What audio system do you have, or plan on getting?

[AnotherSpin]

What sounds "great" is a subjective thing. Wax cylinders have very bad sound quality, but someone can subjectively find their sound "great", "warm", etc.

CDs sound flat to people simply because they don't have the distortions introduced by analog formats that make the sound "warm" to people. Sometimes masters made for vinyl were used.

Technical objective sound quality is not the same thing as subjective impression of sound. There was maybe sense of realism, but it was an illusion. There is a lot to learn from the old analog days. I use effects in my own music that make the sound more analog and warm. That's having the best of both worlds. Digital accuracy and transparency with analog warmth.

Yes, you are right, in the manifested world all things are illusory, including our impressions. If only because they are changeable, as nothing remains the same even for a single moment of time.

As for audio, in the end it all comes down to whether we like what we hear or not. Often what we like does not correspond to someone's measurements. You don't like the way Carly Simon's early albums sound. Try listening to LPs of those albums and compare your impressions.

[71 dB]

As for audio, in the end it all comes down to whether we like what we hear or not. Often what we like does not correspond to someone's measurements. You don't like the way Carly Simon's early albums sound. Try listening to LPs of those albums and compare your impressions.

Carly Simon's early albums are "fine" for their age listened on speakers, but headphones reveal the problems more closely, mostly the spatial problems. Starting from "No Secrets" the sound is good enough. The Carpenters has the same issue. The first few albums have crappy sound and then it gets better.

I don't own TT and I don't do LPs anymore. What a hideous format. I own about 100 vinyl records and I am glad it is all in the past.

[AnotherSpin]

Carly Simon's early albums are "fine" for their age listened on speakers, but headphones reveal the problems more closely, mostly the spatial problems. Starting from "No Secrets" the sound is good enough. The Carpenters has the same issue. The first few albums have crappy sound and then it gets better.

I don't own TT and I don't do LPs anymore. What a hideous format. I own about 100 vinyl records and I am glad it is all in the past.

You might want to try a different pair of headphones.

I no longer keep any LPs or CDs, and my setup is rather simpler these days than it used to be. Still, I do think that valves and vinyl had a naturalness to them that pure digital tends to lack.

[71 dB]

You might want to try a different pair of headphones.

It is not the headphones. It is unsuitable spatiality for headphone use. Crossfeed of course helps a lot with this.

[StudioGuy]

Weren't great tape recordings made long before the late seventies? For example, the RCA Living Stereo series, Frank Sinatra's albums in the 1950s, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and others. Some of the most admired recordings in history were created in the 1950s and 1960s on tube tape machines and early multitrack systems. They already had warmth, depth, tonal detail, clarity, dynamic range and a sense of realism. Artistic and sound quality was flourishing decades earlier, and in some ways they remain unsurpassed no matter how recording technology has developed in the following decades.

It's a real shame you can't take your own advice regarding being unclear and in addition, continue to make assertions about the "finer technical details" despite admitting you don't have a grasp of them.

Artistic and sound quality have been flourishing for many centuries (not just decades) but our ability to record and reproduce it is relatively recent. Even wax cylinders were capable of all the items you mentioned; "warmth, depth, tonal detail, clarity, dynamic range and a sense of realism" but they had far worse performance than the tape recordings created in the 1950's and '60s. Likewise, tape recording in the '70s had far greater performance than that of the 50's, 71 dB was correct. In turn, digital recording was a further step up in performance from the best analogue. In the 1950's, the tape machines used for the Living Stereo recordings for example, had a dynamic range of about 50dB, up to about 55dB in ideal conditions (freshly cleaned and calibrated, etc.) while in the '70s the tape recorders could manage 60-70dB and 16bit digital had over 90dB, roughly 100 times more dynamic range than 1950's recorders. Microprocessor controlled studio tape recorders in the late '70s (Studer A800) greatly improved the wow, flutter and tape stretch suffered by earlier machines, so tonal detail/accuracy was far better and of course digital eliminated these issues entirely and achieves tonal detail/accuracy more than an order of magnitude better than even the best studio tape recorders. Likewise, better tape formulations and Dolby A noise reduction by the '70s significantly improved clarity over 1950s tape recorders and again, digital eliminated tape noise entirely.

As for audio, in the end it all comes down to whether we like what we hear or not. Often what we like does not correspond to someone's measurements.

It only takes a few seconds to check the facts, to go to say Wikipedia and look up what audio (audio signals) actually are: "An audio signal is a representation of sound, typically using either a changing level of electrical voltage for analog signals or a series of binary numbers for digital signals." - So audio signals have nothing whatsoever to do with "whether we like what we hear or not" but everything to do with the "a changing electrical voltage" and a series of discrete measurements of it stored as binary numbers (digital audio).

So, if someone sets up an array of mics, in front of say the Vienna Phil, plugged into an ADC and makes a great recording of say a Mozart symphony, then we have "someone's measurements" (a digital audio recording) but it wouldn't be a good recording if a listener doesn't like it because they're not into classical music?

Audio is a signal invented by scientists/engineers, it is a PURELY objective/measurable quantity! Whether someone/anyone likes the sound that's reproduced from an audio signal is an entirely different issue, that's a subjective function of their human brain, not an inherent property of audio signals.