Right now there is a fun discussion going on over on the other side of the Loudspeaker forum:
Dynamic is Preferred over Electrostatic
While the title could be misleading, the resulting discussion is interesting. Rather than throwing out my opinion right there, I'm more comfortable to sprout it on my own thread.
I've said before, what I look for in a replay system is for it to do the "soundtrack of my life" justice. Meaning it has to be able to play a lot of different sorts of music and still do well.
So how do we get there? My opinion would be: take your time.
I've been playing with ambience again and had my reverb settings longer than ever, enjoying many songs this way. Last Friday I had a visitor over to listen. Most songs we played sounded pretty good, until I threw in "September in Montreal". While that song certainly does not belong in the soundtrack of my life, it has been used a lot to judge my system in the past. One thing it did make obvious: my ambience settings were a bit too much.
There's a slap echo in the song, that bounces off the (virtual) right wall from a drum being played on the left. My ambience enhanced that blow out of proportion at the back. However, this morning I meant to fix that.
I rearranged early and late levels, and more importantly changed the slope of those levels making lower sounds resonate longer than the higher ones.
No more exaggerated slap echo, but awesome depth on the songs I tried this session. So, is the recording to blame? Or was it my (virtual) room response. Yes, Koldby, I know how you feel about that song
. Anne is doing something out of the Exorcist while sitting behind that piano.
All I'm saying is that the room is as important to what we hear as the speaker system is. They have to play well together to stand any chance on random material. I'll keep working on my dream, can't wait to add the subs!
Do you hear more flaws on a good system? Lets first make sure that it was a flaw on the recording, not something in our system or room before we judge. Do I hear differences in recordings? You bet I do! But I find more and more recordings that work, the longer I keep working on and in my room.
Just saying... spend a little more time on it before ruling out certain songs.
Are there badly mixed songs or recordings out there? No doubt. But good and well recorded songs are more than a handful!
