[Dimitri]

Two of my sacds, Kind of Blue and Getz/Gilberto, have noticeable crackling or sizzling noises accompanying the instruments. On various Kind of Blue tracks, I can hear subtle crackling along with the musical tone coming out of the horns. On Getz/Gilberto, I hear loud crackling accompanying the bass notes for the most of the length of the fourth track. Also, I can hear the buzzing of what sounds like an overly sensitive mic on Astrud Gilberto's vocal line in "Girl from Ipanema". I generally like the fact that my sr325s are detailed phones, but I find such recording artifacts quite annoying. For those who have heard these popular recordings, would I benefit from slightly less detailed phones, or are these noises something I'll have to get used to? I have only been listening through quality gear for about a month now, so I don't know if my complaint is common. Happy Thanksgiving,

Dimitri

 

[temhem]

I think you will have to get used to it. 19/20 of my recordings are unsatisfactory in one way or another.

 

[lini]

Dimitri: Of course, you could chose a less detailed headphone with less pronounced highs - but in the end you have to listen for yourself, whether some covering up non-ideal recordings (yes, unfortunately there are plenty...) makes up for losing some details. I'd recommend to give the K240S a try, for example - if you like it, maybe the SR325 was just overly detailed for your taste...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[Dimitri]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Music Fanatic]

You may find that even cheap headphones still have audio artifacts with improperly mastered/recorded cd/sacd/dvd-a recordings.

If it is simply a problem of reducing high-frequency tones, you can always add a filter to cut off high frequencies on an optional basis.

However, I must say I had not previously noticed the buzzing on the Girl from Impanema. I'll listen to it again on SACD and see if I can notice it.

 

[ph0rk]

perhaps the recording engineer was trying to pioneer the use of vocal distortion

 

[ASDFer]

As far as the crackling goes on Kind of Blue, is it happening all the time? I hear a subtle crackling on some of Miles' solos when he hasn't emtied the trumpet in a while and from Coltrane when he's playing quietly. I think the crackling from Coltrane is just sort of his style when he's playing laid back...

If that's not what you're talking about then I don't hear it on my non-remastered copy and cheapish headphones.

 

[raif]

I think you are going to have to get used to it. Personally I hate the track noise on most recordings. I am talking about the sound of silence on all the tracks(a sort of low pitched hiss) there are certain slow passages that I can't listen to with my cd3ks because I keep concentrating on the hiss and not the music. Every higher end headphone I have heard, shows this,and your crackle problem, very blatantly.

 

[wallijonn]

Congratulations! You are now a certified headiophile. Your membership kit and lapel pin are in the mail.

Man, there is nothing you can do. It gets worse if you have the 100,000th pressing.

All you can do is try to find another headphone which does not exhibit the same hot spots.

you can try to tame it by going to warmer sources, with warm ICS, and the right amp will gazillions of farads of capacitance power, and maybe tubes to "smear" the sound enough to hide the artifacts.