It has a lot to do with the recording and mastering process done in the studio. Also, on an older recording, analog circuitry and tape was probably used. This tends to soften the sound a bit.

These days lots of compression is used during recording and mastering to get the loudest perceived sound out of a CD. This tends to flatten the soundstage quite a bit, but it sounds deeper and louder in a car with big subwoofers! ;-)

Sayer

Lena:

On the subject of the size of your woofers (no inuendo intended ) I would just go ahead and try the crossover thing and see if it works for you; just watch the volume until you establish that you aren't going to thrash the speakers.

STEREO!! TUBES!!

They weren't dummies back 'then'!! As you are seeing, even good 'ol stereo can be magical. It comes down to the technique of microphone placement and mixing of the original recording. On a good stereo recording, there should be _no_ indication of where the speakers are, and the music should just float in space. There can be real depth, height, and the image can extend well beyond the left and right boundries of your speakers if all is optimised. The rub is that it has to be a really good stereo recording: that ideal is unfortunately not realized as much as it could be. With the newer techniques of mixing popular music, using 'virtual surround imaging' plug-ins in a digital workstation enviornment, you should hear things popping up all around you, even behind you, that seem so real that you have to check that you are only listening in stereo.

Of course, real multi-channel holds huge potential to take all that to the next level - with the same provisio - that it is _done well_.

My system uses vacuum tubes exclusively in the power amps, and preamp stages, even the surrounds and center channels. Tubes have such an 'organic' sound that is so pleasing and beguiling that once you hear them, you are hooked. They really _did_ have it right back then!

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited November 10, 2002).]

This tends to soften the sound a bit.
Take Flight could/is to some extent I assume re-mastered Since it is a ‘collection’. I wonder if it was re-mastered digitally or not. When you say soft? what I hear is about as sharp as it gets, every note seems as full and faithful to what ‘Cat Womans’ original voice sounds like (including when she cant’ quite hit the note….) Every horn piercing (when intended). The guys who transferred it had to have done so recently, maybe just more particular to doing the tracks justice and getting it right. Maybe it is a lack of digitized harshness on some discs, I see analog guys discuss. Compression effects, THAT I think I can hear on different CD’s to greater or lesser degrees myself (a long standing irritation). When I hear it (what I think is compression) it removes ‘life’ from the recordings. Maybe part of the ‘satisfaction’ is that on layered/busy/complicated mixes the ear does not have ‘time’ to register/appreciate the individual instrumentation. When I listen to one of the jazz tracks when 3 horns are going on, I have ‘time’ since jazz is so weighted to ‘forward showcasing’ one musician at alternating moments in a piece. One track on this CD, I can hear the stage right horn when he hits a note standing straight up. Then he physically bends over and hits the next note (you can ‘hear’ his body position) then the stage left horn goes with him for a quick melody, Then between them the main horn walks forward from behind steps into the mix and takes over the emphasis center stage. …Bello!
I had a young guy walk in last night who recently worked for “Ultimate Electronics” and had gone through all their sales training…..(He really hasn’t learned that much yet). But he was floored by this CD on these speakers. He kept saying the clarity was amazing. He stated he had only heard one brand (in his limited experience) that could even get close to touching these. It was a nice moment only because he tends to go on and on (with what UE has taught him) and I had never seem him stumped like that before. (There is still something on these speakers that bugs me, (not as satisifying as my 'dream idea' of the utlimate) But on a very/very broad variety thrown at them. Dead On.

Soundhound I had a lot of tease going on in that post. I’ve seen tube rigs currently on the market with price tags of 30K that are absolutely Beautiful. Whatever ‘sound’ they produce their construction and design looks like something you’d see in the Modern Museum of Art. Wish I could hear your system myself. Music is produced organically by (ugly bags full of mostly water) and should be experienced that way when at all possible.

Compression, like all other studio effects, can be done well, and poorly. Compressors are used on the vocals on just about _all_ popular music releases. The dynamic range of the voice is just too much to compete with all the other instruments otherwise. The effect is indeed a 'flattening' of the sound, and it takes on a "Hi-Fi" quality, in the worst sense if used with too heavy a hand. If a vocalist sounds like he/she is virtually 'swallowing' the microphone, you can bet that there is compression used, and the more it sounds like that, the heavier the compression. Listen to a disk jockey on a rock music FM radio station for a perfect example of heavy compression.

It is also routine practice to compress the bass guitar, in order to even out the relative loudness of the notes in the bass line.

[This message has been edited by soundhound (edited November 10, 2002).]