Fuzzy Lyrics

There are too many potential causes to discuss here, and recording quality is just one, but the most common cause in my experience of fuzziness on vocals is poor vibration isolation of your components. I suggest you look at this first. Hard to comment further without knowing more about your system and its set-up (or even the disc in question).

Phish (Farmhouse) and a Keller Williams CD. If vibration were the problem, how come I don't hear similar problems on other discs. Vibration could very well be the problem because I haven't done much to control it.

Don't think its vibration. That effect is very small. If he is really aware of the fuzziness then its probably mic'd improperly. Try playing the CD on another system. A car CD player would be just fine since they tend to emphasize the vocal band. If it sound clear then you have a system problem. One other possible problem is a blown midrange speaker.

Have you experience of this Keis or are you speculating? Mic'd improperly? I find that difficult to accept. Improper mic'ing does not usually result in fuzziness. Firstly, vibration effects are not small unless you have low resolution components in the first place. Secondly a common problem of vibration effects is that they get worse at certain frequencies - ever heard of resonance? Very recently I was helping a friend with his system. We were listening to Eric Bibb's latest CD and noticed that on one track in two places - each about 30 seconds long - the vocals became fuzzy, such that the system lost its ability to resolve his voice. At first we wondered if this might be a problem with the recording, but I could recall no such problem with the same disk on my system. We changed the support under the CD - increasing the amount that it was decoupled from the equipment stand - and lo and behold no fuzziness on Eric Bibb's voice. I repeat, vibration effects are not small in a good system, and they are not necessarily ubiquitous - they are set off by resonances when the components start singing along with the music. I have often fallen into the trap of writing off the sound quality of a disk, only to find later when I improved my system, that the issue was that the disk was very difficult to resolve. Often a gem can emerge when you improve the resolving power of your system. I acknowledge (again) that other effects could be at play. For example lots of digital mixing can result in so many bits of resolution lost that the music gets dense, flat and fuzzy. But far from agreeing you should try it in your car - I recommend you try this disk at your local dealers on the best system they have available - and then tell us if it is the recording or your system that is at fault.

Funny you should mention that Redkiwi, but I already performed that same test (seemed like the logical thing to do eh?) and did not hear the fuzziness, although I don't have a superstar car audio system. I just purchased some new cables, DH-Labs Q-10 bi-wired. For several of my disks, the cables are outstanding. However, it seems like the fuzziness is more pronounced on those two disks I mentioned, and perceptible on other disks, 10,000 maniacs unplugged, and even on a Medeski Martin & Wood (MMW) CD. Although this specific disk has no lyrics, there seems to be this veil of fuzziness over the mid range. None of the speaker drivers are blown. If anyone has a good solution to try, do Vibrapods work etc., please make a recommendation. My budget does not allow expensive solutions, dark matter platforms, so try to keep that in mind. Most things are easy to fix if you have a fat wallet.