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In the End It Really Is About The Recording Isn't It?

If even half the Amazon reviews on the new Springsteen box set are accurate, I should be in heaven this time next week - same masters, but the technology seems to have improved somewhat since the early 80s when the engineers who worked on his albums started using direct-to-digital recording. if they can take the notorious cassette tapes he used to record Nebraska and improve on that material, then I believe there is hope for everything shy of Milli Vanilli and the Beebs ;)

Mark Waldrep didnt know any of the above when he put this together back in Feb - full marks to Toby Scott, Bob Ludwig, The Boss and everyone at Columbia with the guts to take this on.

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=2488
 
@tubed, I know this will upset some here but I actually prefer some of the YouTube downloads to various CDs i own - they might be compressed etc, but lyrically and musically they're a lot more enjoyable to listen to. Take this for example:

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-45468-foreigner-double-vision-numbered-limited-edition-hybrid-sacd.aspx

Listening via my Marantz SA-14S1/Sennheiser HD800 combination, it's has all the clarity and separation i could ask for but the band clearly had a brain explosion after the success of the first self-titled album. I dont know if they just felt the need to try different sounds, but a large chunk of this album could easily have been recorded by Chicago or any of the polished LA bands of the era. I can live with the headbangers (or at least Foreigner's version of same) - Hot Blooded, Double Vision - but the rest is a complete waste of Gramm's incredible voice and the musicianship this band was capable of. Now consider this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYf4W3M0s9c

Completely different genre/era/production values, and I rarely go anywhere near a club, but I'm much happier listening to that euphoric trance megamix (!) via YT than I am struggling through this abomination from the late 70s. I did own the vinyl back in the day, but that's where rose-colored glasses creep in : I doubt anything could have saved these insipid lyrics and some of the equally woeful musical accompaniment. As always, just my 2 cents worth - YMMV.
 
In the end it's about the artist and the music. :p :)

But I will agree the recording is the most important part of the entire equation.
 
On the technical side (wherever it be your choice of music or not),at the end of the day it all comes down to the original recording or more than likely the later digitally remastered recording.
Hi-end gear will get closer to the musical truth... but if that "truth" is crap to begin with (bad masters or digitally remastered rubbish by talentless folks) then of-course it'll still sound crap.

E.G.,Whitney Houston ~ The Greatest Hits/2CD,2000 release is terrible... way over loud,especially the bass... I'd be ashamed to have put this out. It can be good though... one only has to listen to her 80's CD's and/or record albums to prove this point.
 
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Already stated: Garbage In = Garbage Out. That being said, there is music that I really enjoy for the music itself, but can only listen to on a "garage system" or a low-end factory car stereo. The higher the resolution of a "good" system, the greater the tendency to reveal all the flaws in the original recording/production and I become focused on that, rather than the actual music. And to add to that, remasters and reissues do not mean "better", just a different (maybe better, maybe worse) interpretation of the original recording.
 
I can thoroughly enjoy a great recording on a crummy system, but I can't enjoy a crummy recording on a great system.
 
Only as good as the weakest link, whatever that is. Of course one can record bad sound too.
 
I am always amazed that some of the best sounding albums come from small bands and studios you never heard of while the established artists, who have the money, put out lousy sounding albums.

As for "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" it seems to me that that track is a lot less bombastic than the rest of the album and is easier to record and therefore sounds better than the rest of the album.

Any stereo that prevents me from listening to Led Zep and AC/DC, for what ever reason, is not for me.
 
In the End It Really Is About The Recording Isn't It?
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Absolutely! It has taken me many years and thousands of dollars to figure that out. Of course, nothing beats well recorded music on a great stereo system.
 
The first bad recording that really stood out to me was "Little Miss Dangerous" by Ted Nugent . I liked the music , but the recording was so bad , I could not listen to it .
 
With all the advancements in technology and experience you would think bad recordings would be a thing of the past. Even big bands names are guilty of producing bad recordings. Then you can turn around and hear an indy track that was put together in someones basement that at times blows it away.
 
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afewbricks said:
With all the advancements in technology and experience you would think bad recordings would be a thing of the past. Even big bands names are guilty of producing bad recordings. Then you can turn around and hear an indy track that was put together in someones basement that at times blows it away.
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Hella yes! It's been said before, but ...
I was in a great studio in Hollywood in the early days of digital recording. I sat in to hear a band record a take and then heard the playback, un processed, un eq'd, un compressed. I was floored, flabbergasted, gob smacked. I thought, "this is what recordings will sound like from now on". This was 30 years ago. What happened? I'm still waiting. I made some recordings with 2 mics into a DAT that still blow me away. I don't get it.
charlie
 
afewbricks said:
With all the advancements in technology and experience you would think bad recordings would be a thing of the past. Even big bands names are guilty of producing bad recordings. Then you can turn around and hear an indy track that was put together in someones basement that at times blows it away.
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In the old days, recordings were limited by the quality of the equipment and the fact that the engineer was just as wasted as the band when they laid out the tracks (hmm, pretty much all Led Zepplin comes to mind). Now we have great equipment out there, but the emphasis to compress the hell out of everything for broadcast radio and internet distribution results in a lot of bad recordings (as distributed). Three guys in a basement fooling around with a portable rig don't bother to "over process" their recording, and the results can be amazing.
 
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