Speakers that are unforgiving of poor-quality recordings - is that a thing?

[Svend P]

Hi
It is sometimes mentioned that some of the best speakers in the world only work well with the best recordings, because they are so good they will expose bad recordings.

It there some truth to that, and if so, what would cause it? It is not something I have experienced myself. Every time I do a substantial upgrade, I think all my music sounds better.
The headline is a direct quote from this review:

Joseph Audio Perspective loudspeaker Perspective2 Graphene | Stereophile.com

John Atkinson reviewed the Joseph Audio Perspective2 in July 2019 (Vol.42 No.7): Five years ago, in our July 2014 issue, I reviewed Joseph Audio's Perspective loudspeaker, a reflex-loaded, floorstanding, two-way design with two SEAS Excel magnesium-alloy–cone woofers and a SEAS Excel Millennium...

www.stereophile.com

 

[Soria Moria]

Better speakers make most if not everything sound better. Bad recordings sound bad no matter what you do.
I suppose there are bad speakers with messed up frequency responses that can mask certain aspects of poor recordings but that’s not going to carry over for music that isn’t bad so it’s ultimately not worth it.

 

[Ron Texas]

I guess the next question is what are the characteristics of a bad recording? A lot of this stuff doesn't seem to fit with the work of Toole and Olive regarding flat frequency response and even dispersion {hope I said it right}.

 

[abdo123]

I have personally not experienced that, I find that popular music often stresses what music is all the time.

It’s usually the accoustic audiophile crap that sounds good on literally everything.

 

[Multicore]

I think there might be something to the idea that goes like this: once you have removed all the distracting features from the reproduction system (distortions, coloration, ...) then all you have left to listen to is either the music or the defects in the recording. And some people may be more habituated to noticing technical defects (gear heads and recording engineers I guess) than others who are more likely to pay attention to the program material. And perhaps they are the more likely to read Stereophile and audition $13k/pair speakers.

 

[Mart68]

Hi
It is sometimes mentioned that some of the best speakers in the world only work well with the best recordings, because they are so good they will expose bad recordings.

It there some truth to that, and if so, what would cause it? It is not something I have experienced myself. Every time I do a substantial upgrade, I think all my music sounds better.
The headline is a direct quote from this review:

Joseph Audio Perspective loudspeaker Perspective2 Graphene | Stereophile.com

John Atkinson reviewed the Joseph Audio Perspective2 in July 2019 (Vol.42 No.7): Five years ago, in our July 2014 issue, I reviewed Joseph Audio's Perspective loudspeaker, a reflex-loaded, floorstanding, two-way design with two SEAS Excel magnesium-alloy–cone woofers and a SEAS Excel Millennium...

www.stereophile.com

Might be worth looking at the quote in it's full context:

In my 2014 review, I had found the Josephs to be unforgiving of poor-quality recordings, which I ascribed to the speaker having a slight emphasis in the presence region. A recording I had found not to sound as good as I had wished with the original Perspectives was Beck's Morning Phase (24-bit/96kHz ALAC files, Capitol/HDtracks). While I love this album, every time I played it with the original Perspectives, I wanted to turn the volume down. That was definitely not the case with the Perspective2s

(My bold). So the original version had an audible peak in the response, the new one doesn't, (it's a 'better' speaker) so problem solved.

The whole 'exposing bad recordings' thing is what people who have bought bad speakers (usually expensive) kid themselves along with.

 

[DSJR]

I appreciate my experiences are now old and possibly more and more outdated, but the best speakers I've ever heard have usually found *something* in a bad recording or production for the listener to latch onto and enjoy - great recordings sound spectacular through such speakers

 

[Purité Audio]

Transparent speaker equals transparent reproduction, a coloured loudspeaker adds that distortion to every track, whether well or badly recorded.
Keith

 

[fineMen]

I guess the next question is what are the characteristics of a bad recording?

Besides the overall balance, as you mentioned Toole/Olive, unfortunate decisions at the mixing board or with the microphones to begin with, are clearly revealed by better speakers. But, crucially, the listener can understand that--if he's not an audiophool. Understanding is forgiving. I personally don't suffer from bad recordings anymore once I switched to 'revealing' speakers. I listen to the mix and accept it as an artform.

 

[jesseday2]

I have experienced this, mostly when where talking about live recordings. If you take it to the extreme. I have some music that i can enjoy just fine when played over my little portable battery powered sony. When I play it back over my main system I can hear all the details of the poor recording. It becomes a distraction and creates a different listening experience. Poor fidelity of the little speaker allows you to just focus on the content and not the recording.

I suppose the same thing could happen between two hifi speakers as well. As others have mentioned I am still glad to have the recordings to play in the first place and find a way to enjoy it.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I've always found better speakers make all music sound better. What is also true is that better speakers make recording decisions easier to spot and understand. For some that might be a distraction, and some people seem to prefer a "smoothing" sound behaviour.

But as @Mart68 pointed out, in this case there was a coloration in the loudspeaker frequency response causing the issue.

 

[anioq]

Yes absolutely, with the Pioneer super cheap SP-BS22 everything sounds good, not so with better speakers.

 

[Talisman]

In a sense it is true.
If you listen to everything with poor speakers, lacking dynamics, lacking low frequency extension, you level everything down.
Then you play certain songs back on a good system and you think "wow this music is amazing now" and you expect that to be the case with all songs, but some still sound sad and cheesy, and then you realize it was recording sucks.

 

[thewas]

Poor recordings often sound harsh, so a loudspeaker with a warm (= relatively bass heavy) tuning and a presence dip can make those sounding less shouty and annoying.

 

[test1223]

Good speakes in a good listening room reveal a lot of bad decisions/ mistakes in some recording. Examples are clipping, unnatural reverb or bad sounding synthesizers. This will take away some enjoyment which you have with more masking speakers.
These not so good speakers can mask a lot of the mistakes by resonances and none linear distortions. You can dispute which is better a more "muddy" but coherent playback or a clear playback with some disturbing elements.

A none flat frequency response is IMHO most of the time not the masking factor.

 

[Sokel]

I wouldn't narrow it to the speakers (or at least to speakers adequately fed).
Power is important too and some speakers just need more so sometimes people play constant clipping music without even knowing it.

I would measure everything first and then decide about a recording.

 

[Pearljam5000]

It's a thing
It's like a 4K TV vs a Full HD one
Crappy videos look better on the 1080p TV than on the 4K TV that exposes all of it's flaws .

 

[OldHvyMec]

I've found that lower efficiency speakers are less accurate and less revealing than high efficiency speakers. You get into 70-80s vs 90-100
there is night and day in what you hear. High efficiency speakers are never forgiving. What is coming out of the power amps is showing
every flaw up to that point.

Very sensitive speakers are noise prone, to poor cable routing. You don't bundle and drop cables. If you take the time
a system can be quiet.

The answer, I guess is, if you don't want to listen to HiFi, don't. If you do like High Fidelity pick a good source to begin with.

Regards

 

[dfuller]

I guess the next question is what are the characteristics of a bad recording? A lot of this stuff doesn't seem to fit with the work of Toole and Olive regarding flat frequency response and even dispersion {hope I said it right}.

Yeah, because as great as Toole and Olive are (and they are), there is so much missing from their studies.

 

[fineMen]

Looking out for the most perfect worst recording?

Birthday Party / She's Hit (any, it's programmatic)