Why are so many recordings BRIGHT?
- Thread starter caesar
- Start date
Really? At least 80 % of my jazz CDs are just right in tonality. Perhaps your system is bright
Pop? Now there's a lot of bright stuff, even though you find some good recordings too.
The monitors they used during playback were wooly sounding. They over compensated with EQ.
Really? At least 80 % of my jazz CDs are just right in tonality. Perhaps your system is bright
Pop? Now there's a lot of bright stuff, even though you find some good recordings too.
I'm pretty flat up there, actually. But obviously this is very subjective, and depends on what we have gotten used to...
Yet, I would tend to think that it's probably more than 80% of your jazz collection is on the bright side.
Here's Fremer complaining about it and suggesting it was epidemic in that era (late '50s):
http://www.analogplanet.com/content/mo-fis-kob-kind-blah#fcbWphkq4BA1fpyW.97
Another example is the musically-sublime Walking in Space by Quincy Jones from the late 60s, 1968, I think. The high res vinyl rip and the CD I have are both a bit bright.
Could it be that the system you are listening to is too bright? I know that there are a ton of bright systems out there, many posing as 'accurate' and 'highly resolving'. Or, perhaps it is as Andre correctly points out.
Could it also be your speakers? ...In addition to equalized music recordings leaning on the bright side of the moon, instead of the dark side.
Yes, it depends very much of the music recordings from the various generations...the 20s, 30s, 40s, ... the 70s and 80s were awful, the 90s slowly near the end got it a little better, the CDs with recordings from the 50s, 60s, and LPs from that era...it all depends of the record labels and the master chief recordist guy @ the controls.
85% of all my music collection is pure crap! It sounds awful, bright, no life, no soul, no nothing solid but everything crap.
Now I try to stick with the pro record labels,,,the one that record real music from real musicians.
But yeah, I totally agree with you...most is just too bright...like if they recorded them for people having speakers without hi fidelity...lifeless.
________
What are your speakers...Klipsch? ...Do you use any type of EQ? ...Is your room 'bright' sounding or 'dead' sounding?
I don't think of bright. My question is "where has the mid-bass gone?"
I remember my folks' systems and my uncle's system. I remember my grandpa's consoles. They surely weren't paragons of transparency or imaging. Those underdamped 10" woofers or larger of yore would never be considered "fast". Neither did they go very deep, probably a few dB down at 30Hz if you were lucky. These old systems however would never be considered "skinny" sounding.
I got into the hobby in the 90s, the very start of the slim tower trend. It's a trend that shifted or resulted from a shift from the emphasis on tone to that of imaging and holography. It was the decade the mini-monitor gained firm foothold as well. In this day and age, one must ask. What are those big loudspeaker guys looking for? I'll say this. Quality mid-bass. There's only so much a 6" woofer and a sub can do IF you happened to have a large room and want some distance between you and your speakers. Look at the likes of VR-11s, Sun Rays, La Assolutas, X-1s, 2's XLFs, MM3s, MM7s, G1s, Cardinals, Q7s, Sentinels and Tesseracts. These use only one or two midranges per channel and boy do they need a lot of mid-bass wooferage (can we make that a real word ) to keep things balanced once your listening distance gets past 10 feet or so. Now look at the old stuff. Small cone or dome tweeters and midrange drivers and big woofers. Look back further and you get a two way, horn and big ass woofer. Look back further still. Little tweeter REALLY big ass horn loaded woofer. You get the opposite complaint. We got the tone BUT the speakers just don't disappear. Sigh.
The technical explanation is rather easy as it has to do with equal loudness sensitivity correlated with how quickly dB drops with every doubling of distance with a point source. Add to that that this range is a total crap shoot when it comes to small room acoustics where the dreaded suck out or peak is most likely to rear its ugly head. In hindsight, this could be the reason so many people bought into and began to chant the common mantra, "no bass is better than bad bass" which in turn resulted in the "room treatment" crusade.
Fast forward to today and if asked what little speaker is everybody talking about? Elac's B5s and B6s. What does it have? Mid-bass baby. Andrew purposely went to great lengths to make sure the little guys could deliver without blowing up.
Sorry for the rant but maybe the majority of us are ground hog day-ing in sync with fashion. Imaging and tone like skinny jeans and bell bottoms 'cept now you get a choice of lycra on top of nylon LOL!
I know quite a few people that are really happy where they are sonically. Some have big speakers, some sub sats, some regular sized floor standers. Some are all tube, some solid state, some vinyl, digital and both. For trips I started checking curves unweighted and on slow response on my phone. In every instance which includes my own room set to my tastes (not targets) each and every one has one thing in common. The slope is much greater than the B&K curve at 90dB when music not pink noise is what is being measured. Those with flatter responses never sit still and are continuously fiddling with something or other.
So where did the mid-bass go? I don't know where it went off to but if the present trend continues, it's on its way back. That for me is a GOOD thing.
I remember my folks' systems and my uncle's system. I remember my grandpa's consoles. They surely weren't paragons of transparency or imaging. Those underdamped 10" woofers or larger of yore would never be considered "fast". Neither did they go very deep, probably a few dB down at 30Hz if you were lucky. These old systems however would never be considered "skinny" sounding.
I got into the hobby in the 90s, the very start of the slim tower trend. It's a trend that shifted or resulted from a shift from the emphasis on tone to that of imaging and holography. It was the decade the mini-monitor gained firm foothold as well. In this day and age, one must ask. What are those big loudspeaker guys looking for? I'll say this. Quality mid-bass. There's only so much a 6" woofer and a sub can do IF you happened to have a large room and want some distance between you and your speakers. Look at the likes of VR-11s, Sun Rays, La Assolutas, X-1s, 2's XLFs, MM3s, MM7s, G1s, Cardinals, Q7s, Sentinels and Tesseracts. These use only one or two midranges per channel and boy do they need a lot of mid-bass wooferage (can we make that a real word
) to keep things balanced once your listening distance gets past 10 feet or so. Now look at the old stuff. Small cone or dome tweeters and midrange drivers and big woofers. Look back further and you get a two way, horn and big ass woofer. Look back further still. Little tweeter REALLY big ass horn loaded woofer. You get the opposite complaint. We got the tone BUT the speakers just don't disappear. Sigh. The technical explanation is rather easy as it has to do with equal loudness sensitivity correlated with how quickly dB drops with every doubling of distance with a point source. Add to that that this range is a total crap shoot when it comes to small room acoustics where the dreaded suck out or peak is most likely to rear its ugly head. In hindsight, this could be the reason so many people bought into and began to chant the common mantra, "no bass is better than bad bass" which in turn resulted in the "room treatment" crusade.
Fast forward to today and if asked what little speaker is everybody talking about? Elac's B5s and B6s. What does it have? Mid-bass baby. Andrew purposely went to great lengths to make sure the little guys could deliver without blowing up.
Sorry for the rant but maybe the majority of us are ground hog day-ing in sync with fashion. Imaging and tone like skinny jeans and bell bottoms 'cept now you get a choice of lycra on top of nylon LOL!
I know quite a few people that are really happy where they are sonically. Some have big speakers, some sub sats, some regular sized floor standers. Some are all tube, some solid state, some vinyl, digital and both. For trips I started checking curves unweighted and on slow response on my phone. In every instance which includes my own room set to my tastes (not targets) each and every one has one thing in common. The slope is much greater than the B&K curve at 90dB when music not pink noise is what is being measured. Those with flatter responses never sit still and are continuously fiddling with something or other.
So where did the mid-bass go? I don't know where it went off to but if the present trend continues, it's on its way back. That for me is a GOOD thing.
Yes. Mid-bass is important and mine is great. Even though I have mini monitors. Perhaps that is one reason why I was able to say earlier in the thread that I didn't find most recordings sound bright in my system, if 'bright' means anemic.
You talk about the ELAC monitors; in my case the KEF passive radiators in the back do the trick to get mid-bass performance up to par. Pictures here:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?17334-My-minimonitor-subwoofer-system/page2
Madfloyd and another music buddy of mine, both bass players themselves, think that stand-up bass sounds great in my system. This of course is possible only of the mid-bass plays its part. Madfloyd also said that he cannot anymore hear the crossover point between main speakers and subwoofer, so linear is the bass (see his comments on my system thread, linked in signature).
I do sit quite close to the speakers, 9 feet away from each one (8 feet from the mid point on the line between the speakers). My room is 24 x (12-13) x 8.5 feet.
FWIW, in my system, moving to new speakers with 2 x 15" woofers on each channel was a true revelation in terms of mid-bass improvement. Not so much deep bass. This made it easy to hear the massive difference betwen the amount of bass present between recordings, and consequently the perceived "fullness" of sound. The litmus test to me is upright bass. For phenomenally recorded upright bass with solo acoustic guitar, get your hands on a copy of "Gitane" (Charlie Haden and Christian Escoude).
I have a subwoofer in conjunction with my mini-monitors, but that affects the deep bass more than the mid-bass.
Is there a sample album and track and we could examine on this front? What is an example of a bright album that we are discussing?
I understand; if this works for you best, then great. My set-up is fully adequate in my room, as explained to be heard not just by me, but also by others.
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