Tinny sound accompanying cello on recordings ?

Great responses by all above, and a useful reminder from Shadorne on the wrongheaded desire for system "warmth", etc. People hear system problems and try to smother them with warm sonic blankies, instead of identifying and removing the problem. I'm sure many of us have heard $100K+ systems built in exactly this way. I have, and they may sound "nice" but they invariably smother all life out of the music.

On topic, I once had a visitor who complained that massed violins in our system didn't sound "massed", and that he heard a thin "distortion" on top of every note.

We had to point out to him that a live violin section (or chorus) heard up close doesn't sound "massed". It sounds like individual violinists (or singers). The "distortions" he heard were attacks of bow on string, the grip and release of rosin and the astonishingly complex harmonics produced by different parts of the instrument. We asked, and he'd never heard any bowed string instrument up close.

In concert, these things become less audible if you're more than a few rows back or in an acoustically dull hall. OTOH, if you hung your left ear 12-15 feet directly above the first violins and your right ear the same distance above whatever was on the other side of the podium, and if you had no audience noises, no traffic noises, etc., you'd hear rosin, hair on strings and a 100 other things you can't normally hear. Of course your ears might look funny, suspended up there.

Try Heifetz's concerto recordings. He forced RCA to mike him very tight because he wanted everyone to hear his fiddle as normally only he could. Not a normal concert perspective for anyone, but certainly realistic from his.

Chasmal wrote, a couple posts above: "I think you will come to love it as part of the richness of the instrument once the weirdness plays out for you."

GREAT POINT!

We've consciously trained ourselves to be aware of that sensation of weirdness and of how it plays out, particularly when auditioning new tweaks and components. Has the sound of a familiar recording become less familiar, strange, even uncomfortable? If so, its time to kick in our brains and figure out why.

Much more often than not, it means the new tweak or component is in fact an upgrade, that it's extracting more information from the recording and getting it through the system and into the room. Assuming no obvious flaws, the weirder and stranger things seem at first, the more likely it is we're hearing a major upgrade.

Our ears and brains adjust after a short while and the increased complexity becomes the new normal. From that point, taking the new tweak or component away leaves us feeling bereft. Example: I wouldn't stop demagging my LP's or shorten my cleaning regimen because they both provide exactly that sense of weirdness-from-increased-information.

(A note regarding your LP cleaning issues: the ultimate test of an effective cleaning regimen is not how quiet the surfaces are. I could make even my best records quieter by smearing Gruv Glide or some other crap on them. They'd be quieter but I'd hear less music. The true test of a clean LP is how much low level detail and microdynamic subtlety you can hear. When we compared different waters for final rinses, this was the only difference. No water made the record any quieter than any other water, but one was better at revealing very fine levels of detail and dynamic shadings.)

Apologies to Opus88 for the threadjack. Inspired by weirdness!

Shadorne,

Hogwood's AAM recordings are our daily fare. Superb stuff, played by the most amazing musicians anywhere. When we want to test a system we always bring an original/authentic instrument LP along. It's very easy for a system to make them sound horrible and unmusical. It took us four years to get ours even close to right.

Opus88,

I dearly wish I could duplicate your results and practice, but our cleaning experiences differ. Your system's not listed so it's difficult to evaluate your results or what they might mean. Also, you didn't mention how or if you vacuumed the fluids off. If that vital step isn't performed properly the whole concept of wet cleaning falls apart, and can easily do as much harm as good.

The only consistent result we've achieved by playing uncleaned LP's is to ruin them, so I'm not eager to repeat the experiment. Unfortunately for my time and budget, our present cleaning regimen (which would drive most people nuts) invariably improves low level detail and subtle dynamics.

Assuming you're vacumming effectively, a final rinse (or two) with some very pure water (better than just 3x deionized) is essential to our cleaning regimen and sonic results. Try repeating your experiment with some MoFi water, if you care to spend the time and money of course.

I'm sorry you're having to suffer that. Is it the case that certain frequencies or sonic mixtures, like a cello, provoke or exacerbate the problem?