Brightness?

I read a lot of comments about how bright such and such a song or CD/LP is. I wonder sometimes, is it all personal preference, or is the music in question really mastered that way?

We know there are cables, gear, and even rooms that influence how bright/dark the music sounds, but I'm wondering also, I don't hear brightness in a lot of CDs that people say are bright. Even how loud one listens makes a difference.

Personally, I generally prefer a darker sound.

To describe what I do hear, if I can:

The Flirtations' "Nothing But A Heartache" sounds fine, until I get to the vocals. It is EQ'ed very high in the upper mids and sounds very thin. It hurts to listen at low volume.

The recent remaster of Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book" is very painful for me to listen to, but the Songs In The Key Of Life" sounds tweaked in the highs, but fine to my ears. No pain.

My ABC LP of "Aja" matches the recent CD in virtually every way. Some say it is tweaked in the highs, as Steve assures, but it sounds fine to me, never getting too bright until it is turned way up.

I can plainly hear the peak limiting on the recent Fleetwood Mac Best of from Rhino, but it's tastefully applied to the point where I still got rid of my older Greatest Hits CD.

This kind of goes back to Khorn's idea of corroborating listening experiences several months ago.

Any comments?

 

It has a lot to do with personal preference. I'm a recovering treble whore. When I was younger I would add tons of top end (16kHz and above) to everything I listened to. When I was in high school I realized this is not the way things were supposed to sound. I discovered the beauty in letting things be. Been there ever since.

 

How's your hearing Grant?

Just joking!
Well, maybe not. We all have 'different' ear's as well.
Some people, females in particular, as very sensitive to high frequencies (men much less so).
And of coarse, we have those of us, some on this forum I am sure, that hear digital ringing on CD's!
Then again, you may 'like' brightness.
As you may perceive it to be 'more' detail.
However, you will lose earring of highend frequencies as you get older.
Nothing personal!

And thanks again to your answer on the Supremes thread!

 

Hi Grant,

I think the first thing you need to do is see if your actual system is neutral or not. Do you have an FM Tuner? Take the "AFT" off and detune it to pink noise. Play this noise at a moderate level through your system. How does it sound? Bright, dull, or just right? The noise should sound totally balanced from the low end to the high end. Some "test" compact disks also have pink noise bands on them to help in speaker setup.

Grant, if you have already done this, forgive me. I did it on my crappy system and it so depressed me I gave up ever trying to listen to anything accurately and just enjoyed the music, so it won't be a total loss either way.

 

I also think people start to favor a darker sound as they age. I don't know why. It would seem that just the opposite would take place. Maybe it's because it makes things softer and less aggressive or maybe it's because higher frequencies bother them more. Don't know yet. Heck, even Bill Inglot is toning things down a bit.

 

That's the key phrase there, Grant. I've really noticed this with metal domed tweeters. The louder the volume, the "brighter" the music became - in general. I assume from over saturation? I don't really have the problem anymore since switching off my rear firing titanium tweeters on my speakers (can't figure out WHY the hell Legacy puts those on there!). My mains/center channel have ribbon tweeters which, to me, seem very warm and musical, they way I prefer to hear music.

 

I don't know. When I hear small children trying to scream like Mariah Carey, I am the only one who covers up their ears trying to avoid the literal ear pain. Most women don't even seem to notice it. Perhaps women having superior hearing is just a myth, and that women's hearing gets damaged by hearing screaming kids al day long?

I know from working in retail that the American public generally has very bad hearing, and eyesight!

 

Re: Re: Brightness?

Been there, done that. All is good in my system. My room is a tad bright, as it is very small with hard 90 degree angles and hard surfaces all over, except for the LP jackets.

 

The MIT cables I have have been accused of being dark sounding by many. I play both stereos (my wifs's included) with no EQ or tone controls. My speakers are not bloated in the mids, and the highs are smooth.

I haven't been the type of person to jack up the treble since the second year of college in 1982. I listen flat.

It could be personal preeference, because I many times do hear the brightness others complain about, but it usually doesn't bother me. But, given my examples in my initial thread, I should be hearing at least what Steve hears on his system, or in the balpark.

I've never been a detail slut.

 

Believe it or not, Steve, I did that one a long time ago! I do like real, or "realistic" sound, but I tend to accept recordings as they come off the medium. Make no mistake, when I put on the Elvis 24 Kart Hits CD, the man is in front of me! My system may not be much compared to some of you guys' rigs, but it's doing the job!

 

And the music. Some stuff sounds nice crisp, some sounds better a bit dull. I think Lou Reeds "Berlin" would sound odd brightened up.

If I start listening to the treble and the bass, and not the instruments and vocals, I know the balance is askew. Other than that, I really don't know what bright nor dull is. since I was not present at the recording nor savvy of the producers intent.

But I prefer Belgian truffles to Smarties, in a sonic sense of the term. That would be the natural sound of instruments and voices. An example would be the Mel Torme SACD that Steve did.

 

Brightness comes from the engineer/mixer as well. Ron Nevison (enginner/producer) was a "bright" guy back in 80's. Listen to Heart s/t & Bad Animals, Kiss-Crazy Nights & Ozzy- Shot In the Dark. All very bright!

He recently did Candlebox- Happy Pills back in the late 90's and that sounded pretty good and his Bad Company work in the 70's sounds good. It must've been some kick he was on back in the 80's.

 

Interesting you mention Ron Nevison. I agree, but when I upgraded to those MIT Terminator 2 interconnects, the brightness went away from "Bad Animals", but the mids shot up a bit. The sound tightened up and became clear. The bass is still weak on some tracks, though. Well, it's a mid-80s digital recording...

Another thing many people may not realize is that the monitors and room the engineer mixes in makes a difference. Then, there is the mastering engineer...

 

Hmmm...maybe they should market a "debrighter" option on stereos. Like a one button thing (a la the old Dolby buttons).

The ad could show a picture of 80's Big hair-era Heart and say underneath "Got Bright?" That would sell it for me!

 

A lot of 80's album have that bright sound. I'm never sure if they mixed this way for radio, vinyl, or what it was.

Off the top of my head:

Bangles - Different Light - This sounds bright to me but not as painful as a lot of other discs. The bass is mixed low and the album lacks any real punch. I suspect the it's the mid-range at fault here.

Heart - Heart - A painful listening experience especially through headphones. There's not a lot of bottom end and the treble and mids seems to be pumped up. I will wince like I'm looking into a bright light if I turn the volume up too high.

Duran Duran - Seven & the Ragged Tiger - Another disc with a lot of top end. Even the vinyl sounds like this. There are fewer moments where the eyes squint compared to the Heart disc, but they're shouldn't be any.
I've noticed all the Duran material from 1981-1985 has this sound quality. The new Singles box sure didn't fix it.

 

That's why I like a darker (flatter) sound...cause I like to listen with the volume CRANKED!

 

I think these albums in fact were mixed for radio and cheap TV speakers.

 

You could very well be right Grant, but even the MFSL S/T Heart is excruciating on my ears. Either MFSL didn't get the actual master tape or for some ungodly reason felt that they needed the ole smiley-face eq.

 

Ain't that the truth Dave...bombastic is the word...where's my earplugs?

 

Another one I can add is Tears For Fears Songs from the Big Chair. Like the Heart disc, it's bright on the stock release and on the MFSL gold. I think Steve did a tamer "Shout" on one of the Razor & Tie discs.

 

Or they simply preserved what was on the tape.

 

For some reason, most of the 80s and early 90s CDs from Arista suffer from extreme brightness. There doesn't seem to be any exceptions! All of the tapes can't be that shrill!