What is the art of sound?

[Marco]

Agreed... Sat navs suck - maps rool. Oops, I meant rule!

Anyway, yes, it's another valid example of a bloody machine controlling you and doing your thinking for you - feck that.

Marco.

[Joe]

I've never sent a text in my life.

I had an odd experience with my mobile the other day though. We've been having a shower fitted, and I was waiting for the plumber to ring me about a suitable date for the work to begin. My mobile rang, and a bloke said 'It's the plumber here, I'm wondering if Monday would be a good day to start?' After we'd chatted for a couple of minutes, we realised that he was the 'wrong' plumber, who had dialled my mobile number by mistake.

Back on topic; I'm format neutral with regard to music. The absolute best-sounding music I have is on Blue Note 45rpm LPs. It's a faff having to leap up every 15 minutes or so to changes sides, but the sound is glorious, making the effort worthwhile. However the records were ridiculously expensive, so I'll never be able to afford to own more than a few of them.

I don't mind about ritual, or the lack of it, when listening to music, and if ripping CDs wasn't such a pain I'd probably have moved over my CDs to some sort of computer-based system by now. As it is I've only transferred a handful of titles out of the thousand or so I own.

[Welder]

Was that all a bit strong then guv?
Chillax and straw men, well I never….
Oh well, back to the Hi Fi related matters then; shame, I was just beginning to enjoy myself.

It took me about a week to rip my CD’s to file, two copies, one flac and one Wav, using EAC.
I believe dbPoweramp is quicker and more user friendly.
I have another 600 gigs or so of music on ½ tapes that I have yet to find a satisfactory method of transferring to file.

Given I can’t do much in the way of physical activity atm (waiting for bones to re-knit) I’ve had the ideal opportunity to make this transfer.

Ooops almost forgot.....kthxbai

[Dr. Flicker]

If this assumption is incorrect then perhaps you would care to explain exactly what you mean by “bad music”

.

Perhaps you should have asked that question before going off on your long triad? ha ha But then again, we wouldn't be able to add a little spice to what is..let's face it...a pretty docile forum. :near:


Since taste in music is subjective, it doesn't matter to me what other people are listening to, which is why I mentioned what I was listening to, and considered it "bad".

That comment meant that I am sometime guilty of listening to my hi-fi, rather than my music (just as you talked about). In my case, it referred to the fact that I have purchased certain "reference" recordings based on their reputation for superb recording qualities. While the recording is first rate and shows what the playback equipment is capable of reproducing , the music itself just didn't do it for me. I have a couple of Shefield Labs discs that fall into this category.

At the same time, I have plenty of piss-poor, "loudness wars" recordings that contain basically no dynamic range (you know the ones...usually late 80's, early 90's hard rock "re-masters"). But I still like the tunes, so I play them anyway.

What I was trying to point out, was that I don't think people fall into your hypothetical "categories" so easily...I think it's far more fluid than that. I think being a music fan, as well as an "audiophile" (in all its genres..."vinyl junkie", etc) can actually expand your musical "taste", rather than narrow it.

I know I have learned to appreciate the "music" of many artists while listening to my "hi-fi". As I said...one begets the other. There's a synergy between music and the hi-fi hobby. And yes...there also be dragons here (and I'm not referring to the Nakamichi type).

“That may or may not be true, but I still don't understand your argument...are you saying playback equipment makes no difference if the source material is the same?”

No.
I am saying that a great deal of classical music (the assumed to be not “bad” music and therefore more worthy of hi fidelity reproduction in some peoples views; a view which you may or may not hold given it is yet to be established but I have assumed, rightfully or wrongfully; phew, hard work this) is often recorded at the same standard as the “bad” music and in theory, provided the replay equipment can cope adequately with redbook, wouldn’t have any less quality of sound at replay than the good music.

First off, no, I don't put "classical" music on any kind of pedestal...while I can appreciate the fact that this stuff is still very popular after centuries (as opposed to only decades of modern music we consider "classic" tunes)...it represents about 1% of my music library. Like you, I really don't think there are any bad "genres".

Secondly, are these hypothetical classical music lovers also audiophiles? There's little point in commenting about their preference for classical recordings...if that's all they like...who cares what they think of what they don't like. Although your assertion that classical music is as badly recorded as anything else is one I find debatable (a large symphony recording with poor dynamic range would be unlistenable on any equipment), I would still say that better playback equipment is still capable of squeezing out the maximum fidelity of even a less-than-perfect recording than poor playback equipment can.

Please point out where I have written that I “believe it kills every other format.”
I don’t believe in miracles and I certainly don’t believe in miraculous belief.
Please show me where I have even hinted that anyone who doesn’t follow my “epiphany” is a deluded fool.

I'm just upping the drama a tad.

I wish I could convince myself that I could just rip everything onto my hard drive and live happily ever after, reassuring myself that this format is every bit as good as all this esoteric hi-fi equipment because theoretically, I'm not "losing" anything in the process, while making it all so much more "convenient". But I can't. And for several, complicated reasons. I've heard very good Flac playback, and it sounded very nice to me, so it's not all about sonics. But at least there are still speakers left to obsess about when going that route. Perhaps soon there will simply be bluetooth or wi-fi implants directly into your brain and we can illuminate those too?

“Things give me comfort.”
Hmm, personally I think that’s a bit sad.

Well, probably because you are making knee-jerk assumptions again. Save your pity.

Things give me pleasure, sometimes, but more often than not because of something that thing can do rather than it just being another thing to own. Still, each to his own.

Taking that to its logical conclusion, I guess you have no use for "art"?

If you are consuming things and they don't bring you pleasure, or you just "own" things to impress people, then that would be sad...but that isn't what I was referring to.

Here is a quote from an excellent book called The Comfort of Things by Daniel Miller, a UK anthropologist.

“We live today in a world of ever more stuff – what sometimes seems a deluge of goods and shopping. We tend to assume that this has two results: that we are more superficial, and that we are more materialistic, our relationships to things coming at the expense of our relationships to people.

We make such assumptions, we speak in cliches, but we have rarely tried to put these assumptions to the test. By the time you finish this book you will discover that, in many ways, the opposite is true; that possessions often remain profound and usually the closer our relationships are with objects, the closer our relationships with people.”

“It fosters more than just laziness and poor communication skills. How many people do you see making transactions (store, bank, etc) with their ipods still playing in their ears. That is disrespectful and downright rude. This is now the norm.”

What absolute rubbish.
I see very few people behaving in this manner.

Hmmm...you aren't noticing this? Perhaps it is because I live in NA, where the race to the bottom is probably farther along than in your neck of the woods.

I mean, here, it's come to the point where there is actually starting to be some backlash...signs at point of sale actually saying they aren't going to serve you if you are talking on your cell phone.

Isn’t this complaint about those who have music playing through ear buds more about the person who perceives the behavior viewing the others partial isolation from the environment as anti social?

Absolutely...that's part of it. But this "isolationism" causes more problems than just anti-social behaviour (which is bad in itself). Normally, what you do that doesn't effect me...I don't care. But there's the safety issue, which does affect me. There's also the fact that since most music is now downloaded in MP3 files and played back on crappy equipment, it has had a very noticeable affect on the recording industry as a whole. There is little incentive to master/engineer recordings of high quality, because most people don't know...and don't care. This makes life difficult for me, as all the great equipment in the world isn't going to help me if the source material sucks...the old "garbage in...garbage out" ethos.

You know, I have an iphone, and eventually I did rip a few cds to its player feature for the instances I'd find myself in, where I wouldn't mind having some tunes to listen to (and I do think there is a time and place for this).

I tried listening to it while just walking down the street...but you know what...I didn't like it. I'm a definite "flaneur" and the isolation and distraction it gave me from the simple pleasure of just walking down the street, paying attention to the little sights, sounds and smells of the experience was disturbing. It's a habit I would not want to get used to, for fear of turning into one of the "zombies".

Might not all ages have been like this? Couldn’t it just be that convenience and gratification are more easily obtained in this age, or is this some deep moral outrage surfacing?

Absolutely. Not all progress is good, and our exponentially increasing ability to do this is starting to bare some of the bad fruit. And it seems to be doing it so quickly that it is impairing our ability to weed it out fast enough. And this part is not isolated to youth.

One might be forgiven for believing one has stumbled on the reactionary old bastards thread from reading some of the above.

That's probably far more true than I'm willing to admit, but I can't help knowing it can't all be explained away by the fact that one generation always thinks the next is doing it wrong. Remember, the whole concept of "youth culture" is a relatively recent one...dating to around the middle of the 20th century. It has certainly been an interesting evolution, but I have this feeling that it has hit a tipping point, and is slipping into some kind of implosion on its current path.

I don't think its all bad...youth seems to be more interested in the environment, and more accepting of diverse culture and lifestyles. But the bad stuff just seems to be getting worse and worse. Some of them are fairly benign fads...like walking around with your pants falling down as a fashion statement...we can laugh at that one later the same way we laugh at what we were wearing in the 70's disco era. But you really think we will be putting Lady Gaga in the same category as Charlie Parker, Elvis, Beatles/Stones, Led Zep and every other "degenerate" of their era (as seen by the older generation)? I don't think so. I really do think it's become a throw-away culture to a much larger extent.

By the 90's, it seems youth culture had started running out of ideas, which is why "retro" became the whole thing (I have to admit, I did fall for the whole *Wallpaper movement of the late 90's). The problem with that is, you can copy the "look", but not the "feel". Seriously...as you look back, you can clearly see the various zeitgeists at work. It's not so easy any more. Perhaps that's because we need some time to pass to see it clearly. Weird things are happening...take tattoos. They were once the way you stood out from the mainstream...now it's the way you fit in (40 years from now, "granny" is still going to be sporting her full arm tattoos ha ha).

It took me about a week to rip my CD’s to file, two copies, one flac and one Wav, using EAC.

Ok...back on track ha ha

Here's my take on it....why would I do that, if I already have the equipment (that I also like having) to just play the cds? (leaving the whole sonic quality argument aside) Why put that extra process in there...It seems like a waste of time, plus it involves giving up a hobby I like. I don't have the wife factor/kid factor/peer pressure factor or desire for the "convenience, so there's no net gain for me. It isn't even a lateral move...it's a downward move.

[Marco]

Hi Kevin,

I tried listening to it while just walking down the street...but you know what...I didn't like it. I'm a definite "flaneur" and the isolation and distraction it gave me from the simple pleasure of just walking down the street, paying attention to the little sights, sounds and smells of the experience was disturbing. It's a habit I would not want to get used to, for fear of turning into one of the "zombies".

Hehehe.... You're a man after my own heart. It's the 'zombie factor' in all this I really dislike.

I don't get the need for folk to always have some bloody 'gadgetry' strapped to them wherever they go, instead of just taking in the sights and sounds and enjoying the natural beauty of their surrounding environment.

But then I guess that's easy to say when your surrounding environment is beautiful. I live in rural North Wales in the UK, well away from the 'rat race' (thank God!) where that most certainly is the case, but I might feel differently if I lived in, say, the squalor of some parts of London, where I may instead choose to block it out

I'm definitely NOT a city person! I love the wide-open space, fields and hills, and fresh air of the countryside.

This is an interesting discussion, but it's way off-topic, so I'll split the off-topic stuff into a separate thread later

Marco.

[Steve Toy]

I guess it boils down to whether you actually listen to music which requires at least an element of concentration or simply have it on as a silence-filler. Personally I'm not scared of silence, I don't need constantly to fill the void. My own thoughts can sometimes be great company.

I rarely listen to music in the car because driving itself is a task I enjoy and like to devote my attention to. I guess having something "on" in the background is good if I'm stuck in traffic or forced to drive like a passenger behind the wheel, effectively forced to do the same as the twat in front of me who is shaving 30% off the posted speed limit in good driving conditions for no good reason other than that he either wants to combine some other activity with his driving, i.e. multi-task by looking at the scenery on either side, use a hand-held device, fight to stay awake, allow for the fact that he's had a drink or he hates driving and so prefers to daydream. I guess under such circumstances I begin to daydream too and a spot of Radio Two provides some light relief.

As for iPodding it as you either walk down the road nearly getting run over in the process, order a Big Mac Meal, sit in the front of a taxi, or attempt to engage with another human being, somehow I don't really get it. On a train or a bus I do - that makes sense unless it's the Eurostar...

[Welder]

I will be back, especially now the boss is also way off topic and going to move the thread
Nice post Dr Flicker; deserves the appropriate response effort so don’t go away.
Over run with kids and dogs atm

[Welder]

Awww, please leave it. It's relevant to stuff I would like to comment on.

(John checked on who was/is who before he started posting)

[Welder]

Well, some of this won’t make much sense since the relevant posts have been deleted despite assurances otherwise. However, those of you who read the posts will follow the humour of the following. Hopefully those concerned in the deleted posts will as well.


Ian Walker.



Marco and Steve Toy.
I don’t like having to do this, but if you two are going to continue bickering about who is boss I’m going to have to send my mate Sunny over to keep the peace.
Say “hello” to Sunny

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?momimtzlz3m

If you both sit there quietly and behave yourselves it will all be fine

Kevin.

”Perhaps you should have asked that question before going off on your long triad? ha ha But then again, we wouldn't be able to add a little spice to what is..let's face it...a pretty docile forum.”

What, and miss the opportunity of going at it like a bull in a china shop with half the necessary information and making a fool of myself in the process! Why reverse the habit of a lifetime?

Most forums to do with luxury goods tend to be fairly docile in my experience; something to do with the age and social/economic position of the contributors perhaps.
I enjoy participating in a couple of the on line video game forums I visit and moderate.
These forums are largely populated by very young males (maybe 5% female) and if you don’t offend easily can be a lot of fun and quite instructive with regard to the views of those younger members of our society who post comments.
However, they are far from docile and it’s easy to find ones tolerance of post content and construction stretched to breaking point.
(I’m in the process of writing an article on on-line gaming; sort of “a guide” for the elder generation who seem to believe these often violent and very aggressive games are somehow corrupting the youth of today. I’m the top UK player in the main league of the particular game I concentrate on, a fact I’m enormously proud of with given my age) There is just some immensely childish pleasure to be had when after an online clan match one of you opponents types on the HUD (Heads up display) “gg, how old are you guys?” and you reply “gg thx, I’m 55, ***** is a 38 year old female. The usual response is “F**k I’ve just been fragged by a granddad and my mum!! (my usual match partner is a 38 year old Dutch women and she’s deadly) I know, the things that give us pleasure eh

I digress.

Yep, I agree with pretty much all of the section. I’ve got some of those re-mastered rock music CD’s.
It’s a shame that the recording engineers didn’t take more care when recording this stuff because some of it is now considered to be must have classic rock. As an example, I replaced my vinyl copy of Stand Up by Jethro Tull with the re-mastered CD version. Some of the tracks seem to have fared better than others under the re-mastering engineer’s hands/ears. The first track is barely listenable to imo.

Yes my categorisation of music/HiFi enthusiasts was bi-polar but this was deliberate as I’m sure you realize.
HiFi snobbery is rife and particularly difficult to get past given the faith versus science nature of the debates, especially when it comes to purchase power. The last resort of the faithful is always “well, that’s what I hear” or “that’s what I believe” and the following implication is often that there is something wrong with your hearing or your system if you don’t agree with them.
It’s very difficult to subject an unwilling subject to the final solution, the ABX test.

“Although your assertion that classical music is as badly recorded as anything else is one I find debatable (a large symphony recording with poor dynamic range would be unlistenable on any equipment), I would still say that better playback equipment is still capable of squeezing out the maximum fidelity of even a less-than-perfect recording than poor playback equipment can.”

I can’t argue much with this either; hence my dislike of listening to recorded classical music. What I find irritating is it is often the classical music/Hi Fi buff who waxes lyrical about the near concert performance they get from their replay system. It has nothing to do with being a fan of one particular medium over another; it has to do with the science behind audio reproduction.
In the case of the analogue recording or hi res digital their listening environment and equipment noise floor probably wipes out the harmonics/whatever they say they are hearing.
Now I’m a modern music fan primarily (I also play an instrument which may help or hinder depending on your view point) and even I can tell from going to live classical/un-amplified music concerts that a comparison between live and recorded, no matter what the playback medium verges on the ludicrous for all but the tone deaf.
It is just so unlikely that the recording equipment even captured the higher harmonics and the infra bass frequencies let alone them having the equipment able to reproduce them. We are talking amps with massive bandwidth, speakers as big as fridge freezers and listening rooms similar in size the original venue to mention a few of the obvious problems.
But, yes in theory, better kit has the potential of squeezing the last drop of information/emotion from a recording. However, you can’t reproduce what isn’t there.
These days I tend to smile sweetly and let them believe whatever makes them happy but I still enjoy debating the matter providing the dogma doesn’t outweigh the science.

Regarding the remaining audio comments……..
Drama, I can do that.
Knee jerk! Whole body jerk with me
I do have a few friends who do tend to purchase luxury goods just for the sake of ownership and the prestige they believe it gives them.
However, I think I owe you an apology or at least a friendly handshake for my “a bit sad” comment
I’m as acquisitive as the next man so any pity I have I should probably keep for myself.

“Taking that to its logical conclusion, I guess you have no use for "art"?”

Hmm, a tricky one this.
“because of something that thing can do” is the key point for me. Art can elicit emotion.
But in general no, I’m a bit of a cultural peasant when it comes “classical” art in particular.
I’m not sure why exactly, but I don’t approve of the “ownership” of art in general and certainly not making large profits through its sale. Art, even the stuff I don’t appreciate if it is generally acknowledged to be of great merit should be available to the people and in the custody of the state.
(Am I beginning to sound like citizen Smith here)

I’ll be back with some comments concerning our degenerate youth and anti social society later.
Oh yeah, he’s a long haired rotweiler with a tail.

[Steve Toy]

Marco and Steve Toy.
I don’t like having to do this, but if you two are going to continue bickering about who is boss I’m going to have to send my mate Sunny over to keep the peace.

John,

In simple terms, I was one of three bosses at OP back in Jan 2008, then one of two, then I sold out in May (literally) leaving just Marco.

Simples... --- and no further argument and importantly, no on-going disputes between us on that score.