So I don’t have a super high-end system by any means. I have JBL L36 speakers. They sound awesome. There is some music that sounds absolutely incredible on them. The Beatles – Abbey Road. Oscar Peterson - We Get Requests, Robag Wruhme - Thora Vukk, Lorde - The Louvre…
There is some of my favourite music however, that sounds completely non-impactful and wimpy on the speakers as well. Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down Again, and in fact most of their catalogue. Bowie - Berlin trilogy sounds weak but it slams in my car…
I would really love to know if someone has a great system and Depeche Mode/Bowie sound fantastic on it.
I just rebuilt some L36s. I love them!
Classical was my favorite but on my system it sounds like I’m sitting in the back seats at symphony center and I can barely hear the music. Whereas I love listening to jazz or acoustic—a thousand times more direct and immersive. Seems like it’s related to how far away the microphones are from the instruments during recording.
Yes, I’m constantly listening to music I don’t listen to in my car because it doesn’t sound good and you can tell it was recorded poorly
Some…
Whenever that happens, I just put +5 db on my sub and the issue is fixed.
Not really. There are some terribly recorded CDs around but not too many IME.
I find Bowie stuff generally ok. Depeche Mode generally sounds incredible to me.
What is really one of the worst is Radiohead’s The Bends.
Once you attain your version of the most realistic sounding speakers you can afford, it comes down to the source. Excellent recordings are bliss, shit sounds like shit.
I can relate, one of my favourite bands is Spiritualized, unfortunately it ends up sounding very bright without enough low end at higher volumes on my system. Im sure recording quality plays a role, but I noticed it a lot less on my old system.
Once a got a decent system, not even high end, I was able to hear many more layers of sound I never heard on a basic system. I am talking about discovering entire instruments I didn’t realize were on a track that I couldn’t hear when I just listened in my car.
Some music sounded amazing.
And yes some music sounded shit and overproduced.
My electrostats are very revealing of poor recordings (e.g. most of Led Zep and the Stones). My solution was to add a pair of Klipsch Heresy IIIs.
It is probably your amp. Don’t use “surround receivers” or any of that garbage. Just a simple 2 channel / 4 channel does wonders. Such as a Yamaha R-S202.
As a metalhead, it’s made me painfully aware that most of my favorite jams are mastered into walls of sound without the dynamic range I was expecting to get out of having a badass stereo to blast them on.
The Loudness Wars can suck it
Yes. I built my system tuned to today’s music, which is pretty loud and hits hard in the bass region. But all the old (pre-90s) music sounds thin. I’m not really a bass head, I like it tuned just right so it’s not overwhelming. Some remastered versions solve this, but not all.