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Recordings that only sound good on resolving systems

We’ve all had pieces of music we love, only to play them on a good system and realize how poor their sound quality is. Lately I’ve noticed some releases I’ve owned for a while, which I’d classified as ’crappy’ recordings, actually sound amazing on a good system. I’d given most of these a few listens after purchase, only to decide I didn’t like the sound.. usually because of some type of distortion I found unpleasant. Yet playback on a resolving system reveals details and not distortion.

Recently, I purchased an album by Shabazz Palaces and found it lacking in sound quality when played in mp3 format from my phone on my car stereo. I just couldn’t get into it, the sound was too messy. Yesterday I put the vinyl on my home system to give it another chance and it sounded incredibly good. This reminded me of other albums this has happened to me with. Anna Von Hausswolf’s ’Ceremony’ was unenjoyable on an earlier iteration of my system, before I built better cables, tweaked my turntable and got new amps. Now it sounds amazing. Same thing with Diane Cluck’s ’Macy’s Day Bird’ and some tracks from Aphex Twin’s ’SAW II’.

It seems there are recordings out there that have a certain sound that requires a system resolving enough to bring out all the details. Without that resolution, the sound is just a mess. Has anyone else noticed this with any of their recordings?
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Showing 3 responses by shadorne

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shadorne
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Totally Agree.

Steely Dan sounds overproduced, clinical and very artificial on a resolving system.

Led Zeppelin just sounds awesome.

It is a case of less monkeying around with overproduction is more / even if you can hear that squeaky foot pedal. 

I very much prefer and enjoy live recordings on my setup!
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shadorne
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@mofimadness

You obviously have never heard a highly resolving system - a system where you can actually hear what has been done to manipulate said recording. It is like a higher resolution screen image that makes CGI more obvious because reality has imperfections and you don’t see any imperfections in the detail.

I agree Steely Dan has given us some of the best recorded and produced albums. Just saying that you can easily identify manipulation or conditioning and shaping of the sound simply from the perfection (which is detected as being artificially precise compared to reality.)
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shadorne
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@mofimadness

Well I guess it depends on whether you appreciate all those details captured on a less clinical recording (such as a live session) that has captured what I would call more musical feeling.

For example, a lot of Led Zeppelin drifts in tempo quite a bit and so do many of The Police recordings. I like these imperfections especially as they are actually deliberate musical expression. I believe Steely Dan used a click track and I also hear so much consistency in the playing that there is no doubt they used both great session musicians (who were asked to play precisely) but they did a few tricks and went through countless takes and overdubs to get the desired consistency which has a hypnotic robotic effect but lacks some musical expression or energy - kind of restrained.

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