crd97086 Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Hello.....Yeah, I am trying to get your Attention.......................if you are interested........................and I am not indulging you too much..........would you please tell the group what you have found to be your HIghEnd.....so some else is able to model off of IT........I have found the Sourcs to to be it........Digital./....;;Analog.......Yah, Mallete,...tape......I would like to hear all........Thanks....Dale. By the way....I vote for Digital.....in the best of all worlds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groomlakearea51 Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Equipment generally not made from plastic..... [H] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psg Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 [*-)] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheltie dave Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 .... ..... .. .... ...,... and now back to your regularly scheduled program.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 As long as there are naive clowns with disposable income, there will always be High End Audio...whatever that means... What is exactly High End Audio? Listening to music is subjective. Everyone has different tastes in music, and of course the equipment everyone listens to falls in the same subjective/different category. Why would one want to model/copy the equipment (or source) of someone else with different musical listening tastes? Go with what sounds best to one's ears. It's not a contest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MechMan Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 It's all relative... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crd97086 Posted November 13, 2011 Author Share Posted November 13, 2011 I apologize for my rant......Under a ton of stress lately and I let it 'get to me' . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnatnoop Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 i hope you are ok.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moray james Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 pick a hobby or any area of interest and decide you want to get into it with some very good quality parts. Entry level good stuff is going to set you back 3-5K. Does not matter if it is camera gear or a good cast table saw. If you know what to look for and have time you can do it for perhaps half that used if you can source locally, more if you have to ship stuff. You buy what works for you and you enjoy. If the gear is what you want and you can afford and justify the expense then go for it. There are so many variables. I have heard systems that cost the owner under $1500.00 that I would be good to listen to any day and some over $50,000.00 that I would not want to listen to. A system as the term implies is a balance of components which are chosen to deliver an expected end result. There has to be a balance and you cannot simply drop the lion share of a budget into any one specific component and still expect success. I agree that source and speakers are perhaps the two components hardest to get right but there are a lot of less than stellar amps and preamps out there also and that brings us back to the art of balance. What works in one room can be a bust in another. Perfect to you may not hit the mark for another. Don`t discount quality analog playback as vinyl is not a waste of time when done right. A dear friend of mine who is gone now used to do the pawn shop and thrift store hunt on a regular basis. He used to call me over for a listen every few months to hear his latest collection of discount goodies. At least two to three times a year he would blow me away with the most unusual collection of components which would get the job done in a way which made me stop and wonder. He had a very good ear and could listen to a component in a shop and know if it would be a fit in his latest system. He enjoyed building systems as much or more than listening to them. Six months was as long as he ever kept any one system without a change. I took him to buy his first pair of Klipsch FR3`s a long time back and he ran them on a SET EL34 amp they sounded wonderful and those RF3`s got me back to thinking that I ought to look into the Klipsch speakers again after decades of other speakers. Make the best with what you have one component at a time. The more gear that you play with the more you learn. Speaker position is a big component in making any system work so play with that. Sorry if I did not answer your question but there is no best. Regards Moray James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Digital recordings made with classic ribbon mikes, a tube preamp, no mixer, and stored using DSD technology. It doesn't get any better. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxx Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 Digital recordings made with classic ribbon mikes, a tube preamp, no mixer, and stored using DSD technology. It doesn't get any better. Dave And then transferred to tape.... now that is better... lol.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnatnoop Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 then rip to an mp3 at 128kb and put on your ipod [H] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Digital recordings made with classic ribbon mikes, a tube preamp, no mixer, and stored using DSD technology. It doesn't get any better. Dave .... and with the audio techs and producer taking more than 10 minutes with the mic placement. I wonder if the reason so many older orchestral recordings sounded so much better (even with shaved off bass) is because the audio guys set up during rehearsal and futzed around with mic placement for hours or days. Sometimes they put burlap bags stuffed with absorbing material in the seats of a real hall to simulate an audience. They often put their wonderful ribbon mikes at a distance from the performers, and even when they used condenser mikes they kept their distance to get a bit of natural hall ambience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 .... and with the audio techs and producer taking more than 10 minutes with the mic placement. Yes and no. Anybody who needs 10 minutes to figure out where in the hall their ears want to be is probably not qualified. There is a story that Andreas Silbermann, the great baroque German organ builder, would take a staff into a cathedral and pound it on the floor and then do tonal design for a perfect instrument for that space. A recording engineer needs a similar talent in being able to find that sweet spot with little or no expermentation. When I can't figure out where it is, it's likely there isn't one. And, Boxx, I would concur that with a VERY pricey deck I could get analog as good as the DSD. There seem also to be a lot of golden ears who firmly believe that an LP made from high res PCM or DSD is superior to the master. This is counter intuitive to me, but I never dispute what another claims to hear in audio as that is arrogant as well as metaphysically absurd. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Anybody who needs 10 minutes to figure out where in the hall their ears want to be is probably not qualified. Did we have this conversation a few years ago?[] I guess I was casting about for a reason why so many recordings are so bad, and fail to capture the excitement and detail of a full orchestra, compared to some recordings made years ago. I have heard from an engineer that there is time and economic pressure these days to show up late in the game, and put up the mics in arbitrary positions. He said that in the old days they took their time, and used FM to place the mics. He explained that FM meant "F...ing Magic." In any case, I want recordings to be better, and I would agree that your recommendation of using classic ribbon mikes and DSD would be a good way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Did we have this conversation a few years ago? Almost certainly. At my post count it's usually deja vu all over again... If there is an up side, my answer gets shorter every time. [] In any event, it remains my profound belief that most recording engineers simply can't hear. Finding the right place for the mikes is by far the simplest part of recording. If you can't find a good spot the hall sucks and you can't fix sucks. None of the rest of it is "magic" either. There is no answer to your question. There is no excuse for the generally crappy quality of recordings. My experience is that you have to go out of your way to do a bad job. Anybody that says otherwise is either trying to blow smoke over the subject or just plain incompetent. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 There is no excuse for the generally crappy quality of recordings. My experience is that you have to go out of your way to do a bad job. I agree. The few live recordings I've made are very good, and the guy who used to record our orchestra with a pair of U47s and a portable Ampex seemed to have no problem making good tapes. Maybe it is ill-advised tampering and processing after the initial recording is made that lowers the quality. I know that is true in the DVD / Blu-ray world when too much DNR or other processing is applied, sometimes at the request of executives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 It's a MYSTERY... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crd97086 Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 Although I started this thread in a 'bad place', the thread went to what I have unfortunately coming to same conclusion. That is, what I am really missing are more great recordings. I am always blown away at how my best recordings, 50s & 60s Jazz, sound fantastic to the much more recent recordings. From the conversation here, I now get it. It really isn't possible to have what I have envisioned as the sound I would like due to too many poor recordings. As I said, I am blown away at the number of the earlier jazz recordings have much more natural sounding instruments, like the ride cymbal, as well as much more interesting soundstage. My fears have been explained. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I hope we didn't depress you. SACD disks may have a bit better batting average. Chesky is usually good. Some of the remasters are good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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