Striking a balance between musicality and resolution

kennymacc   The question should be, what did the commercial audio recording really sound like straight from the recording studio

The sounds of recording from studio are nothing like the original sound. Why? Because mics don’t record the true original sound. All best mics are from 40’s and 50’s. Those 60~80 years old mics are all broken now. The new mics sound so bad that all recordings now are so bad. Listen to 60’s a 70’s recordings. Listen to Elvis’s.

uncleang   My sister in law has listened to AM radio her whole life so any frequency over 5K Hz is ’shrill’ to her. The AM band is both musical and natural to her.

You’ll be surprised how clean and nice $20 MP3 players’ sound. Many people here don’t think so because their ears are used to their hi-fis. All hi-fi and hi-end systems are distortion noise monsters. Many people here misunderstand that the distortion noise as a resolution. The distortion noises add up with more addition of parts and equipment. Extra component means more electrical noise too (transformers) which produces dirty sound. 

I can listen $10 am/fm radio and MP3 players, but I can’t listen "hi-end audio systems." The same reason people (almost non-a’philes) who don’t like to hear expensive audio systems. The only hi-end system I can listen (other than my system) is Carlos’s (OP) system in YT which sounds pretty natural and accurate. 

barts  I never have understood how any intelligent person (and there are plenty on this forum) could possibly think that listening to another’s audio system via a recording 

Record your system playing your favorite music with a cell phone. And listen to it few times with cell phone. Now your brain knows how each sounds (voice, drum, piano, guitar, etc.) of your system are from the cell phn. You’ll know cell phone recording sounds almost same as your system sound.

Alex/Wavetouch audio

@carlos269 

but rather professionally produced audio recordings typically recorded with close-microphones techniques

That clearly stamps your interests as non-classical!  It also means you have no independent reference against which to judge sound quality.

There is no contradiction between high resolution and musicality in my world of classical music recorded in real-world venues

um, sorry to have to say this Mr Carlos, but i am continually baffled by any so called "audiophile" type people that CAN PUT ANY CREDENCE INTO EVALUATING ANY AUDIO SIGNAL ONLINE with any type of website, utube whatever....are u serious?,, we all take great pains and efforts to build proper systems for 2-channel music reproduction...invest in sometimes thousands of dollars for components, acoustic treatments, proper power situations, requisite quality cabling etc, and you want to evaluate this with an online amplifier and speaker reproduction of someone's system?!!!.... um, what am i missing here, i'm a lurker mainly, not a poster, and while i really respect and enjoy and learn from ghdprentices's and audphile's informative posts, i feel compelled to say that any so called audiophile that evaluates ANYTHING by listening to their computer and  making any valid conclusions about any quality audio equipment is among the most ridiculous and bizarre manifestations of human intelligence i've ever heard,,,.ummm, will u please think about what your evaluating and trying to conclude?... stating some ridiculous evaluation of an audio signal reproduced on a crap at best speaker/amp on a computer?!!!.....please, lets be real....asking someone to post a recording of whatever from and on whatever to evaluate on a computer is absolutely absurd....sorry for my attack here, but enough with this listening to online videos to evaluate high quality audio equipment here, we're supposed to be at least a little more than bluetooth type sounds great and works type people so what more do u need....um, how old are u anyway?...we're all here for high fidelity audio reproduction that can never ever be evaluated or discerned or appreciated by listening to anything via a computer amp and speaker....please no insult intended but i am sick and tired of this here... i'll take it in the other forums like avs forum, or asr, as they are for the most part high end 2-channel deniers that think dsp's can fix all their problems....please, take your opinions and posts there if u think that u can actually make any type of audio system quality decision based on anything u hear online,....sorry, ridiculous, and putting this nice gentleman on the spot to send you a file for you to evaluate here i find incredibly insulting not only to ghdprentice, but to the whole audiogon community....i assume there are several youtube "audiophile" type sites....if u can't be more realistic then please go there and proffer your potentially absurd opinions.....i apologize to any i may have insulted, but near death experiences changes you and one thing i am so tired of in this somewhat internet influence know it all society these days is the assumption that everyone that is willing to just do some online research can know it all and engage in discourse with actual people that do know a lot and demand something like this to help prove their point?!?!... sorry don't get it.....ghdprentice....ignore this nonsense.....audphile and ghprentice....thanks for your continued informative posts .... again, sorry but just angry now at this youtube absurdity that prevails today...what the heck has happened to us that we are so shallow and gullible, .making conclusions on thousand dollar audio gear while listening ON YOUR COMPUTER....um, ok, repeating myself here,...just mystified that any of the more informed people here would even tolerate and read this utter nonsense....am i the only one that takes umbrange here?...ok, i'm done now, flame away at me, don't really care if u do, but hopefully some folks here will relate with my frustrations at the absurdity of concluding audio equipment comparisons based on computer listening...would u evaluate how a bmw handles on a computer simulation?....what's the difference with audio gear?...and hey alex wavetouch, listening with a cellphone?!...and you are supposedly a high end manufacturer!?,...nothing personal, but do us all a favor and go sell your stuff elsewhere and quit insulting all of our collective intelligences!...give it a rest please..best of luck with your gear and sales, but, um, u don't know it all an your opinions are mostly absurd and blatantly stated....wow, glad to get that off my chest before....

I have the impression because of these false alternative between resolution and musicality as false choices and  because of the  focus on the gear frequencies response instead of the acoustics experience and concepts and parameters that many people dont realize that timbre perception and spatial cues are not separable even if we can distinguishes between them.

The listener’s location and the surrounding environment act on the perception of timbre because the same sound source will produce different spectral and temporal cues depending on its position relative to the listener and the reflections in the room.

A good playback experience is able to translate the acoustical trading choices of the recording engineer into the acoustical trading choices of the listener system/room design and ears.

This translation must gave us the experience of tonal timbre with his spatial cues and information. This translation is not about musicality or resolution of the gear system or of  the  mere recording alone , it is about  all parameters implied:  recording choices, system/room/ears/location.

An experience is musically satisfying, nevermind his resolution level in details if this resolution is at a minimal necessary threshold, if our brain can recreate a 3-D perception of each instruments  ideally surrounding the listener or including him at least  (immersiveness or listener envelopment ).

Then not only frequencies response but time and timing, and sound pressure levels and ears measures, and HRTF matter...

We can analogically and mechanically modify our room and our listening location, or we can use and add also  DSP  with or without ears and head measures, to modify  our  system/room/location; the goal is not only timbre perception as musicality but enough resolution in frequencies and in times cues to recreate a 3-D spatial  immersion.

By the way it goes without saying that we cannot judge a system by listening to it on youtube or from a cellphone.

Why? 

Because sound experience is not about transmission of frequencies through medium as cellphone, youtube or dac/amp/speakers  but about  the way a listener located in a room perceive timbre tonality as a 3-D experience...

Acoustics rules engineering, not the reverse and musicality dont reduce to sound  as bits but imply a specific listener in specific location...

@cleeds 

You’ve missed the point.

When I say "Direct Transfer" I am referring to YouTube putting the music directly to their site rather than listening to a recording of it it played back on someone’s stereo trying to reproduce it..., which is all most people ever listen to and then complain that it doesn’t sound natural/real/whatever.  It should sound like the "Direct Transfer" whatever that sounds like.  For example, if the Direct Transfer is thin on bass, and has a midrange peak on your playback system, the subject equipment’s recording should be similarly thin with a similar peak, etc.  Like I said, you really want to use a good sound system for playback, but it need not be the system being demoed in the video.

Sure when YouTube directly transfers the music to their site, they subject it to compression whatnot.

BUT, when you submit a video, it is subject to the same whatnot, so should still sound the same.  If it doesn’t, it’s because it has been changed somewhere along the way, via the room or the equipment (including the recording equipment), and any change is a distortion.