Speaker placement and good/bad recordings.


Check my system out, my newest components are the speakers(JmLabs706). These speakers replaced a pair of PSB Alphas. I now hear more detail and the bass is tighter. Vocals also stand out a lot more. I was listening to Dreams from Fleetwod Macs new greatest hits double cd. Its been remastered and sounds very good. It takes such careful speaker placement to get it to sound that good, that it is driving me crazy. One freakin millimeter left or right makes such a difference.Granted my room isnt set up ideally, but...ah well ignorance is bliss. Anyway its a very good recording but when everyone joins in and sings "...players only love you when theyre playin..." I hear a tzz coming from the right speaker. I started freaking out because I heard the same thing with my old PSB speakers. I thought I had blown the tweeter thats why I bought the JmLabs in the first place, that and I craved better detail. I switched l/r speakers and heard the same thing and when I played it through another stereo I heard the same tzz. So I happily deduced that its the recording and not my speakers. This brings me to my second point:
Great pop music is so poorly recorded and bland jazzy crap is recorded so well, its soo disappointing. I was listening to a friends Al Dimeola and my jaw dropped. Damn did my stereo sound great, awesome soundstage and detail. Then my eyelids began to follow suit and drop as well. Damn is this stuff boring, homogeneic, uninspiring, unnnh. Which brings me to this frustrated point most of my collection is great rock/pop/r&b/hiphop and it sounds like crap. So what am I to do? What choice do I have but to listen to crap?
bundee1

Showing 2 responses by xiekitchen

Al Dimeola boring? That doesn't quite compute to me. The Land of the Midnight Sun, Elegant Gypsy, Etc, to say nothing of his work with Return to Forever when only a teenager, is regarded as great jazz-rock guitar playing. Perhaps spending some time studying music theory, music history, etc. might expand your sensibility to other more artistic forms such as Jazz and Orchestral musics. I would recommend reading 20th century composer Aaron Copland's "What to listen for in Music" circa 1957. To me Fleetwood Mac, while fine pop music, is notin the same league in terms of musical ability and virtiosity/mastery of a musical instrument.
In all honesty I have not heard Al's recent offerings so I cannot comment on Flesh on Flesh. Latin Jazz-wise I am a big fan of Dave Valentine, when he's good; can be hit or miss. Just bought "Jam Miami" on Concord record label, pretty good too.
On another note, have you heard the MFSL or Nautilus 1/2 speed pressings of Pop/Rock recordings of Fleetwood Mac, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchel, Little Feat, CSNY, Steely Dan, etc. on a really good Analog playback rig? You might be surprized how much more information is fleshed out of the recording compared to 'regular' cds. I remember about a decade ago a friend of mine brought over his cd rig and we compared listening to Steely Dan's Aja on his cd vs. my MFSL LP copy and believe me there was no comparison. The CD was flat and lifeless, lacking alot of inner detail and microdynamics.