Editorial August 2025

August 2025

Hi-fi is a rabbit hole without end. You get sucked in. You back out. You get sucked back in again. It’s just plain nuts. Ludicrous.

The longer you spend in the game the more you realise the less you know. And then you start to hear things!

No. Not those voices in your head. More like voices on vocals in your music that just weren’t there the last time you actually listened. Things change and to try and figure out if the change is a positive one or not can sometimes be quite challenging! Technology in audio reproduction may not always be aligned with accuracy in audio reproduction and may lie in solving problems that arise… as a result of progress in audio reproduction!

I was reminded of this in an over heard throw away comment. ‘Yes that sounded as close to live as I’ve heard….. but I want more bass…..’.

Ermmmm…. There is no more bass because in ‘live’ it isn’t there to begin with. Confusing personal preferences with references? Now where have I heard that before?

You can ONLY reference live. You cannot reference DeadMau5 in a studio. Only in concert and good luck in trying to get that into your living room. But you can get close with a piano, or a violin, or a vocal track. How it is recorded and how it is mastered and how it is constructed by an engineer in a studio (preferably as little as possible) matters. Referencing with live matters.

Hence listening to live music matters. Listening to live sound matters. My keyboard as I type this isn’t musical but it is distinctive and on my fabulous desk I get a resonance from the wood that I hear as my thick chunky talentless fingers punch these letters into the eerie void of silent cyberspace. I hear it. You don’t. And if I produced a recording of it you’d need a) no life and b) a perverse interest in order to try and recreate the timbre and reverbs in my office to get a sense of what I experience audibly.

It is hard and difficult and why this rabbit hole is seemingly endless.

And then you move everything into a new environment. Virgin. Minimalist. And whilst the sound stage is incredible and imaging sharpened the room itself colours and influences the sound.

“It sounds closer to live as I’ve heard but I want less brightness and reverb…”

FFS!

William Kelly

Publisher