How important is sound quality to your enjoyment of a CLASSICAL performance? - Page 2

This is somewhat off topic, though maybe it illustrates the point. You should try Alexandre Tharaud's Valses on Harmonia Mundi. Great playing and great sound.

I heard the HD800 over the week end at a meet, and if they were my main headphones, I'd only be able to listen to the best SQ recordings. I tried to listen to the latest Norah Jones CD and it lasted for about 15 seconds. It sounded horrible.

I voted for (5). There are some less than stellar recordings that I really enjoy, such as Furtwangler's Beethoven recorded in 1942 (really horrible SQ).
Also, his Schubert 9, a mono recording, is the best performance IMO so I am sticking with that.

i own 1500+ classical CDs. sound quality is of paramount importance for full enjoyment. i generally listen to SACD (most of my recent purchases) or studio recordings (mono or stereo). in general i stay away from or have stopped listening to

* anything pre 1950
* most older live recordings (lots of exceptions for wagner though)
* recordings where the voices are recessed compared to the orchestra
* recordings where the general volume output is low
* recordings where there is too much hiss, volume imbalance, or general distortion

I voted "7"

I don't own any mono classical recordings. I have a few older stereo recordings on CD, but I generally try to avoid those unless there is a compelling reason that makes me want/need that particular performance or recording.

I started my classical music collecting in the late 80s while attending college. I tried to stay with recent releases and performances. I know that limited my selection. But I wanted good sound and was and am willing to go with modern performances. I was generally using the Penguin guide and Stevenson Classical CD Guide to pick CDs. I still have an old Stevenson Guide with hi-lighted selections and post-it notes marking what I wanted.

I'm not a serious classical CD collector. I'm not a student of music who needs to know old performances for their historical value or as a study for how interpretations have evolved. I'm just a music listener who happens to like classical music. My classical collection is only about 350-400 CDs. Not a big enough collection yet to be intentionally doubling up on too many works to get a variety of performances.

I went with "7". I can't bear mono recordings - they suck the life out of the music.

I have a few 50s and 60s recordings where the sound is surprisingly good except for tape hiss which is really annoying in quieter passages.

7

For me it depends on what I'm looking to enjoy, sometimes I look to enjoy the virtuosity, sometimes I enjoy the profound understanding of the musician, at these moment, sound quality is not so important, sometimes I listen to the orchestra, at these moment, a minimum sound quality is necessary.

But it is fact that without minimum sound quality, you just can't hear the subtlety of the interpretation, and without a minimum understanding of the music, the good sound quality will not help you to enjoy the music; indeed, I audiophile discs that I just can't listen to some tracks
in the entirety.

And I have recordings made before (or around) 1900 that I enjoy once for a while. (ps. Joachim and Sarasate if you wonder)

I go both ways, personally. So many of us (listeners as well as performers) can become so analytical and critical about the fidelity of the sound that we forget to enjoy the music. The low fidelity of mono recordings forces us to listen to the music and base our opinion on the music itself. One might argue that it's more difficult to hear the music with such low-fidelity, but in a way, like Reiner's small baton movements, it forces us to listen more carefully to the music. I also think that some post-70's recordings (san francisco symphony's recent MTT Mahler 3 recording comes to mind - I haven't yet listened to the heard the other new MTT Mahlers) are so focused on detail and precision that the engineers may sometimes forget about the natural cohesiveness of the entire orchestra, as if they were itching to throw and record each musician of the orchestra in their own individual padded room. With that said, I do enjoy many new recordings, too and would prefer those over the mono in most cases (if I had to choose.) These preferred recordings are ones that strike a good balance between being analytical (but now sounding analytical, if that makes sense) and being musical. One such recording that comes to mind is the CSO/Levine Prokofiev Symphonies 1 and 5 recording. Everything (at least to my ears) can be heard well, great dynamic range, but not analytical. The recording simply “is”. There’s nothing “audiophile” about it but nothing low-fi about it. I suppose I am a naturalist.

I'm probably at the opposite extreme of the spectrum from most audiophiles. When I was a kid, I'd be happy with a 3rd generation copy of Shostakovich's VIIIth string quartet., dubbed on a nasty Aiwa twin double cassette deck borrowed from a friend. I could only afford a single cassette deck of my own - but he had the full Monty! Twin black decks were sexy (for 8 year olds then )

Unless the tape chewed up, it never bothered me that there was background noise and quality. Maybe as a kid, it was easier to filter out the noise and listen to the grain of the voice....rather than getting upset by the lack of pure fidelity. And the kind of cassette collection I had was astronomical! Just about every recorded and pilfered tape or vinyl dubbing from someone else's parents, or my own, meticulously hand scribbled with all the movements...listened to on some £20 cassette deck with a mono-speaker. Like I care....! It was music - and that was all that mattered. The music. Not the recording.

These days, I love the Busch String Quartet as well as the Hungarian Quartets recordings from the mid-last century. The Végh Quartet's recordings don't count -even for later on the century, they were exceptionally well recorded in same place that the Keller Quartet produced their superlative translations of Bartoks 6 string cycles.

I think of Myaskovsky's only ever complete set of 13 string quartet cycles, completed by the Taneyev Quartet between 1981-1983 in the Soviet Union. Those recordings were nearly dire! Flat and uninvolving in the 4th, and siblance elsewhere, 2 dimensional at the 11th and 14th - the list of sonic 'problems' could go on and on. Yet the music is so precious and rare to me, that none of the chaff really matters. Then I think of the Jewish guy who did a superb mono version of Myaskovsky's violin concerto; the flat mono actually rekindles fantasies of what it would be like....to listen to music by candlelight...through a gramaphone...... Yes, I would love a new AAD recording (hate DDD recordings - go away!) of the most underrated string quartet cycle of the last century, however I won't hold my breath. It's been 26 years already - I was barely walking when my parents introduced me to such music on vinyl, and now I have my own set on CD. Progress...would be owning a set on vinyl with all the crackles and blips: not the sanitised flat and uninvolving CD version

Guess I should vote 1-4 then?

On the other hand - when it comes to popular music. At a Michelle Shocked concert, I bought her 'Kind Hearted Woman' demo CD. Her vocal performance of those hard desolate Americana tracks was gorgeous. Her demo CD was utterly sh*t. The hiss levels were so high and the CD was 2 dimensional. It failed to represent a 'map' of the live vocal experience, which I relished. In this respect, the CD is irrelevant: the best version of the music I had heard, is already in my head.