loudnes control

cnh

heiney9 wrote: »

SDA's live and die by the recording engineer and that goes for piano as well. I've heard the knock about piano music and SDA's before and with the exception of a few recordings I don't experience the inconsistencies others do when playing piano music. I don't listen to any classical so the piano artists I'm referring to are more like artists on Windham Hill and in that vein or jazz piano, and finally "popular" music like Elton John, Tori Amos, Charlotte Martin, Regina Spektor, etc.

It seems the funkier the engineer tries to make the mix, as in trying to expand the standard stereo signal, the more exacerbated they seem on SDA's. I have some very simple live recordings done with minimal mixing and a few mics and the SDA's sound absolutely stunning...........breathlessly real. JAZZ AT THE PAWNSHOP sounds phenominal on SDA's. The more tricks, processing, and wizardry they try in the studio the farther the recording is from reality and the SDA's pick that up.

I'll say again SDA's live and die by the recording engineer. I can also say many recordings that sound a little funky on SDA's.............sound funky on standard speakers as well, just to a lesser degree. It's not like these funky recordings sound flawless on standard stereo speakers and then sound like **** on SDA's.

H9

P.s. Put in Madonna's - Ray of Light sometime on SDA's. They used Q-Sound processing to master that cd and it definitely is funky no matter what you play it on.

You don't listen to any classical Piano? I don't know what I'd do on a dark dreary rain day without it (like Chopin's Raindrop Prelude, etc.). To be honest I haven't listened to much on SDAs for whatever reason. But I don't see why there should be any inherent problem there.

You're right...probably in the recording process!
cnh

mhardy6647

cnh wrote: »

That's an interesting shot in light of Yamaha's refacing of their latest 'integrated amps' this year? You might say some of the controls and dials of the A-S700 are a bit Retro?

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_022AS700B/Yamaha-A-S700.html?tp=34948

cnh

THe new Yamaha stuff is rather elegant looking (and elegantly pricey, too)... note, though, that the current models use the rectangular knobs for functions like the tone controls - the originals used them for function selectors. I thought that was an interesting "re-interpretation" on Yamaha's part.

inspiredsports

I've been thinking hard about this since the original post and realized that I used to rely on tone controls to "fix" things.

Then I realized it was like a Bandaid. Yeah, my skin wasn't bleeding on my clothing, but the cut was still there underneath.

Getting rid of tone and loudness means "no Bandaid". It forces you to "heal" the underlying problem.

With that said, if you don't have time and budget, tone/loudness can add/subtract stuff and make listening better by at least "keeping the blood off of your clothing".