Originally Posted by
Macca
Those old Naims are like paint strippers unless you've got a nice, compressed, rolled off source like a TT or a tape deck, then they sound excellent. Is it any wonder that when people stuck a source that was flat to 22Khz into those systems that they didn't like what they heard?
But they assume that the amps and speakers are blameless and decide it is this new fangled digital that is the problem. After all, the tapes and vinyl sound fine.
Then 20 odd years on when they have a completely different system they try digital again and low and behold it sounds much better! And then they ascribe that to it being 'hi rez' or 'better masters' or 'digital tech improving massively' (which it hasn't. It has barely changed at all because it worked fine from the get-go).
So much bollocks has been made up all due to this one simple misunderstanding decades ago. My favourite is that the early transfers to cd were 'botched' because the labels didn't know what they were doing, and that is what the problem was with early digital.
Yes, because cuing up an RTR and connecting it to a ADC is like rocket science even for an experienced studio engineer. Added to which anyone into cd always goes for the earlier releases and not the re-masters because they sound better due to their increased dynamic range! It's the later releases you (usually) want to avoid.
Pretty much any explanation is seized on except the true one, which is that those flat earth systems were effects boxes, not hi-fi.