Quad's old aspiration 'the closest approach to the original sound' went out of the window when multi-track recording and patchwork quilt editing arrived on the scene. Listen to the legendary Bunny Berigan's 1937 recording of 'I Can't Get Started' and wonder how it would have sounded if his trumpet solo fluffs could have been spliced out with the help of alternative takes. Technically better perhaps, but certainly lacking the fire that makes it so famous. What so annoyed the hi-fi fraternity about the Memorex advertising campaign I mentioned in passing last month, was that it missed the point. Yes, the recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing scat broke a wine glass when played back at super-loud volumes. But this had nothing to do with audio quality. Recordings with high levels of distortion might well have been better at breaking glass.
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