Capacitor or Battery

General Discussion
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I have been staying out of this because music is a matter of taste, not specs. You cannot determine if the recording you listen to in your living room or in your car is an accurate reproduction of a live concert or not because you can compare them side by side. The same concert in different concert halls or theaters will probably not sound the same. I say probably when I am sure of it because again, no one can do an actual side by side comparison. Even comparing recordings of the same concert in different venues is not proof because there are so many other variables that enter in.

No one can reproduce the ambience of a live concert no matter how good the equipment. If they could, theaters and concert halls would be out of business overnight. why else would anyone spend their vacation time and money to go to Salt Lake City and listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in their Temple.

Speakers do not affect dynamic range, that is done by the recording. The preamp can be designed to compress or expand the dynamic range or the recording equipment can change the dynamic range, but not the speakers.

Rock music or “Pop” music has a limited dynamic range on purpose. Most of it is listened to in a car. A car’s listening environment is not well served by a wide dynamic range so Classical music is very hard to listen to in a vehicle. The road and engine noise drowns out the softer passages. Even in the home environment, most people do not have high end audio equipment so the Pop music sounds OK on that too. There are some recordings of classical music that were done for the car environment where the orchestra intentionally minimized the dynamic range. An “audiophile” would consider these very bad recordings, but they do work in a car or truck.

I have even made digital copies of some of my favorite classical music, then used a computer program to compress the dynamic range and loaded them on my iPod that I use in the car. The compressed versions work very well when in traffic, especially in that noisy little Saturn.

Inefficient speakers are used because they have a flatter frequency response curve. They are less affected by resonances in their enclosures or environments and usually have a wider dispersion pattern. But inefficient speakers require more power to drive them. But there are good inefficient speakers and there are poor ones. Most of todays “system in a box” come with the poor quality type but are augmented by gobs of power. For example the common 2" all range speakers with 105 watts RMS per channel pushing them to barely audible levels common in home surround sound systems.

Multiple drivers of adequate size and good design in a non-resonant enclosure can deliver reasonable efficiency and a fairly flat frequency response curve. quality speakers used to be made this way so they could be driven by the 10-25 watt tube amps of the day. Today, watts are cheap so its high power over good speaker design.

I just does not seem to me that dumping upwards of 10 grand into the audio system of a car that ultimately will not sound nearly as good as home system costing a tenth of that is a very good idea. It also looks to me that anything for a car costs about 10 time what it is actually worth, I mean $500 for a pair of 6.5" coaxial speakers from a company that does not even compete in the home or audiophile market? $2500 for a “head unit” that is nothing more than a glorified preamp?

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Well said Keith. But a couple of comments. Initial dynamic range is indeed set in the recording but it’s rendering accuracy is at the mercy of the gear, including the speakers that are playing…and also the listening environment that perhaps, I would argue, has greatest single influence. So, I agree that dynamic range is not affect by speakers in the recording process, but indeed has an influence on the listening end. Everything else is a very reasonable summation of your thoughts. It is really difficult to comment on ones sound system when in reality, it’s the human mind which decides what a person hears and every listening experience is TOTALLY personal.

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Rock music or "Pop" music has a limited dynamic range on purpose

Not sure why they would record that way on purpose. The main reason is because of the music itself. Most Rock music DON’T need a wide dynamic range. Have you listened to Led Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven? Early in the CD recordings engineers started to limit the dynamic range because many home speakers couldn’t handle it…and this would cause some people to over-drive their speakers (clipping). But most home speakers today can easily handle the wider dynamic ranges of CD’s (or any digital source).

Inefficient speakers are used because they have a flatter frequency response curve.

That’s just plain wrong. Some of the flattest speakers/drivers you can find are also very efficient speakers. Efficiency has little or nothing to do with how flat a speaker is. I just upgraded/built my latest set of home speakers. First upgrade in years…Very very high efficiency (over 100dbs)…and EXTREMELY flat from 20hz to 20khz. Less then 2.5dbs. Studio monitors have two major criteria’s. Wide dynamic range and flat frequency response. And if you look at the leading studio monitors for the past 70+ years…99% of them are also very efficient.

Speakers do not affect dynamic range

100% correct. But the speakers have to be able to handle the dynamic range or you can run the risk of over driving them and cause clipping. Seen this a lot when CD’s were first introduced back in the 80’s. Clipping is NOT good for speakers.

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Hard Rock music is recorded with limited range because of the audience and the environment they are played in. Headphones, cars, out in the open and the music itself is often played to hearing deficient listeners. Dynamic range means little. Just a continuous letting of loud obnoxious, metallic sound. ;+) )))

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I’m not a hard rock fan so I can’t say much about it, but it does seam to have a very limited dynamic range, LOUD. Pop music and early rock and roll was recorded specifically for AM radio and AM radios do not handle a wide dynamic range well. It was also started in the days of 45 and 78 rpm records whose basic stylus’s had very limited ability too.

It is simply a result of the technology of the times. I remember when I did not like classical music at all. I was told that if I ever heard it on a good stereo system or live in a concert, I would like it. I didn’t believe that, but the first time I heard the 1812 Overture on a good system (and barley good at that), I believed. That is what actually prompted me to get a my first system and throw away the old record player. Love blues too.

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I agree that technology drives the recording industry. Look at what we use for pop music…mp3. High quality digital recordings like CD considering their capability, really hasn’t spent a lot of time in the mainstream music area as the top selling format. It did a wonderful job reinvigorating the industry, including home music systems but many CD formats for maintstem HQ recordings are now video content. You want a fresh new recording, you might as well get a video. I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of pop CDs being sold, but mp3 is what is driving the recording industry. Kids are used to low quality because of it. But we have the crappy hearing to go with it. Any dummy, like me, can be a competent DJ with this equipment…and I don’t have to be there except for the occasional request. In one sitting, I can organize thousands of pieces of music. Set it up, go to bed, it’s ready for use the next morning. We sacrificed a lot of quality to make that all possible…in cars and in life.

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MP3 is not a great format, but if you “rip” a good quality CD and pay attention to bitrate and other settings when doing so, you won’t be able to tell the difference. All too often people just use the default settings and the result is brown and steaming. I have gotten downloads (paid for, from a commercial source, not P2P sharing) that were not properly encoded as well. There are many better electronic formats as well. The AAC format for example. Normally an MP3 that I’ve made from a CD for mobile use sounds much better than anything I’ve purchased from Amazon.

Most people are not audio engineers or even very tech savvy with their own gear–they just want to put music on their iThing and listen to it on the go and do so by clicking a few buttons. A little education and testing would go a long way to better audio. MP3 pretty much became the “standard” because it was in the right place at the right time, just like the IBM format for PCs. Off the subject, I’ve always thought that Commodore (or Apple) would have risen to the top instead of IBM/MS if the CEO had been a little wiser and less greedy, but that’s another story.

One of the points that convinced me to buy my car was the excellent audio system. (Factory) While no doubt not up to audiophile standards, you can actually distinguish separate instruments when listening to jazz and classical, though you do have to turn it up a bit to do so. My only complaint would be how horrid XM sounds in comparison to even standard FM stations.

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@dagosa January 2 edited January 2 Hard Rock music is recorded with limited range because of the audience and the environment they are played in. Headphones, cars, out in the open and the music itself is often played to hearing deficient listeners. Dynamic range means little. Just a continuous letting of loud obnoxious, metallic sound. ;+) )))

Rock bands have to play loud to drown out the audience. People who attend a classical music concert tend to shut up and listen and don’t try to sing along, ok, maybe with the exception of the Radetsky March.
Even a classical music audience isn’t 100% silent, somebody’s always coughing or clearing their throats which becomes obvious during the interludes, but there usually isn’t some drunk guy in the back row hollering “PLAY FREEBIRD”.