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Music lovers with crappy audio systems... (Guttenberg)


Chris A

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http://www.cnet.com/news/music-lovers-with-crappy-audio-systems-maybe-theyre-right-after-all/#ftag=rss.audiophiliac.ftag

 

Something tells me that Guttenberg really doesn't buy into the intent of the title of his article...

 

Your thoughts?

 

Chris

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...about the prevalence of those that apparently don't care what their music sounds like--reproduced.

 

;)

 

Chris

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He's right about musicians hearing "their" part. They're listening to the technique, the timing, the effect of different pedals, whether the drummer and bass guy is truly synced up, and any number of other things that normal people just don't get. They're not intent listening to the texture of a copy of a recorded tone.

The guys I know tend to love the real thing. Stereo systems can offer merely a copy. Music coming through a stereo will never sound like a real tube guitar amp any more than gunshots will sound real in a theater room. Recordings can offer someones interpretation of what the real thing sounds like but it's just not the real thing. If they're going to spend time and money on music, the money is going to be spent on new gear, and the time is going to be spent practicing, not sitting there like an audiophile would, supposedly appreciating the tone of something that even in the best reproduction possible, will never be as sweet as their own amp.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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IMHO a true music lover enjoys music played on any device...while most including myself prefer better quality reproduction it is not a prerequisite to enjoying music..if it is again IMHO your a gear-o-phile not a music lover..nothing wrong with that but most will not admit it..

Edited by NOSValves
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He's right about musicians hearing "their" part. They're listening to the technique, the timing, the effect of different pedals, whether the drummer and bass guy is truly synced up, and any number of other things that normal people just don't get. They're not intent listening to the texture of a copy of a recorded tone.

The guys I know tend to love the real thing. Stereo systems can offer merely a copy. Music coming through a stereo will never sound like a real tube guitar amp any more than gunshots will sound real in a theater room. Recordings can offer someones interpretation of what the real thing sounds like but it's just not the real thing. If they're going to spend time and money on music, the money is going to be spent on new gear, and the time is going to be spent practicing, not sitting there like an audiophile would, supposedly appreciating the tone of something that even in the best reproduction possible, will never be as sweet as their own amp.

 

I sometimes wonder about musicians ability to critique music tonal quality as most of them that I know have ears that have been destroyed by constant loudness bombardment.

JJK

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A few years ago, the head of our music dept. called me to help set up a new tv and stereo at her house. She had a lightning strike and lost some components.

 

She had a funky, cheap particle board media center, that she took a hammer to just for the tv to fit. She had (and continued to use) her two speakers stacked one on top of the other in the corner.

 

Weird is all I can say. Most of the music faculty had boombox systems in their offices. :sad:

 

Bruce

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One of my longest and closest friends is huge fan of music with a eclectic but extremely wide palette of tastes.  His stereo is nothing to write home about, I can't even remember any of it offhand and  that's not the point; he is quite happy.  On the other hand, he spends boatloads of money every month on new music, something a lot of people don't do... especially on gear forums, including myself.  I said a while back on another forum that, truth be told, the music that plays from my current stereo may sound infinitely better than it did on the stereos of my youth.... but the level of enjoyment is the same on a basic level.

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As a musician, this is not a mystery to me. Music lovers hear things differently; hard to explain... The simple way to say it is:

 

Some hear sound more as music, where most others, including many audiophiles, hear music more as sound.

 

It's not black and white, but the main difference is in how it is perceived... hearing progression movements, chord types, melodic lines, harmonies, etc. from a musical recognition standpoint (as abstract internal representations with which music lovers are well familiar). This is heard in spite of the quality of the source, ... a nice system or a clock radio.

 

To put it another way, this whole question is like two people working a math problem with pencil and paper, the non-mathematician arguing that it would be better to use nicer paper and a better pencil... the mathematician seeing through the tools themselves to the beautiful idea beyond... 

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