What’s more important, the system or recording?
Subscribe to Ask Paul Ask a QuestionGreat systems make great recordings glorious, but what's more important? Can a great system also make a mediocre recording sound good, fixing up that which is wrong with the recording?
What I’d add is that a great setup with its ability to reveal transparency, ambiance, dynamics and soundstaging can make average recordings sound much more interesting than normal setups.
So I agree that a great setup can’t make a bad recording sound great, but (aside of making great recordings sound exceptional) it makes the majority of recordings that have average quality much more fascinating, too! I think that’s the main reason to have such setups.
Hi Paul, I thought that in the case of CD recordings that the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC and the Memory Player would be the answer to making bad recordings sound better?
They sure do one heck of a job towards that elusive goal but if the recording’s bad enough, without benefit of an EQ set, there’s little one can do.
Years back I got a vinyl of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell. I finally got a CD of that album hoping it would not be so compressed. I was very disappointed that apparently the original recording was highly limited in dynamics so that meant the CD was just as “stepped on” as the vinyl IK had hoped that with the wider range possibllity with CD’s the recordings might be better but not so. Shame some recordings suffer that way at the hands of the studio! Personally I would rather have a little distortion at the peaks and noise at the soft passages than a highly compressed recording. The limiting of dynamics in recordings is to me far worse than some limiting by a playback system’s potential dynamics.
For me it is the music itself which is the most important factor. I would prefer to listen to a good recording as a 192kbps MP3 through earbuds than a poor recording through a high end system. This is in general; there might be individual exceptions.
Hi Paul, In your comment on my question above you mentioned “an EQ set”, could you explain what that is or means?
If you had a mutliband EQ adjustment you make for make to each track and knew what you were doing it could benefit badly recorded tracks. It’s what mastering engineers do.