Does Quality Matter?

Does audio quality really matter?

Our society in general has seen a major loss in quality of goods and services. Music recording has not escaped this trend.

In this short episode, I give some examples, some possible explanations, and a bit of guidance on how recordists can do a better job. It benefits the listener, even if they can’t even describe the difference between a good recording and a mediocre one.

email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com
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Episode 104        Does Quality Matter?                                     April 29, 2025

 I’m Doug Fearn and this is My Take on Music Recording

 Does quality really matter?

We live in a time when quality is rare in our everyday lives. Household appliances and consumer electronics are designed for a five-year life. Quality in materials and construction does not matter to most manufacturers.

It’s difficult to find service people who really care about doing a good job. It seems that shoddiness is the standard in our society.

There are exceptions. You can still find craftsmen who care about their work and always make sure the job is done perfectly. Cars made in the last twenty years or so seem to be better-built and last longer than those made earlier.

Many musicians constantly practice and learn new things, to stay at the top of their game. And you can buy quality equipment, or anything else, if you find the right manufacturer and are willing to pay the price for a superior product.

But mostly we encounter poorly-built stuff and we put up with lousy service by people who don’t really care.

Another example of the loss of quality is in most written material. Anyone can write anything for public consumption, but there are no proofreaders or editors to fact-check, correct grammatical errors, or untangle confusing sentences. This applies to many professionally-produced publications as well.

We now have a couple of generations of music fans who have never heard anything better than a MP3 or a CD. That’s their frame of reference. Those formats are arguably inferior to the stereo vinyl record, a standard that has existed for nearly 70 years.

What I want to explore in this episode is quality in recording at the studio level.

It’s my perception that despite having the best-sounding recording medium and gear, the overall quality of many recordings is worse than what was done 50 years ago or more. Sure, the noise level and distortion can be lower, but there is much more to audio quality than that.

Where does the quality get lost? I see four main areas:

1.       The song

2.       The performance

3.       The recording

4.       The distribution method

I am going to focus on number 3, the recording.

 I always strive for the best sound I can get, technically, sonically, and artistically. I think I have had that attitude from the very beginning of my career.

You need to have a sense of pride in your work. You want the recording to be as high-quality as you and your equipment allow. If you establish that goal from the beginning, and apply it to every session you do, no matter how inconsequential that session may seem, it soon becomes a habit. It’s the way you work.

If you are exposed to crummy products in your daily life, or if you read poorly-written prose, or listen to lousy-sounding recordings, it may take some exposure to the “good stuff” to recalibrate your brain. I believe you need to surround yourself with quality in every aspect of your life. We don’t always have the luxury of doing that, but it is a goal.

Quality is something to work towards. A good start is to recognize what is wrong with much of what we are exposed to.

I have made it a policy that I will stop reading anything that is poorly written. That includes muddled thinking, or ignorance of the topic. Our society tends to disvalue expertise, but it is the people who are knowledgeable and good at what they do that should be our role models.

Why should you care if no one else seems to hear the difference between a great recording and an inferior one?

Maybe the average music consumer doesn’t hear the difference. I have encountered engineers that can’t hear the difference. That’s not an excuse for someone who wants the best possible recording. Most people can be trained to appreciate improved quality.

OK. So, what are the benefits of this attitude?

Pride in your work is one benefit. People you work with will notice your attitude right away. When they see that you pay attention to details and work to get the best possible sound, they will respond, most of them, with excitement at doing their job better.

And even if no one but you can hear the difference, it’s still a worthy goal. Maybe you do it because it pleases you. That is a legitimate motivator. And it’s an effective defense mechanism when you have to work on an inferior product.

Another benefit is that better sound will inspire the performers you are recording. If the playback sounds great to them, they will be enthusiastic. They will play better. It makes a difference.

Often a part of my motivation to do things the best way I know how is thinking about how the people I respect in our profession are going to react to my recording. Sometimes I send my friends in the business something that I am particularly pleased with. Maybe there are subtle details in the recording or producing process that very few people would notice. But I know these people will. I know they do because they respond with delight at something I have done that appeals to their sense of quality. They get it. And that positive feedback is motivating.

And then there are the listeners, the ultimate consumers of our work, and the root source of our income. They may be listening on earbuds, or a crummy Bluetooth speaker. And yet, they respond positively to a quality recording. They don’t know why. Mostly it’s the song and the performance that matter, but a great-sounding recording enhances their enjoyment.

Conversely, a bad recording will probably annoy them in subtle ways that they can’t explain. That could mean that they listen to a song a few times and then do not want to hear it again. If the recording were better, they might keep listening. In the age of streaming, keeping the music lover listening is vital for financial success. That filters down to us in the studio in the form of more income. Although not everyone is motivated by money, it does make what we do feasible.

How do we improve the quality of our recordings?

I like to start by identifying the weakest technology link. It could be your room, the mic chosen, the mic preamp, the recording format, the converter, your monitor speakers, or your control room acoustics.

I have talked about all of those things in previous episodes. But let’s briefly review some of them.

The acoustical characteristics of your studio and control room will change your perception of the recorded sound. A bad-sounding room will leave its imprint on everything recorded there. Studio acoustical design and treatment is always the first step. The same applies to the control room.

Every microphone model has its own strengths and weaknesses. No mic is perfect. They all have their idiosyncrasies, in obvious and subtle ways. Listen to the episode called “Choosing the Right Microphone” from February 2023 for more details.

The important thing is to pick the best microphone from your collection for the sound being recorded. That includes the characteristics of the specific instrument or voice you are recording. Sometimes a mic that seems like it would be completely inappropriate might be the right choice.

The best mic also has to be in the best position in relation to the sound source. For example, do you want an intimate sound? Move the mic closer. Does the character of your room enhance the sound? That might argue for a more distant placement.

There are other aspects of this that I won’t go into here, but you are probably already are aware of these things.

Microphone preamps might seem like a relatively trivial thing, but they have a major impact on the sound. Perhaps not as much as extreme microphone choices, but still important.

If the sound is lost at the mic preamp stage, there is nothing you can do to fix it later. Choose your mic preamp carefully. There is a reason why great mic preamps cost more than average ones. It’s another example of the impact of quality.

Often in my sessions, the mics go into the preamps and then directly to the converter. Keeping the signal path as simple and clean as possible improves the sound in most circumstances.

Keeping the audio path as simple as possible always improves the basic sound. Sometimes you need to use eq or compression, but often you do not. The same applies to mixing. I always strive to keep the audio path as pristine as possible, using the minimum processing needed to achieve the sound I want.

If you want the best quality, use the highest resolution your digital recording gear provides. For many people, that will be 192kHz sample rate, and 24- or 32-bit resolution.

I use the DSD256 format for all my recording. It is a difficult format to use because of its many limitations, but the resulting audio is much cleaner than with traditional PCM formats. DSD is more like analog recording, but without the inherent noise and other deficiencies of tape.

Why record at higher resolution when the recording will be reduced to a compressed data format, or CD format for distribution? You never know what music may prove to be enduring. It might be popular for decades. A high-resolution master might be the key to longevity, as new, better distribution formats become available. We should give posterity the best possible original recording to work with.

Working at the highest possible resolution throughout the tracking, mixing, and mastering process will provide the most pristine version of the recording all the way to the listener. They will likely be hearing it after some pretty brutal data compression.

How can it sound better despite the data compression? I have some theories, but the bottom line is that I hear an improvement in the quality when my high-resolution recording gets downgraded to MP3 or similar. It sounds better than the same recording made at a lower-resolution.

The improvement is not dramatic, but it does exist. And even though most people will not consciously hear the difference, I believe the subtle improvement is perceived and appreciated by the listener.

And if the highest-quality is our goal, then why wouldn’t we want to record in the highest resolution format possible? It should be part of your philosophy, if quality is important to you.

And even though most consumer audio is in a format far lower in quality than what is possible, that could change as the world discovers that high-resolution audio is practical, even today. Storage cost for files is a tiny fraction of what it was when most of those formats were developed. And most people have fast internet connections that allow streaming of high-resolution audio. I hope that eventually high-resolution audio will become standard for all music distribution.

Most converters are pretty similar in their digital performance. It’s the analog parts of the converter circuitry that vary from model to model.

Most converter designers are focused on the digital performance, which is uniformly decent. It seems that they feel that the analog portion of their design is relatively unimportant. Compounding this problem is that electrical engineering programs at most universities teach little or nothing about analog circuit design. The expertise for designing superior-sounding analog circuitry is rapidly being lost.

Choose the converter that sounds best to you. That’s not the same as the best measurement specifications. Anyone can design an analog circuit that has spectacular specs. But how does it sound? There are many subtle factors involved in making an analog circuit sound good. Those go beyond the basic measurements.

As you record or mix or master music, you will rely on the monitor speakers in your control room to guide your decisions. If they provide a reasonably accurate representation of what the music sounds like, your decisions on balance, equalization, and other creative decisions will be easier. And the sound will translate better when heard in a wide variety of listening situations. My recent episode called “Monitor Speakers and how to get the best sound out of them” might be helpful to you.

Every piece of equipment the sound goes through, will have a cumulative effect on the final product. If you lose a percent or two at each stage, your result could be a net negative impact of 10% or more. But if you can offset that by a percent or two by using really good gear, the degradation might only be 5%. Is that worth it to you?

Despite the high-quality potential of modern recording gear, it seems that many recordings I hear still have technical problems. Vocals, in particular, seem to be recorded without much thought about quality. They are distorted, over-compressed, have too much equalization and pitch correction, and no longer sound like a real person singing. Many are recorded in poor acoustical environments.

We have to keep in mind that music is an emotional experience. Most music does not benefit from sound that annoys the listener.

Why do people continue to make this type of recording? I could offer several possible explanations.

One is that they simply don’t think quality is important.

Or perhaps they have never been exposed to good sound and don’t strive to emulate that.

It could be that the sound they get is an attempt to copy the sound they hear on successful records. They may even know it’s not right, but presume that is the way they are supposed to make it sound.

Some people lack the technical background to know how to make it sound better.

To record better, listen to the best recordings you can find. If that sound appeals to you, try to achieve that.

Make quality a part of your life, not only in what you do but in what you consume. I cannot do some things to the limit of my ability, and others things in a slipshod manner. Once I started striving for quality, I had to apply it to everything I do. That may not appeal to many people, but it is important to me.

Never stop improving on what you did before. Listen to what you recorded and ask what could have been better. A lot of it is beyond our control, but at the next session, try to improve on what did last time. I enjoy that challenge.

Whether I am recording or designing products, I always look for those slight gains wherever I can find them. Sure, the end result might only be a few percent better, but why give up quality when you could attain it? Those subtle differences add up. If you do it right, the result will be noticeably better.

Is that important to you?

If you say “no,” then I won’t argue with you. If you are satisfied with what I would consider a mediocre result, then your life is going to be simpler and less stressful. And you will save a lot of money, because quality is usually expensive.

But if you want to make recordings that sound spectacular and demand attention, you want every last percent of improvement you can find.

And I believe that even the least engaged listener will respond more positively to your work.

Thanks for listening, subscribing, and commenting. You can reach me at dwfearn@dwfearn.com

This is My Take on Music Recording. I’m Doug Fearn. See you next time.