I walked into a highly compressed modern rock recording. Worse than that, the song itself was horrible, dreadful, unimaginative, bad. I mean, it really, really sucked.
I was tempted to blame it on the system: Monitor Audio GX200 Gold floorstanders ($4495/pair), Arcam A38 integrated amplifier ($2399), Arcam CD37 CD player, Arcam D33 Reference DAC, Tributaries powerline accessories and cables. But that would have been unfair. Here was a system, modest in appearance and relatively modest in price, that I would normally find very attractive. Yet it wasn’t doing the music (or me) any favors.
Finally, the song was over. Someone requested something else—I was too dizzy to take note—and then the familiar whistling intro gave it away: “Isn’t She Lovely.” Gah: From rock hell to pop hell.
But at least the recording was good. The whistling was surprisingly lifelike, creating a great sense of space, while the voice was set solidly in the center of the soundstage and reproduced with good texture and tone.
I look forward to listening to both Monitor Audio and Arcam gear in my own system, and with my own music.
