computer pro-audio is these days. You couldn’t have done this stuff at all 30 years ago, let alone at home on a program that only costs a couple of hundred quid (I’ve got a copy myself, though none of the plug-ins he uses).

PS IDDQD is a great title for a metal track!

"It's quite a simple song, just 28 tracks" ... I can remember when I had one of the 4 track Tascam recorders!

That track is ferocious.

 

[Columbo]

Digital headroom (in the DAC, or the aforementioned digital volume control trick) will take some sting out of something properly brickwalled, but it will still be distorted. I see the unavoidable distortion as the artist's choice, and the avoidable distortion as my choice (not to have it).

Could you suggest a couple of tracks that are clipped into oblivion? Would like to train my ear to be able to pick it out more easily. Thanks

 

[darrenyeats]

Colombo, I intend to answer but I want to include pics, which takes time!

 

[Tim Jones]

PS IDDQD is a great title for a metal track!

This is admittedly very niche, but that was one of the Doom cheat codes wasn't it?

 

[Tony L]

This is admittedly very niche, but that was one of the Doom cheat codes wasn't it?

Yes, god mode (all weapons & invulnerability).

PS It amuses me as I’d have thought Rabea would be far too young for a ‘boomer-shooter’ like Doom, but it seems to have transcended the generational thing and is as popular as ever. There is an amazing mapping and modding community.

 

[gez]

lights a Gitanes

Filterless I hope, otherwise you'd be a fraud.

 

[gez]

Depends what you think of as classical. By and large, I’ve found that any system that can make a decent fist of Verdi’s Requiem or one of Mahlers‘s more extravagant symphonies with number of performers in the hundreds, huge dynamic range and frequency range from bass drum to piccolo, will find rock a piece of piss. The problem is finding a room to “contain” it.

There's nothing inherently more difficult for a system in reproducing classical than rock, at least not if the rock hasn't been compressed to death.

That said, I do agree that well recorded classical is a good way to evaluate the tonal accuracy of a system. I've always found that a system that can reproduce woodwinds and strings accurately does well with electric guitars, snares and drums in rock recordings, and vice versa is just as true in my experience. If a system favours one over the other, it's not tonally accurate.

 

[gez]

I really don’t see the point of setting a system up to sound acceptable on badly recorded and badly mastered and compressed rock music. You just end up with a coloured and undynamic system, or worse something that sounds like a pub PA. I want the full dynamics and life of a good recording. If it makes brickwalled crap like Oasis or whatever sound undynamic and flat it is because it is. A quick look at the .wav file shows exactly the mastering decisions taken. I’m no Oasis fan, but similarly mastered stuff sounds acceptable here, I can listen to it and enjoy it, but the compression and mastering decisions are blindingly obvious as it is a monitor-grade system. It just shows it as what it is. That’s what I want.

Same. I've never really understood the whole "it's so revealing it makes badly recorded music sound bad" comment that is often made. In my own experience nothing is further from the truth. Every time I've improved my system and made good recordings sound even better, it's always made bad recordings sound better than they did too. Sure the flaws have become more obvious, but instruments have also become more clearly what they are, e.g. acoustic guitars sound more like acoustic guitars, just ones with bad eq and/or compression.

 

[gez]

I played Lateralus pretty loud yesterday. But not *very* loud - it is brickwalled in the loud bits. Like Tony says you can hear the bad (also the aspects you like) ... but if you don't want to listen to it at all, I'd say something is wrong!

We do have to take in to consideration that some people just find rock music harsh full stop, even when it's playing live without reinforcement they struggle to listen to it without complaints of "it sounds like nails down a blackboard" "it's all distortion and screeching" etc. So I can fully understand anyone who is really in to Classical or Jazz (neither of which generally has any distortions or is foreward in nature tonally*).

*yes aware that some classical has deliberate discordant sounds, but they're not harsh in the way people who dislike rock find rock harsh.

 

[Columbo]

We do have to take in to consideration that some people just find rock music harsh full stop, even when it's playing live without reinforcement they struggle to listen to it without complaints of "it sounds like nails down a blackboard" "it's all distortion and screeching" etc. So I can fully understand anyone who is really in to Classical or Jazz (neither of which generally has any distortions or is foreward in nature tonally*).

*yes aware that some classical has deliberate discordant sounds, but they're not harsh in the way people who dislike rock find rock harsh.

Definitely a more acquired taste than some music and, for me at least, need to be in the right mood for it. Not just something I can stick on any time.

On the "revealing" thing, I'm wondering if this is just a euphemism for tipped up (or resonant, or distorted, or something) in the upper mids and/or treble region. Which seems like the opposite of revealing if you want to hear how the studio mixed the song rather than a ton of colouration. Not saying colouration is bad, that's personal preference.

 

[gez]

Definitely a more acquired taste than some music and, for me at least, need to be in the right mood for it. Not just something I can stick on any time.

On the "revealing" thing, I'm wondering if this is just a euphemism for tipped up (or resonant, or distorted, or something) in the upper mids and/or treble region. Which seems like the opposite of revealing if you want to hear how the studio mixed the song rather than a ton of colouration. Not saying colouration is bad, that's personal preference.

I can't speak for others, but personally I use revealing in (what I believe is) an objective sense. In other words a system that is more revealing, is one that "reveals" the true accurate nature of the instrument and it's recorded acoustic.

However, I suspect that a lot of people in our hobby use revealing in the sense that it makes things easier to hear, which is not the same thing at all. They use detail in the same sense. There does seem to be a trend to believe that a system (speakers in particular) that make every instrument in the midrange very clear and audible is a superior one. I disagree, because if you listen to a group of instruments playing together it's not uncommon at all to have to concentrate quite a bit in order to follow on particular instrument in the group. So a system that would make each instrument in such a group very easy to follow would not be reproducing that group accurately.

Similarly detail is another description that often is a euphemism (in my interpretation of how some people use it) for "I can hear what's happening very easily", and again it can be a falsehood and not accuracy. For example if you play any bass guitar through a bass combo amp and leave it's knobs in the middle setting you'll get be able to hear the bass notes with a given level of ease. If you then boost the 2-4khz region (or reduce the mid bass and lower bass frequency levels some degree) you'll be able to hear the individual notes far more easily, but that wouldn't be an accurate reproduction of the bass guiltars sound. What I'm trying to say is simply: Just because things are easier to hear, doesn't mean the system is more "revealing" (using my definition), but many people may describe it as such.

 

[timpy]

All speakers (regardless of price) should work with all music, if a speaker can only reproduce a certain type of music they're seriously flawed.

All? Run DMC or lower organ pipes and LS3/5a means some people pay well over the odds for seriously flawed speakers, by that definition.