The Music or the Gear?

[cjfrbw]

I remember reading a Jazz magazine off the rack years ago, one for active musicians. They had a workshop section toward the back dedicated to the process of musicians looking for their 'sound' by experimenting with materials, reeds, shapes and variations etc.

One guy spent two years on one kind of small cymbal with different metal formulations until he got the sound he wanted out of it. After reading that, I realized I wasn't so crazy after all with all of the audiophile tweaking and tuning. Music IS materials, and audio systems are material instruments as well, at varying levels of obsession.

 

[sbo6]

Here’s another way to slice and dice this question: distinguishing the value of the time spent listening to music versus the value of the time spent thinking about/researching/auditioning components. In other words I am sure I spend three times, five times, maybe 10 times as much time thinking about/researching/auditioning components as I do listening to music. But the value to me in terms of pleasure and emotional connection of even a short time listening to music vastly outweighs the value to me of hours of talking about/researching/auditioning components.

I'm the opposite. Although I'm on the lookout for and researching for better prospective gear, it's a fraction of the time I spend listening in my "high - end" office and dedicated 2 channel system. What good are the boxes without music? In a simple phrase, the music matters most.

 

[TooCool4]

Rensselaer I never take much notice of reviews or others recommendations, the only opinion I trust is my own ears with the kit in my room.
You’ve gone the equipment route, have you had a look at your room? A lot of people go the equipment route when the problem is the room.

 

[TooCool4]

Music and gear perfectly integrated , the new Honda Goldwing

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Where is this bike out of? Night Rider?

 

[andromedaaudio]

Where is this bike out of? Night Rider?

Its a current 2022 honda model .
I think they succeeded nicely .
The reason i posted it is because motorcycles are associated with freedom same as .music .
Certain people on this site try to put a claim on music / how to listen to music / how it should be enjoyed which is Luckily not possible.
Music can be enjoyed the way YOU want it.
Its a universal language free of politics

 

[Tuckers]

The gear transports me to the music. And I don't enjoy the music nearly as much if the gear is substandard (to my priorities), even if a system is "higher end" than mine.

 

[rando]

Where is this bike out of? Night Rider?

Mostly Florida and tractor rap music videos. I would doubt not one bit they have adopted the John Deere virtual upgrade scheme whereby all options are present and only unlocked with your CC.

 

[PYP]

Enjoying music is the primary goal. I am able to do that consistently when the equipment disappears. To my ears, my What's Good gear provides a sufficient simulation of the real thing. And Qobuz provides 80 million songs to sample in addition to my library.

Also, sharing music with my wife is a pleasure (the feline too, but he is a snob and prefers Mozart to the Jazz that is often playing). Therefore, the setup has to be user friendly enough for her (but not the cat) to build her own playlists and blast her favorites when the mood hits. While she doesn't care about gear, she has very good ears and will let me know if something sounds unnatural. Years ago, when the fever was strong and it was all about gear, her orientation toward simply enjoying music helped me decide what I really wanted from a setup.

 

[Shuggie]

There's nothing wrong with being into the music and the gear! It's no different from photography, coffee making and any number of other hobbies.

 

[brad225]

If it wasn't music first, you more than likely wouldn't own the gear.

It's not like you would buy an entire setup and sit and listen to nothing but the noise in the room.

That doesn't mean you can't enjoy improving the quality of the music with better equipment.

 

[cjfrbw]

It's not like you would buy an entire setup and sit and listen to nothing but the noise in the room.

Well, from the annals of perversity, there were times when the DHT triode preamp would spontaneously get in a variable feedback mode and the anodes would sing like an angelic choir all by themselves, quite hypnotic. I would listen to that when it happened. I guess that's the phile in audiophile.

 

[PeterA]

Someone here wrote “The gear is here to serve the music.” I think that is an interesting way to put it. I like that.

I chose my gear to present the information on the recording in a way that gives me an experience similar to one I have in the concert hall or jazz club.

After the selection of the gear, the set up process is what gets you there. For me it is not an either or proposition. The beauty of the hobby is that it is very holistic and rewarding. One learns and reflects and ponders the possibilities.

 

[PeterA]

Certain people on this site try to put a claim on music / how to listen to music / how it should be enjoyed which is Luckily not possible.

Andromeda, can you explain this a bit more with some examples of what you mean?

 

[microstrip]

(...) I chose my gear to present the information on the recording in a way that gives me an experience similar to one I have in the concert hall or jazz club.

Similar experience? I envy you.

After the selection of the gear, the set up process is what gets you there. For me it is not an either or proposition. The beauty of the hobby is that it is very holistic and rewarding. One learns and reflects and ponders the possibilities.

IMHO after the initial set up process, 95% of set up is audiophile fun motivated. If changing gear was not part of my way of living this hobby, my set up process would be very stable.

 

[microstrip]

There is a stage when the digital guy who has never heard analog properly says he does not want to get in (to be differentiated from the guy who has heard both and chosen to stay digital for convenience).

There is a stage when the guy who owns proper analog - a well set up professional tape machine and copies of mastertapes and a top turntable finds that digital is close enough to master tape to avoid the need of manipulating the vinyl colorations to make stereo more enjoyable.

This digital guy then listens to analog done well and gets in. What I am trying to give an example of is that there are steps you don't know exist and as you experience more and realize it exists you explore more.

Then there are various OCDs that set in...comparing AR Ref 3 to Ref 5 to 5SE to 6, or Lyra Etna to Atlas to SL to Lambda to Lambda SL, or CH 1, 2, 3...10, cables, footers, etc.

There is a sub hobby that hits both the OCD and the music and helps us understand gear better. Comparing, say, a violin concerto or a symphony on Decca vs RCA vs EMI or ED1 vs ED2 vs test press vs reissue vs japanese pressing. How does the digital recording of Winterreise sound on Melodiya vs Philips vs Eterna....you can go on forever. Heck, even Decca London vs UK vs Germany and so on.

When you start doing this, you end up comparing also performers and performances. Heifetz, Kogan, Oistrakh, Milstein on different labels. Hoelscher, Du Pre, Rosty on different ones. While doing these compares you realize heck, conclusions with gear that I analyzed with digital and reissues now is being assessed differently. You start hearing differences between performers on some systems, not all, and you hear differences in the recordings on some systems, not all. All of sudden the gear, music, performers, recordings, align.

Yes, if we want to stay in the past listening forever to the old great recordings we can stay with vinyl and enjoy it your suggested way - it is surely an interesting and promising road. But if our clock did not stop fifty years ago and we appreciate current digital great recordings we can do it in another way.

To be clear - I had great analog and great digital experiences in the past - some of them probably better than any experience I will ever have in my listening room, independently of the type of media or gear I can afford.

 

[tima]

Also, sharing music with my wife is a pleasure (the feline too, but he is a snob and prefers Mozart to the Jazz that is often playing).

I had a cat who would come sit in my lap if I put on any Mozart. It was the only music he reacted to and he seemed to enjoy it.

 

[DasguteOhr]

I had a cat who would come sit in my lap if I put on any Mozart. It was the only music he reacted to and he seemed to enjoy it.

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Animals know when it sounds good, I once had a dog who lay in the middle between the speakers. when one of my diy loudspeaker creation was bad, he left the room.really no fake.

 

[Big B]

Ultimately it's the music but the journey getting there can't be beat.

 

[Cellcbern]

The music comes first for me. The gear/room is the vehicle for reproducing the music I like at home with enough fidelity/realism that I feel an emotional connection when listening that gets close to what I experience at a live performance. My listening biases (prefer intimate setting, e.g., jazz, blues, R&B and limited small group classical - not much interested in approximating the scale of a full orchestra) determined the size room I could live with and the room size in turn determined speaker size, amplifier power, etc. Not a gadget person and don't care about having the latest thing which is why I tend to keep components a long time and still listen to physical media only. Having said all of that I do enjoy upgrading/tweaking system and room to reduce noise and enhance musicality.

 

[Audire]

Yes, if we want to stay in the past listening forever to the old great recordings we can stay with vinyl and enjoy it your suggested way - it is surely an interesting and promising road. But if our clock did not stop fifty years ago and we appreciate current digital great recordings we can do it in another way.

When it comes to music apparently a lot of people still enjoy living in the past. The Jan 2022 issue of the Atlantic reports “Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm.…The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.”

…

• The leading area of investment in the music business is old songs. Investment firms are getting into bidding wars to buy publishing catalogs from aging rock and pop stars.
• The song catalogs in most demand are by musicians who are in their 70s or 80s (Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen) or already dead (David Bowie, James Brown).
• Even major record labels are participating in the rush to old music: Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, and others are buying up publishing catalogs and investing huge sums in old tunes. In a previous time, that money would have been used to launch new artists.
• The best-selling physical format in music is the vinyl LP, which is more than 70 years old. I’ve seen no signs that the record labels are investing in a newer, better alternative—because, here too, old is viewed as superior to new.
• In fact, record labels—once a source of innovation in consumer products—don’t spend any money on research and development to revitalize their business, although every other industry looks to innovation for growth and consumer excitement.
• Record stores are caught up in the same time warp. In an earlier era, they aggressively marketed new music, but now they make more money from vinyl reissues and used LPs.
• Radio stations are contributing to the stagnation, putting fewer new songs into their rotation, or—judging by the offerings on my satellite-radio lineup—completely ignoring new music in favor of old hits.
• When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the “Blurred Lines” jury decision of 2015, and the result is that additional cash gets transferred from today’s musicians to old (or deceased) artists.
• Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form—via holograms and “deepfake” music—making it all the harder for young, living artists to compete in the marketplace.

Is Old Music Killing New Music?​

Apparently, many people’s clocks are rewinding.