Done with digital
- Thread starter SoundMann
- Start date
I'll thank you kindly for the string of illuminating responses allowing consideration of your current dispositions.
C'est comme si on pissait dans un violon (origin - absurdity of blowing into a violin). I'll not bear witness to the brimming of another once fine instrument. My own adamantly stated decision to sink into the woodwork remains consistent with personal musical enjoyment after logging out in good conscience. There is no amount of conversing on this topic I wish to endure.
When I listen to music in the car I find myself enjoying the music versus being emotionally engaged; distractions with driving and the such
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my best musical moments were in my car on vacation with my wife and kids. even greater than concerts i recall. and mostly when i hear that same music i tear over to one degree or another.....based on the whole of the memory. certain songs especially are powerful. these emotions are not so simple to dissect. the music is simply the trigger and channeling vehicle. music does this for me so simply.
however; as far as music listening in and of itself, i can have top level suspension of disbelief moments all the time in my music reproduction experiences where i'm traveling with the music. and the gear and system/room/set-up/media all contribute to the degrees of connection. digital can do it frequently. it does not have to trigger other powerful life memories for me to be swept away.
if i did not get pulled into the music often i could not make the commitment to this that i do. the pull is strong; whatever else i'm doing i have a hunger to listen instead. not sure why it's like that. maybe i'm mentally off a bit.....but that is how it is for me. as my system has improved the pull has increased. if i'm delusional then ok, happily so. makes life more worth living that i get to that place whenever i like.
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Life is hard, having fun is the best revenge. If music is your source for fun, bravo to your commitment to bringing it more fully into your life.
Certain songs and albums can connect us to a positive memory or experience regardless of the playback system. But since I'm not a musician nor have a trained ear, I need a little help for all the other music (which seems infinite -- Qobuz, for example, now has more than 80 million songs available). A good system allows me to connect to the music and be transported. That is my goal, not the equipment.
That said, I have gotten lost in experimentation (including equipment turnover) from time to time and not enjoyed the process. Once a good balance has been found, however, my ability to hear the unique tone/technique of a musician, and the interaction of the musicians, is greatly enhanced and the transportation is more easily achieved on a wider range of music, both familiar and unfamiliar.
I agree that digital setups, especially ones connected to a network, take extra effort to sound "natural." Live sound is the benchmark. Of course, that can never be achieved completely, so it is good to establish the point when "enough is enough" and that has varied for me over time.
No, it defines your goals selecting audio reproduction. My home and office systems have different goals and sound quite different. Hopefully you set goals for your system and it matches those goals.
I can be emotionally engaged and drive a car. Some simulus causes me to be engaged some doesn't. Some music could draw me in on a cheap transister radio, but anything that is emotionally engaging will happen in a car, ear buds on an iPhone or the cheap speaker on my workstation. Likewise some very expensive well thought out systems will leave me cold.
This...We were in the car with our daughters some months after my dad had passed away and the song Butterfly Kisses came on the radio. Lets just say we had to pull over to the side of the road for a bit.
The song had no special meaning to me / us / my dad. My dad was as about as far away from a butterfly kiss kind of person as you can get but the lyrics, the music and a car full of raw emotion just brought it out in all of us, pretty powerful moment.
Also played this very version of How Great Thou Art at my moms funeral service, through the church PA and not a dry eye in the house. Carrie gets the standing O well before the song is over!
So yes musical engagement comes from many different places in our lives, not always in front of a big kit. At this point in time most of my listening is with noise canceling headphones doing yard work and with 1.5 acres to tend to that is a lot of hours per week.
Enjoy the journey!
Performance can outstrip everything. This particular performance of Strauss' Four Last Songs by Furwangler and Kirsten Flagstad is arguably the definitive recorded performance. Somebody de-clicked it for this YT video... My LP version has all the clicks and I never care; this performance has never failed to move me to tears. Kirsten's voice floats with effortless grace; Furtwangler manages to get the flutes to sound like birds in cadence with the poetry; its so good to hear the work of a master.
I totally agree but Kal is absolutely correct. The question is how many threads and how many posts within each thread are required to thouroughly discuss subjectivities.Kal, big fan
There have been countless threads with each thread containing hundreds of posts on this specific topIc. This particular thread is on post No. 353 with many more likely to come. If you find this constant repetition / regurgitation of the same comments by the same people (there are some exceptions but not many) "interesting", have at it.
With all due respect.......
For me and maybe others, I find it to be a classic example of obsessive / compulsive behavior. The absolute undisputable WBF version of the movie "Groundhog Day" on steroids. But who am I to judge. I will say that my interest in participating in this forum (my input tends to be common sense oriented) is rapidly disappearing but, I suspect, very few if anyone probably gives a shit.
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This how the thread went sideways on Audiophile Style. These are from Soundmann.
"I require an audience of sincere honesty and great intelligence. But also, I have only my once greatly respected words (findings) to offer as proof at the moment."
"I have been involved in the engineering of this format since 1972! Do you really think that you know more about it than I do?"
"I require an audience of sincere honesty and great intelligence. But also, I have only my once greatly respected words (findings) to offer as proof at the moment."
"I have been involved in the engineering of this format since 1972! Do you really think that you know more about it than I do?"
basically; i enjoy hanging with like minded folk who i share interests with. that sorta understand where i'm coming from. feeling a part of something and belonging. and chewing the fat. with no particular place to go.
the best plan.....is....no plan.
where was i?
Ah, you bring back happy memories from, gosh, 36 years ago as a PhD student in Pittsburgh attending a concert of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the incomparable Jessye Norman. Spellbinding. I’ve never forgotten how her voice filled Heinz Hall. I never realized a human voice could sound so powerful unamplified. I later bought her Phillips CD of the same piece. What a disappointment. The marvelous voice I heard in the concert hall was shrunk to a pale imitation of its true original sound, a cartoon imitation.
Even after 37 years of listening to high end audio, to me, the concert hall remains the gold standard. Live unamplified music, to me, remains the hallmark by which I want to judge reproduction by electronic means , even if it’s an impossible goal. Each concert I have attended over the years remains indelibly etched in memory, from Jessye Norman’s great performance 37 years ago to a much more recent live performance of the great Chicago Symphony at nearby U.C. Berkeley with the incandescent conductor Riccardo Muti performing Brahms Symphonies 2 and 3. Brahms was no showman. He spoke in deep contemplative tones, the soul stirring strings of the Chicago symphony bringing the hall to the longest standing ovation I’ve yet heard. Or Charles Dutoit conducting the San Francisco Symphony in the majestic Berlioz Requiem with a massive 400+ choir and an enormous brass section arrayed around Davies Symphony Hall. We are worlds away from the quiet contemplative Brahms to a more showy piece (Berlioz wanted 800 singers, at SFO, we had to make do with just 400, which would not have pleased Messr Berlioz, ever the showman, who wrote the Symphonie Fantastique to woo the English actress with whom he was in love).
But records are essential to bring back to life the long dead singers and artists we can never hope to listen to live. As I’m typing this, I’m listening to a wonderful old mono vinyl album of Billie Holiday singing “Them There Eyes”. It might have been recorded in the 1930s, but Billie Holiday’s sultry voice and Bennie Goodman’s great clarinet makes me wish to go back in time 90 years ago, so I could hear them live. Wouldn’t that be a treat? Want to hear Enrico Caruso? Presto, press a button, the Matrix takes you back to hear Caruso live. We wouldn’t need Hi-Fi equipment any more.
If you don't enjoy a particular thread, why do you then feel compelled to comment on it? Just move on? Your comment contributes nothing positive to the discussion...
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