I wonder how someone would react if we went to the '50s with a pair of speakers disguised to look like the speakers of that day, then with a high-power amp, again, disguised as one of the amps of the day (so I guess it would be a powerful tube amp), then had the high-quality sources we can access today along with a high-quality recording (similar to the style of that day, of course), then played it for them at a realistic volume. Hmm?
Try doing that today with anyone who hasn't heard a high quality system and knows nothing of the hiFi market (in other words about 80% of the population). The jaws drop.
I'm not saying they are, but the first recording, before being transferred to anything, is best And I mean that in terms of recordings and NOT live music..
gentelmen i hate to but in but i have to remind you guys in the old days sound was way much better than to day the old high end amps with tubes were much better when playing live or recordings from high end tapes even sometimes from a record that produces no static. old time output frequ. was from 70,000 high to 70,000 low right now is 20,000 high to 20,000 low and sometimes not even that,thier people that will tell you can't hear past 20,000 but that's bull their thousands of people that can hear slightly beyond that and i am one of them so i can tell the difference in sound between the past and today.now getting to your idea what would really blow their minds is you walking up the past with and i-pod and telling them you got 1000 albums in that little thing. they would never believe you they might even tar and feather you.
I can agree that amplifiers in the past were built differently then (due to differences in technology and the economy) than they are today.
I also believe that tubes have different characteristics in the way they distort, which comes down to personal preference.
In terms of high frequencies.. you say thousands and not more? And what about the fact that the specs are only part of the story? There are a lot of ways an amplifier affects the signal that don't have a reliable way to be measured or we barely ever think about (if we know it exists at all!).
Blah it just comes down to balance and personal preference.
frank, thats totally true. i;ve got a half decent music system and everyone thats listened to it thinks its the best ever. most of the people dont really know whats out there and that leaves them with nothing to benchmark it with. and with the likes of bose being the only companies that advertise themselves as the best sounding systems we cant blame people that go and buy it
And right here and now, music reproduction , really good reproduction, can be had for a modest outlay, as compared to what we hobbiests will shell out for the N'th percentile.
I second what Francis said. I have a relatively decent HT/music system, and when people come over (even for casual background music) they are blown away by how good my system sounds.
I'm sure that the analog recordings of yesteryear are much more dynamic, but at the same time, I often hear a lot of background noise, hiss and other anomalies in old recordings.
There is an old live recording of the LSO, in which the mic's picked up a car wreck outide of the venue. This was long before every single drum had it's own mic. Some things can be done to death.
And I mean that in terms of recordings and NOT live music..