What have you done to your system to make Bad Recordings sound more REAL?

[caesar]

For those who never liked, or quickly got sick of audiophile music, and instead prefer a large variety of music, with most recordings being mediocre at best, and horrendous at worst, what have you done to make them sound better?

new turntable? new generation digital? Speakers with BIG woofers? Added several Sub-woofers? more room treatments? certain tubes? anything else?


What has worked for you?

 

[Mosin]

Get a turntable that slightly smears the fine details. Everything will sound a bit warmer and homogenized. After a few days, you won't remember what you are missing. Rod Stewart will sound a Hell of a lot better, however!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

For those who never liked, or quickly got sick of audiophile music, and instead prefer a large variety of music, with most recordings being mediocre at best, and horrendous at worst, what have you done to make them sound better?

new turntable? new generation digital? Speakers with BIG woofers? Added several Sub-woofers? more room treatments? certain tubes? anything else?


What has worked for you?

A good bourbon or two.

 

[Orb]

A good bourbon or two.

Would that be half the bottle though to listen to the whole album Bat Out of Hell
Expensive hobby this
Cheers
Orb

 

[Audio_Karma]

"Maestro power cables" and "Maestro outlets" hooked up to.. ALL MY GEAR!!

 

[BlueFox]

Unfortunately, bad is bad, no matter how much lipstick you put on it. That is a big irony with this hobby. The better your gear, the worst some music sounds. You just have to accept it, and love the music, not the sound.

 

[JackD201]

I got speakers with adjustable tweeter levels. First of which were Revel F30s. When I had Maggies, I used the resistors provided. My current speakers follow this trend. Except now all I need to do is use the built in autoformer gain controls. I can just zero out the settings in a few seconds.

 

[GaryProtein]

With flame suit donned: Equalizer/Parametric Tone Controls

. . . . The better your gear, the worst some music sounds. . . .

That is the true curse of the great system.

 

[JackD201]

With flame suit donned: Equalizer/Parametric Tone Controls

You won't get any fire from me.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Non resonant speakers , paper composite mids and big stiff high eff. woofers (with according volume ) plus the most natural caps ive expirienced so far, it makes anything sound nice and with a flat FR i dont want to tamper with that( well not above 300- 350 hz anyway ) .
I never liked digital much before but high quality speakers do up the listening enjoyment by a large margin

 

[Peter Breuninger]

MBL 101s.

 

[treitz3]

Hello, ceasar. I may be the only one who does this here but on bad recordings, I don't even attempt to listen to them on the reference rig. I will play them on a different system like the garage rig, a radio/CD player boombox or in my vehicle. There are some recordings that no matter what you do, they will always sound horrible. I simply choose to listen to them on sub-par systems so they don't sound as bad.

Adele's 21 is a perfect example. Play it on the reference rig and it sounds horrid. Play it in the vehicle while flying down the highway at 55mph with the windows rolled down and all of a sudden, it's tolerable.

Gone are the days of me buying equipment and gear to make a certain album(s) sound good. I just gave up. To me, it was akin to trying to polish a turd so you could pick it up by the clean end. It just won't work.

Tom

 

[Kingsrule]

Not a thing
Isn't the point to make your system reproduce the recording as it was recorded???

 

[JackD201]

Not a thing
Isn't the point to make your system reproduce the recording as it was recorded???

IMO for work yes, for play not necessarily.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

hello, ceasar. I may be the only one who does this here but on bad recordings, i don't even attempt to listen to them on the reference rig. I will play them on a different system like the garage rig, a radio/cd player boombox or in my vehicle. There are some recordings that no matter what you do, they will always sound horrible. I simply choose to listen to them on sub-par systems so they don't sound as bad.

Adele's 21 is a perfect example. Play it on the reference rig and it sounds horrid. play it in the vehicle while flying down the highway at 55mph with the windows rolled down and all of a sudden, it's tolerable.

gone are the days of me buying equipment and gear to make a certain album(s) sound good. I just gave up. To me, it was akin to trying to polish a turd so you could pick it up by the clean end. It just won't work.

Tom

this! +1.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Would that be half the bottle though to listen to the whole album Bat Out of Hell

Probably more which makes it prohibitive.

 

[caesar]

Not a thing
Isn't the point to make your system reproduce the recording as it was recorded???

Not quite!!! To me, as a very busy guy, the point of a high end system is to put you in a state of bliss and get you so engrossed in the activity of listening to music that the world disappears from consciousness. With that said, some engineers are much better at reproducing the recording to do just that than others. And if you find those engineers to match your references, you will find that bliss.

 

[caesar]

MBL 101s.

amen!!!!

 

[caesar]

Hello, ceasar. I may be the only one who does this here but on bad recordings, I don't even attempt to listen to them on the reference rig. I will play them on a different system like the garage rig, a radio/CD player boombox or in my vehicle. There are some recordings that no matter what you do, they will always sound horrible. I simply choose to listen to them on sub-par systems so they don't sound as bad.

Adele's 21 is a perfect example. Play it on the reference rig and it sounds horrid. Play it in the vehicle while flying down the highway at 55mph with the windows rolled down and all of a sudden, it's tolerable.

Gone are the days of me buying equipment and gear to make a certain album(s) sound good. I just gave up. To me, it was akin to trying to polish a turd so you could pick it up by the clean end. It just won't work.

Tom

Tom, you make great points. But put that recording, or say the How the West Was Won, or a live Dead show, on an MBL 101, and it's pretty damn good. Then add a bunch of 15" , or larger, subwoofers to that system, and it gets even better...

 

[jazdoc]

I avoid the problem and only listen to "Jazz At The Pawnshop" and Cat Stevens