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Pirate Vinyl Records! :D
Carol Haynes:
I generally use a flat EQ with no effects. Why mess with what the band and recording engineers intended? Sometimes I'll put up the bass for some music, but in general, I listen to it flat.-Renegade (March 30, 2013, 09:28 PM)
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Because there is a difference between what is heard in a studio with studio monitors and what comes out of, even expensive, domestic audio equipment.
xtabber:
I still prefer vinyl for the more organic ambiance and softness of the sound. But that's what I grew up with so that probably has a lot to do with how I feel about it. It's what I learned sounded "right" - and the preference is now linked too deeply in the neurons processing sound for me to feel differently.
Those who go back to vinyl may remember a company that did half-speed vinyl mastering. They were called Mobile Fidelity. An album by them went for about $15 when a regular LP cost about $5-$8. If you had a really good cartridge in your turntable and a decent stereo amp and quality speakers, the difference was like night and day. No warble, hiss, clicks or pops!
-40hz (March 30, 2013, 05:43 PM)
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Mobile Fidelity is still around, issuing both LPs and CDs in superior sound.
But there are plenty of others now producing superior quality CDs today. There is a much better understanding of digital sound and how to get it right today than there was in the first couple of decades of the CD era (1980-2000). Among other things, even though all CDs still play at a 16bit 44.1K sample rate, the quality of the perceived sound is greatly improved by mastering at higher bit depth and sampling rates. This used to require very expensive equipment, but can now be done by anyone on a $500 PC.
The best sound you will find today is from DSD recordings issued on SACD discs, but just listening to the CD tracks on hybrid SACDs mastered by firms like Analogue Productions in the US and PentaTone in the UK will give you an idea of how good a properly mastered CD can sound.
xtabber:
I generally use a flat EQ with no effects. Why mess with what the band and recording engineers intended? Sometimes I'll put up the bass for some music, but in general, I listen to it flat.-Renegade (March 30, 2013, 09:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
Because there is a difference between what is heard in a studio with studio monitors and what comes out of, even expensive, domestic audio equipment.
-Carol Haynes (March 31, 2013, 07:52 AM)
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The difference is because of the location, not the speakers. You can put the same exact speakers in your living room that are used in a recording studio, but the sound will not be the same because of a different acoustic environment. The best sound in any given room will be obtained by matching the capabilities of the speakers to the characteristics of the room, and also to where listeners will be positioned.
Sound is the result of complex interactions of pressure waves and it varies as you move around a room, or how many people are in that room. Newer home audio equipment can do a pretty good job of emulating the ambiance of different concert halls, and the effect can sometimes sound more "natural" than straight reproduction, but neither is more "accurate" than the other.
Renegade:
I generally use a flat EQ with no effects. Why mess with what the band and recording engineers intended? Sometimes I'll put up the bass for some music, but in general, I listen to it flat.-Renegade (March 30, 2013, 09:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
Because there is a difference between what is heard in a studio with studio monitors and what comes out of, even expensive, domestic audio equipment.
-Carol Haynes (March 31, 2013, 07:52 AM)
--- End quote ---
The difference is because of the location, not the speakers. You can put the same exact speakers in your living room that are used in a recording studio, but the sound will not be the same because of a different acoustic environment. The best sound in any given room will be obtained by matching the capabilities of the speakers to the characteristics of the room, and also to where listeners will be positioned.
Sound is the result of complex interactions of pressure waves and it varies as you move around a room, or how many people are in that room. Newer home audio equipment can do a pretty good job of emulating the ambiance of different concert halls, and the effect can sometimes sound more "natural" than straight reproduction, but neither is more "accurate" than the other.
-xtabber (March 31, 2013, 10:20 AM)
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+1
You nailed it.
40hz:
That said, professional engineers and producers also check and adjust their mix for a variety of speakers and listening environments before committing to a final mix. Because the goal is making things sound as good as possible in as many situations as possible. That's the hardest part of recording and mixing. Anybody can optimize a mix for studio monitors. It takes considerably more talent and skill to make a mix sound really good everywhere. Commercial recording releases are usually masterpieces of audio compromise.
Which is why professional studios have multiple sets of playback speakers with varying degrees of quality. After the preliminary and candidate mixes are completed on a set of near field studio monitors that can cost around $3000 each, the producer next shifts over to high-end audiophile, then quality home stereo, and finally cheap speakers. Old rule of thumb used to be to take your mix out and play it in a car with a standard dealer supplied stereo system - or on a portable "boombox.". If it sounded really good with that, it generally sounded really good anywhere. Today, they're more likely to use digital modeling to emulate club settings, living rooms, headphones, and other anticipated listening environments as xtabber alluded to earlier.
However, for unbelievably realistic and gorgeous sound when recording live performances, nothing IMO can beat binaural recordings. That's as close as you'll ever get to real life because it very closely models how our ears work. And as close to "being there' as you can get with current technology. And the really funny thing is it's one of the oldest and simplest stereo recording techniques ever tried. Goes all the way back to the dawn of audio recording.
The only problem is you need to listen to a binaural recording on headphones to get the full experience, which is why it never became hugely popular. 8)
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