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Using Bad Recording to Evaluate a System

Once I went to a dealer to audition a speaker, brought a few CD's. One of them was a CD of a group I like but has rather low quality recording.
Well, I put that CD in and cued up a track, and when the music ended the dealer asked why I was using such a horrible sounding recording to audition. (I think he looked kinda slightly pissed. Maybe because the music sounded shrill and irritating the whole time???)
Yeah, why?
Here's what I think: an audio system should make listening the music a pleasant experience. The better your system can reproduce, the more enjoyment you get regardless of recording quality. Saying that 'my system is so good I can only play my audiophile discs' is basically saying something is wrong with my system. Yes, nowadays I tend to play my 'audiophile' CDs much more than regular ones, but that's because of the music AND the excellent recording quality, but when I play my regular or lower recording quality CD's, I find that, although the shortcomings are more obvious, my system can reproduce the music as an enjoyable presentation, and I enjoy it more than when I used to in prev. lower-res/quality/musicality systems.
yr44

Showing 1 response by newbee

newbee
4,751 posts
 
FWIW, I can see the benefit in taking recordings that are less than optimum for a couple of reasons.

1) Taking a SOTA recording of music you love....It will sound great on many systems AND you love the music so much you will be inclined to listen to the music more than the sound of the system.
2) I have collected some recordings that have special problems that are exacerbated (or glossed over) by some components and speakers, mostly the latter. The way these problems show up in a demo can help me speed up the evaluation process.

Might not work as well for someone just starting out.....
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