High end recording gear vs high end audiophile listening gear.

[Scott Baxendale]

No, not really... My point is that in a studio, your choice of preamps, EQs, compressors, what have you... the point there is to change the sound, to shape it, to make it fit together in different ways, but overall to make creative changes.

When playing it back, while maybe perfect transparency isn't the goal, it's also certainly not to make creative changes to the music you're listening to. You have a different set of musical objectives than creative tone shaping.

It has nothing to do with diminishing returns and everything to do with objective and intent and desire to make creative changes to the source sound you're recording. That's why running a Neve hot in a recording studio is a desirable option, but no one suggests running a record player into a Neve bus before sending it to your mains because "that's how the record was intended to be heard."

A mastering studio is not doing this. The tracks have already been recorded and mixed. The mastering engineer is trying to get the best possible sound on that mix using gear that is designed to be largely transparent. They aren’t adding distortion to the vocal tracks and manipulating the source sounds. They are using the very best gear to achieve this yet it’s still a fraction of the price of the gear in somebody’s million dollar listening room and it sounds just as good or better in the mastering room. A lot of this high end HiFi audiophile stuff is snake oil IMO.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Ok, but if

A mastering studio is not doing this. The tracks have already been recorded and mixed. The mastering engineer is trying to get the best possible sound on that mix using gear that is designed to be largely transparent. They aren’t adding distortion to the vocal tracks and manipulating the source sounds. They are using the very best gear to achieve this yet it’s still a fraction of the price of the gear in somebody’s million dollar listening room and it sounds just as good or better in the mastering room. A lot of this high end HiFi audiophile stuff is snake oil IMO.

Ok, but if you go back to your original post, you're talking about this from the standpoint of a recording studio, and wondering why Neve and API don't sell audiophile listening gear so you can "listen to it the way it's intended."

Bringing mastering into the equation actually helps get my point across, though, because that's another step in the process that changes how something sounds and has its own unique objectives and challenges and goals. So, you have three seperate stages here - the actual recording and mixing process, the mastering process of getting the mixed recording ready for distribution and to ensure it'll translate as well as possible, and then the playback process. And they all have different challenges and different objectives.

I'm absolutely not trying to defend the audiophile market here, which IS a wee bit nuts, just saying that if you think you need a Neve circuit to play back an album cut on a Neve board, you're probably missing the point of why that Neve board was used in the studio in the first place.

EDIT - which, considering my post was pretty clear I was talking about a recording studio ("...in the studio...") I'm not sure where the confusion about mastering is coming from.

 

[RFR]

Ok, but if

Ok, but if you go back to your original post, you're talking about this from the standpoint of a recording studio, and wondering why Neve and API don't sell audiophile listening gear so you can "listen to it the way it's intended."

Bringing mastering into the equation actually helps get my point across, though, because that's another step in the process that changes how something sounds and has its own unique objectives and challenges and goals. So, you have three seperate stages here - the actual recording and mixing process, the mastering process of getting the mixed recording ready for distribution and to ensure it'll translate as well as possible, and then the playback process. And they all have different challenges and different objectives.

I'm absolutely not trying to defend the audiophile market here, which IS a wee bit nuts, just saying that if you think you need a Neve circuit to play back an album cut on a Neve board, you're probably missing the point of why that Neve board was used in the studio in the first place.

EDIT - which, considering my post was pretty clear I was talking about a recording studio ("...in the studio...") I'm not sure where the confusion about mastering is coming from.

Bringing up just Neve…… the purpose of using that board is that it is part of ‘creating’ the sound. It is just one factor of the recoding process. The board colors the sound.
So you wouldn’t want a Neve involved in the playback of the original recording as you’d be adding another element of ‘coloring’ the sound.
What you’d want is a playback system that was pristine and accurately produced what was recorded without adding any flavor whatsoever.
Just my opinion.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Bringing up just Neve…… the purpose of using that board is that it is part of ‘creating’ the sound. It is just one factor of the recoding process. The board colors the sound.
So you wouldn’t want a Neve involved in the playback of the original recording as you’d be adding another element of ‘coloring’ the sound.
What you’d want is a playback system that was pristine and accurately produced what was recorded without adding any flavor whatsoever.
Just my opinion.

That is exactly my opinion as well. Thanks.

 

[RFR]

On the other hand, it's like the person buying a new Ferrari or McLaren. Do you really need a Ferarri SF90XX at $900,000 to get from point A to point B. And how do you take your girlfriend and 2 sets of golf clubs in that Ferrari?

Simple answer to the second question. Don’t ever take your Girlfriend golfing.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Ok, but if

Ok, but if you go back to your original post, you're talking about this from the standpoint of a recording studio, and wondering why Neve and API don't sell audiophile listening gear so you can "listen to it the way it's intended."

Bringing mastering into the equation actually helps get my point across, though, because that's another step in the process that changes how something sounds and has its own unique objectives and challenges and goals. So, you have three seperate stages here - the actual recording and mixing process, the mastering process of getting the mixed recording ready for distribution and to ensure it'll translate as well as possible, and then the playback process. And they all have different challenges and different objectives.

I'm absolutely not trying to defend the audiophile market here, which IS a wee bit nuts, just saying that if you think you need a Neve circuit to play back an album cut on a Neve board, you're probably missing the point of why that Neve board was used in the studio in the first place.

EDIT - which, considering my post was pretty clear I was talking about a recording studio ("...in the studio...") I'm not sure where the confusion about mastering is coming from.

I wasn’t saying that you need a Neve to play back a record, I was saying that it’s basically pointless to take it way beyond what you get with a Neve or API. That if you are playing it back on basically the same system as what is used in a good mastering studio that it is impossible to improve on that sound. You can change it and make it sound different with different amplifiers and speakers but can you really improve the sound? I think not. I’ve been in those high end listening rooms where the salesman wax waxing on and on about a $30,000 preamp over a $10,000 preamp and going on and on about 4 gauge speaker cables, etc and honestly I couldn’t really hear the differences.

I kinda get some of the extremes taken with turntables but at some point it’s just the limitations of the media.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

Bringing up just Neve…… the purpose of using that board is that it is part of ‘creating’ the sound. It is just one factor of the recoding process. The board colors the sound.
So you wouldn’t want a Neve involved in the playback of the original recording as you’d be adding another element of ‘coloring’ the sound.
What you’d want is a playback system that was pristine and accurately produced what was recorded without adding any flavor whatsoever.
Just my opinion.

I was just using Neve as an example. Any quality preamplifier could be substituted for this discussion. I mostly record through API preamps and there is a different sound between the two but my OP was about the discrepancy between the gear used to record an album and master it and what lengths some folks go to just to listen to that same record.

 

[Scott Baxendale]

I've heard some really nice sounding high end systems. Yeah, they did things that my puny IMFs/Bryston/Rega system couldn't do. But they also cost more than 3 years of my wages (this was in the 80s).

On the other hand, it's like the person buying a new Ferrari or McLaren. Do you really need a Ferarri SF90XX at $900,000 to get from point A to point B. And how do you take your girlfriend and 2 sets of golf clubs in that Ferrari? Do you really need a mansion with 20 bedrooms, 30 baths and 3 pools?

Jim Irsay bought Kurt Cobain's D-18 for $6 Million. Does it sound 2000 times better than the one hanging on the wall at GuitarCenter for $3000?

At some point, the money doesn't mean anything like it would to you and me. The system in the video has lots of one of a kind, hand built and personally designed equipment, so it's going to be pricey. Call Ferrari and ask them to design and build you a totally new car from ground up and see how much it costs.


When money means so little, the price really doesn't matter.

Where does the recording or mastering studio exist that uses this metric?

 

[DrewPeterson7]

I wasn’t saying that you need a Neve to play back a record, I was saying that it’s basically pointless to take it way beyond what you get with a Neve or API. That if you are playing it back on basically the same system as what is used in a good mastering studio that it is impossible to improve on that sound. You can change it and make it sound different with different amplifiers and speakers but can you really improve the sound? I think not. I’ve been in those high end listening rooms where the salesman wax waxing on and on about a $30,000 preamp over a $10,000 preamp and going on and on about 4 gauge speaker cables, etc and honestly I couldn’t really hear the differences.

I kinda get some of the extremes taken with turntables but at some point it’s just the limitations of the media.

To me at some point the playback system becomes more of an illusion than a sound. I would think Neve and API would want make audiophile listening systems based on their circuit designs and create a niche in that market too?

I mean, I think you can see my confusion. I officially have no idea what point you're trying to make.