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Jazz listening: Is it about the music? Or is it about the sound?

The thread title says it all. I can listen to jazz recordings for hours on end but can scarcely name a dozen tunes.  My jazz collection is small but still growing.  Most recordings sound great.  On the other hand, I have a substantial rock, pop and country collection and like most of us, have a near encyclopedic knowledge of it.  Yet sound quality is all over the map to the point that many titles have become nearly unlistenable on my best system.  Which leads me back to my question: Is it the sound or the music?  Maybe it’s both. You’ve just got to have one or the other!
jdmccall56
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,178 posts
 
The best systems make everything sound better. They do not disseminate from old 78's of Fats Waller   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNPpssruFY to 192/24 Nine Inch Nails. It all sounds incredible. 
jdmccall56 OP
73 posts
 
Seems as my systems have gotten better, my recordings have gotten worse!  Jazz almost always sounds good though.  So I listen.  But Iove my pop stuff.  Geez it can hard to listen to though.
petg60
1,486 posts
 
Atmosphere rules.

G
whipsaw
753 posts
 
I'd say that it's both, and I too listen to more jazz than ever these days.

To my ears acoustic music almost invariably sounds better than electronic on a high-quality system, and I suspect that the recording engineers (e.g. Rudy Van Gelder) who focussed on jazz were among the very best.

I grew up listening to should and funk, and still love to spin Tower of Power discs, etc. But ultimately, the nuances of acoustic music draw me in more deeply. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Hate to tell you, but if any of your recordings sound worse then your system is more selective, not better. I have zero recordings that don't sound a whole lot better, and a lot of them that were blah are now captivating. Whole lot of em. Could give all kinds of examples, but what's the point, easier to just say all of em. 

Always loved rock and blues, always had jazz and classical too but never really got into them. Now my favorite record is Tchaikovsky, but my U2 is more awesome than ever and playing Crime of the Century the other night at concert level was a religious experience right up there with Tchaikovsky. I paid big money for a White Hot Year of the Cat, and it is in a whole new universe from the average pressing I had, but there was nothing wrong with that average pressing in fact it got better and better as my system improved. Which is one of the ways I know my system really did get better and better! 

If you are noticing ANY recordings that sound worse in any way, focus in like a laser beam on precisely why that is, because it is in your system and not the recording, and so if you can fix that problem then you will indeed have made your system truly better. 
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