I hate my Altecs

[fpitas]

I think some recording engineers are either retarded, deaf, or someone is forcing them to destroy the work they were hired to perform.

The good engineers make a product that carries well to almost any system, but the typical recording is intended for the car radio, a "box" home system or earbud listening, since that's the majority of the market.

A friend that I fixed up with 511 based speakers has been mining his wife's classical music collection. It seems that those recordings are meant for reasonable fidelity systems.

[bowtie427ss]

Yeah, with rare exception, the best, most dynamic recordings today are movie soundtracks, same as it's always been.

GM

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, almost like they were engineered for playback on a particular type of system in a particular acoustic environment.

The good engineers make a product that carries well to almost any system, but the typical recording is intended for the car radio, a "box" home system or earbud listening, since that's the majority of the market.

..................... and let's not forget the cheapo all in one systems with a ceramic cartridge and 4 inch full range speakers in masonite boxes.

One must never overlook the importance of this low budget gear in the industry overall. Were it not for the mass and widespread existence of this arguably "low fidelity" playback equipment, at least half of the music we love, and hence half our reason for listening would not exist.

[Altec Best]

Well, not really, but let me explain.
Until I started listening to Altecs, I was happy. Content with all my recordings. MP3s, no problem - didn't even notice all those artifacts and loss of imaging. CDs, loved 'em - couldn't really hear all those anomalies, over-compression, and hyper use of limiters. Now, I have model 14s in my upstairs man cave. In the garage, I have 816s loaded with 416As, 511Bs driven with 802-8Gs. I'm working on an enclosure for my 604E. I've designed and built new crossovers for all of them. Now, I hear things I never heard before. I'm hearing all kinds of CRAP in signal path. I'm hearing defects and errors made in the mixing and mastering. I'm starting to LOATHE MP3s and compressed music. I'm starting to think about buying a turntable. What the hell is happening to me?

I scraped mp3's years ago.. If you store any kind of quality recordings on your computer you should only use FLAC's IMHO.It is the best lossless codec out there IMO.And when it comes to vinyl old is good if in mint condition.Otherwise I buy MFSL vinyl when something I like is available.I use foobar2000 in windows to play them.That will help you at least start with some decent recordings.

FLAC - download

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Inc.| Audiophile Vinyl, CD, SACD

[analog addict]

All those old Altec speakers come with a free pack of Kool-Aid included.

[alancohen]

I scraped mp3's years ago.. If you store any kind of quality recordings on your computer you should only use FLAC's IMHO.It is the best lossless codec out there IMO.And when it comes to vinyl old is good if in mint condition.Otherwise I buy MFSL vinyl when something I like is available.I use foobar2000 in windows to play them.That will help you at least start with some decent recordings.

FLAC - download

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Inc.| Audiophile Vinyl, CD, SACD

So that's what FLAC is. It's amazing how little infomation is out there when something's free!

How does this compare to Apple Lossless?

[Alien_Shore]

Have you seen

HDTRACKS

I'd say be careful here. Some of this is coated with liberal amounts of snake oil. Some of it is quite good. All depends on the source tapes/disks/wax cylinders, the quality of the restoration, skill of the re-mastering, A/Ds, etc.

And of course, quality of digital playback is dependent on the quality of your D/As.

[fpitas]

All those old Altec speakers come with a free pack of Kool-Aid included.

My horns only honk if you feed them after midnight

[cradeldorf]

i cannot shift my focus away from the flaws and anomalies of the recording and production enough to enjoy it.

You hit the nail on the head there Bowtie, I spend the majority of my time looking for anomaly's instead of ingesting the performance as a whole. well that and continuously changing the settings to make everything sound good.

- - - Updated - - -

Craddledorf you really should look into a pair of G's in very big, very stiff cabinets....

Too much money to risk on that adventure. Point source is wonderful but I think there are better matched systems than the 604 offers. Your asking an awful lot of a 15" to go to 1600 hz and sound good doing it. Also a HF horn should be of equal SPL or lower than the woofer SPL to really blend nicely because of the directivity they produce. Attenuators will do that, but at the expense of killing the open natural tone. I will admit they are great for impressing your friends with ear deafining loudness with zero distortion, but after you've impressed all of them your stuck with a system that just doesn't cut it for everyday listening. It was a fun journey and a great learning experience but time to move on. I won't toss the 604's into the fire until I hear the alternative.

[alancohen]

You hit the nail on the head there Bowtie, I spend the majority of my time looking for anomaly's instead of ingesting the performance as a whole. well that and continuously changing the settings to make everything sound good.

Funny story: When Steve Vai was attending Berkeley COM in Boston he was in a band called Masterpiece with my best friend growing up, David Rosenthal. Steve spent a lot of time transcribing Frank Zappa music. As the story goes, one late evening a knock came to their front door and it was FZ's driver looking for SV. It seems FZ got a hold of some of these transcripts and was amazed that SV analyzed the music so accurately, he even transcriped the mistakes made by the musicians. FZ offered him a job an the rest is history.

So there might be something to gain from looking for mistakes in recordings if you're writing it all down, otherwise just enjoy the show.

Speaking of which, live performances are rarely flawless. I saw Diana Krall recently and it was not one of her better nights. I chose to enjoy the experience for what it was, regardless.

[analog addict]

I'm sure Diana looked good whatever noises were coming out of her mouth at the time. I'm sure Elvis enjoys it even when she is yelling at him to take out the garbage....