[wower]

If you have Radiohead's Just, I suggest you go listen to it now, paying special attention to the latter half of the track.

In my experience, this track eats high-end systems alive. On my system (and others I have heard in stores), the song just goes wonky; sounding compressed and mashing the guitars togather. What are the technical aspect's (brand aside) required to make that upper range liquid and effortless? Is it amp power? Headphone resolution? Electrostatics? Grado?

Cost no object (assume its from the perfect source); what does it take to straighten out and control the mids and highs? I like controlled bass and I like a balanced approach, but what does the hypothetical system look like? Solid state? Tubes?

I would appreciate any input from the vast global brain that is head-fi. This question is of special intrest to me because it will steer (in part) the future direction of my system. (I have an interest on the Aria and AKG 701s.) Feel free to run wild with the topic and share any experience you think is helpful. Thanks.

 

[bizkid]

Sounds like a crappy recording/mastering job to me. No way to rescue it but get the unedited master and redo it better

 

[Asmo]

That whole albumn is mastered a lil hot, I prefer OK Computer if you want to listen to a better mastered albumn.

I wouldn't base your system around one band/albumn, bad recordings are something we have no control over.

You have it backwards when you say, "this track eats high end systems alive".

High end systems simply show you how bad the track is.

 

[Jahn]

don't laugh, but it probably sounds best from an ipod headphone out to a KSC-35. you need a forgiving can that masks problems for "radio-friendly" tracks.

 

[analog'd]

radiohead albums did not get sonically "sophisticated" until after even ok computer, as brilliant as it is musically. after that the vinyl pressings are superb, and at least some of the cd's also.

there is an import cd from japan, en ep with stuff from ok computer that is just incredible, but that's about it til later on. a great shame...

 

[markl]

No gear at any price can "fix" a bad mastering job with excessive compression. Garbage in, garbage out.

 

[wower]

It would be silly to base a whole system on one track but I didn't know how else to ask about the details of the system. But consensus seems to be it's the track and that makes sense to me. Thanks.

 

[Xakepa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn don't laugh, but it probably sounds best from an ipod headphone out to a KSC-35. you need a forgiving can that masks problems for "radio-friendly" tracks.

It's not funny.Some of their bootlegs of Just or My Iron Lung have better instrument seperation than the original CD

 

[Filburt]

This seems like it may be doable, I'll just have to think about how I'd advise doing it. Unfortunately I haven't done any projects dedicated to this sort of thing using discrete designs or tubes, so I'd only be able to advise you on mostly op-amp based stuff (with perhaps discrete buffering)...though I'll think about D/A section stuff as well. I imagine whatever I come up with will be considered blasphemy in audiophilia but since I don't have to keep up appearances I'm not particularly worried about it. I try to set up/design my stuff with AIAO (anything in, awesome out) rather than GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), so I can at least sympathise with the OP's request. 'Awesome' may be an exxageration, but you get the point. I don't want my music to sound bad, irrespective of how it was recorded, as what I'm concerned with is an enjoyable listening experience, not passing on the producer's mistakes to my ears.

 

[wower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Filburt I try to set up/design my stuff with AIAO (anything in, awesome out) rather than GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

That's a good philosophy. You should start an amp company.

 

[Filburt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wower That's a good philosophy. You should start an amp company.

Hah, thanks

.

I'm still working on this problem to see if I can figure out a good combo for you. Fortunately, I have K701s too ^_^.

I also have Koss A/250...which while I imagine it sounds odd...you may want to look into. I like mine a lot and find them helpful in these sorts of circumstances. I'm listening to this track right now (album "The Bends", right?), and it already sounds pretty decent on what I'm running right now. I'll see if I can improve it and then maybe come up with some sort of specification to look at for you to work off of, or at least give some sort of suggestion on what to try.

The Bends is generally kinda crunchy, but I don't find it half as bad as I recall Muse's Stockholm Syndrome (track) in terms of getting crunchy and compressed. Now *that* is a hard track to get sounding good I've found

 

[NightWoundsTime]

Vintage (70's) integrated amp such as Marantz, Kenwood, or Pioneer with loudness and tone controls -> any high impedance headphone. I use Headphile woodied HD-600's for most of my badly mastered recordings and it's enjoyable with a bit of tweaking.

Oh yeah and I've got The Bends on vinyl too, it SUCKS especially compared to OK Computer in the same format.

And cost no object system would have to be something high powered and balanced. The most resolving systems I've heard on rock music were balanced.