So Much "Harshness"

Just found this thread - lots of interesting opinions here, and here are mine, for what they are worth. I think the OP is quite close to the answers. Certainly many recordings, especially those of the last 25 years or so since the advent of digital recording, are mixed horribly, sounding nothing like the original space in which they were recorded, and the vast majority of the time being much brighter and harsher. The digital/analog thing does have much to do with it - not only in the playback, but even more importantly in the original recording/mixing process. The distortions inherent in the analog medium, though they are greater, are much less musically objectionable than those inherent in the digital medium, which occur at higher frequencies. This very much contributes to the "harshness" many complain of. No one's system, no matter how good it is, can "fix" a poor recording/mixing job. I would argue that there is a good reason many people believe that the best sounding orchestral recordings, for one example, were those made in the 50's and early 60's with just a couple of mikes hung either far out into the hall or far above the orchestra, in the case of Mercury. There is very little mixing on these recordings in comparison to what happens today.

Another factor is the equipment - certainly transistors are normally much brighter sounding than tubes, though some of today's tube amp makers are going for a brighter, more powerful, transistor-like sound. Some of these sound harsh to my ears, unlike the older tube amps I have heard. I also personally prefer the sound of the low wattage amp/high efficiency speaker combo to the reverse, though the reverse is much more common now.

It also has to do with the individual's musical tastes - those who listen almost exclusively to electronically produced music are not the ones generally complaining of harshness, in my experience. Rock concerts today are performed at insane volumes, with especially the bass greatly distorted by gigantic subwoofers, and many young people today think that all music is supposed to sound like that, and build systems to suit that taste. Many such people simply play their systems too loudly most of the time, trying to recreate this over-amplified sound. Most movie theaters do the same thing.

The greatly compressed MP3 files also are much brighter and harsher than other formats, and many young people are becoming used to this sound as well.

Power supply has a little bit to do with it as well, though I personally think this is the least of the reasons. In a recent experiment at home in my system, a power conditioner made only a very slight improvement to my CD player, and sounded absolutely awful with my vinyl set-up.

Please bear in mind that the above comments are generalizations, there are always exceptions. There are many different tastes out there, and there is equipment out there to realize pretty much anyone's personal taste. For those of you that love to listen to metal with a 500 watt amp and very low efficiency speakers as loud as you can crank it, more power to you! The most important thing is that we all enjoy what we are hearing.

To speak to one of Al's points, correcting mistakes in orchestral recording doesn't generally have anything to do with the number of mikes used. If a note is missed, it cannot be fixed if there is not another take with the correct one. There would be some exceptions, but not many. Almost never is there only one take done of anything, unless it is from a live performance, and even then they usually have what they call a "patch" session, in case there were problems in the same spot of every performance. Recording a symphony orchestra is indeed very expensive, that is why many orchestras have turned to self-produced recordings from live performances, generally sold only in the local area.

Tvad, I do have a TT-PSU that I use with my P5 turntable, perhaps this is why the power conditioner had such a negative effect on the sound??

Hi Tvad, I did not plug the TT-PSU into the conditioner when I tried it, just the other electronics. It still had a very negative effect on the sound when the turntable was the source. I had read that these type of products generally have a better effect on digital sources than analog, and on video sources than audio, for that matter, and my experiment confirmed this for me. When the CD player was the source, the effect was only very slightly positive - slightly better bass, actually, which was a little surprising to me, and a slightly cleaner overall sound. With the turntable as the source, though, it was a drastic difference for the worse. The soundstage was greatly shrunken, and dynamics were compressed quite a bit, especially on the soft end - the softs were nowhere near as soft with the conditioner as they are without it. This was again a surprise, I would have thought it would be the other way around. Loud dynamics were also slightly compressed. The timbres of acoustic instruments and vocals were also not produced as accurately with the conditioner - it seemed to remove overtones is how I would describe it - the timbres were not as rich and complex as they should have been, and are without the conditioner. It also certainly removed much of the ambient noise of the original recording space. I realize that there are many others who have experienced a positive difference with power conditioners on vinyl - my brother is one, actually. He was present when I tried it and was particularly disappointed in the outcome in my system, since it works great in his. His set-up is quite a bit different from mine, though.

To get back more on topic here, I guess my point is that since these type of products will not make a positive difference in all kinds of systems, then one cannot consider them the most important fix for harshness, as some in this thread have suggested. They certainly won't "fix" a bad recording job, or "fix" overly bright equipment. IMO these things are much greater causes of "harshness" than electronic noise, though this is indeed a cause in many cases as well. I do find it interesting that most people I know with low powered amps and high effeciency speakers seem to complain much less about electronic noise in their systems anyway, and almost none of them (again, that I know) use power conditioners. I have to wonder if that has something to do with it. Maybe not - anyone else reading this have any thoughts on that?

Hi Al - that is an interesting explanation, though I am not sure how the cause you describe would result in the effects I heard. I would think the cause you are describing would result in much more audible distortions, but perhaps not. The effects I experienced were more like a removal of too much information, if that makes sense. Perhaps the next time my brother comes up, I will experiment with plugging the TT-PSU into the conditioner as well, and see if that makes any difference. He doesn't have a separate power supply to his turntable.

As for the harshness definitions, I would not equate harshness solely with distortion. As Mr. T says, distortion is not necessarily unpleasant. Acousticians use the term distortion to describe many different types of phenomena, some of which are positive effects. I would also agree with his second definition, though this is certainly subjective, as he says. Many CD players I have heard have this "overly analytical" quality - to take an orchestral example, one may be able to clearly pick out every instrument on the stage, but the sense of how the combination of all of them sound out in the hall is completely lost. Losing the forest for the trees, so to speak. When the ambient noise, especially the warmth, of the original concert hall is taken away or lost in this fashion, the resulting sonority is certainly colder and could often be described as harsh.