better gear, worse recordings


ever notice that the better the gear you own, the worse some recordings sound?

some recordings you grew up with that were eq'd for lp's now sound flat and lifeless or the musical background is revealed as less captivating than it appeared on mediocre equipment

a few other rare jems show even more detail and are recorded so well that the upgrade in equipment yields even more musicality

I have my opinions, would like to here what artists you think suffer from the former or benefit from the latter

thanks
TOm
128x128audiotomb

Showing 1 response by kthomas

I don't have any recordings or experiences where I said, "huh, I really liked the way that sounded before I upgraded, but now with a higher resolution system it doesn't sound as good to me." I do find that as my system evolves and (hopefully) improves, I realize that there is music that I like that doesn't warrant sitting there "critically" listening on a high end rig. But, in these cases (for me anyway), it didn't warrant it on a lesser system either. I might have hoped that it would improve, that what didn't seem like a good recording might fare better on a better system, and it just didn't work out.

An experience I do have, regularly, is realizing that there is music that is not stellar in it's recording quality but that I like a lot, so I listen to it when I'm not critically listening, either up walking around, in my office, in my car.

Maybe I'm just justifying the continual improvement of my system, but I find that each improvement makes a good portion of my music sound better and be more enjoyable to listen to or neither betters or worsens it, but does not make anything less enjoyable than it was. -Kirk