Voicing a System: To colour or not to colour?

Perhaps this should be moved to the music section since it in some ways pertains directly to the recording engineers' abilities but we'll see how the thread progresses.

Most recordings are voiced to be played back on really crappy gear, consumer grade gear that often has some really off-kilter frequency response curves. There are very very few people who seem to enjoy flat as in dead neutral systems. In my opinion, an HP-1000 with a Gilmore discrete amp using all silver wire cables is about as linear as one can get. Few strive for this, in fact, those that own the HP-1000's often migrate towards a Melos (hybrid) or a tube amp. Comments such as: "they are boring" or "that combo has no life" prevail at many meets. When the HP-1000's are paired with an amp with some tubes, there is some warmth added to the mix and the hp-1000's gain some of that emotion they seemed to be missing. In contrast, those that use Gilmore discreet amps seem to use phones that are quite a bit more coloured (practically every other phone, but for arguments sake let's say other Grados, HD6x0's etc). I suspect this is because the phones which already present an apparent colouration don't need the extra colour provided by an amp, so these combos work very well for people. My point? Colour seems to be a good thing a great thing even! Colour seems to be high on the list of priorities of everyone, whether they know it or not (perhaps this is an overly exaggerated statement, but let's just run with it for now).

If recordings are produced to be played on craptacular gear, then perhaps having the most linear and transparent rigs are not the ideal in most instances. Heck even many jazz and classical recordings are subpar! Must we then only search out those prized audiophile recordings? Steve Hoffman specials? Some folks actually do this! I'd rather listen to a ton of music myself.

So then, given most recordings are off, making it impossible to ever get remotely close to the what the musicians truly sounded like, are we able to admit that some people like one colour vs. another? Some enjoy a really warm and thick sound, others mildly so, others prefer cool, or down right frigid. However, could it be that by adding the proper colouration we can correct the colourations or alterations the engineers implemented? Can we make the music sound more natural?

Though this stems from recent musings on RS-1's and my interview with John Grado, it does seem that most folks aren't interested in studio monitors but would much prefer some fine speakers (or headphones) that are resolving, extended, fast, transparent and have that level of colour that suits one's tastes.

So what say you all?

I agree, a good recording is one that relays the emotion of the artist (conceiving of course that the artist was proficient enough to exhibit at least a bit of heart), of course an excellent recording will be one with emotion and the technical merits sound officianados have come to love.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with bugdet + time spent = better. I think it depends on the skill/ear of the engineers at least for the most part, thn the $ + time may play a prominent role. But you are right, many recordings of indie bands it seems these days are very well recorded and in record time too! Notice though that many of these guys are using all tube equipement and completely AAA or at worse...AAD? Very very interesting indeed, that could be a whole other thread, tubes vs. ss in recording studios. Should DDD recordings always be played back with tube gear because the DDD process strips the music of life? And with AAA and AAD (including only tubes) recordings, should ss gear be used because it can be more transparent and linear (most times, but transistor sheen is hard to eliminate save for big boy amps).

I am still unsure about the linearity, transparency and lack of colouration bit, specifically in the event of mixing/mastering for odd frequency gear, liked bumped bass and highs, think valley effect. If this were the case, a very very linear system would just represent this sad recording. Ruminating here of course, I have no idea how often this happens. Perhaps bigshot will venture into this thread and give some indication of how poopy recordings are today (mainstream or not) and/or how deaf or simply incompetent the sound engineers are.

I agree with this, and the benefits with headphones like Sennheisers with removable cables and Grado with their different pads, even slight change-ups can result in a variance in the sound is more suitable for a given track/album/genre given one's preferences.

Hmm, I think you missed my point. The fact that one doesn't need to equalize a live concert is expressly the problem. If the engineers are voicing albums for subpar equipement then having excellent equipement can be problematic. This seems to be the reason that many people don't buy studio monitoring speakers, but look to other brands. Why would this be?

As for your hypothesis about the HP-1000's, you'd have to hear it to solve it I suppose, but the HP-1000's are quite different from the current line of headphones and don't smooth the edges. They are perceived as boring for some (or many depending) because they lack colour. I don't find them boring, nor do others who own them. Would you describe the HD650's as sounding remarkably close to the HD595's? If not, the differences between the HP-1000's and the current line are much much greater.

I'm not claiming recordings are necessarily voiced for subpar gear, I am saying that there are many many horrible recordings so I am trying to flesh out a conclusion as to why that is? Lack of skill? Intent for playback on valley-effected gear? I do have excellent recordings as well.

As for not wanting to colour a live performance, I suppose that in a perfect venue (outdoors for starters) the music sounds as it should sound given the instrument quality, the musicians' ability and the conducting. Perhaps some venues are purposely designed to accentuate certain frequencies? I would need to see the designs of the halls and see the measurements of course to draw any conclusions.