The originals sound better.
I don't think so, I think you're just getting a high end that isn't in the original audio. In the places where there are high frequencies the aliasing and the hiss just gets in the way.
that drives emotional energy
Seems like a hyperbolic rationalization.
>I don't think so, I think you're just getting a high end that isn't in the original audio. In the places where there are high frequencies the aliasing and the hiss just gets in the way.
I don't get this, are you saying that this aliasing is just an artifact of the emulation? Like the GBA speaker/headphone jack itself would also be affected by the same aliasing right? And in that case the song was composed for that, right?
I don't think it would be right to go as far as to say that there's a huge strong interplay in every single GBA title's song with the hardware (I'm sure some stuff was phoned in and only listened to by the composer in whatever MIDI DAW thing they were using) but at one point the GBA was the target right?
The ‘improved’ versions sound muffled like I have water in my ears. Plus I’d rather hear the game as it was designed, artefacts and all.
The artifacts weren't a conscious design decision, they were a constraint. We don't know whether the designers would have chosen to keep them or not, if they had the choice.
GBA games were made for a console that behaved like this.
Accuracy is paramount. Targeting else than the console's sound is an affront to preservation.
Preservation and design intent are two very different things.