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How Do You Listen To Music?


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On 16/04/2017 at 7:16 AM, Rudi said:

 

The key of A?

I would love to play in the key of A.

Those saxaphones only ever want to play in B flat.

 

 

Bar stewards!

 

Robash. If 10,000 out of 10,000 people hear different things. Does it really matter what a musician produces?  Obviously, you can't please all of the people all of the time!

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16 hours ago, Steve said:

Robash. If 10,000 out of 10,000 people hear different things. Does it really matter what a musician produces?  Obviously, you can't please all of the people all of the time!

 

 I've been kicking this thought around too Steve. The manufacturers dish out some pretty bad stuff at lower price points. How many people buy those 5$ headphones at 5 Below? ( it's a chain here in the states). I dare say most parents are buying that for their kids and most college students are buying that because they are on a budget and the goal is to hear music in your ears..not much more thought goes into it. The manufacturers give us tone controls as a pacifier to make us feel like we have total control of the sound. Add to this the mp3 and what we have now is probably much worse than what we had 30 years ago. High quality can still be had, but at a price not many want to pay.

 

I compare it to my recent coffee roasting venture. I can go buy 1lb of no name coffee at the store for 4.00. For some people that's good enough. If you drink the really good stuff you'll know there is a huge difference. The cheap coffee was sourced from the lowest quality beans coming from the worst growing areas and the worst strains of coffee bushes.

I seek out green beans imported from the very best areas and the very best strains and hybrid plants, grown organically with no chemicals. I then roast it to the exact best flavor.

You simply won't get a better cup of coffee or espresso, especially if you buy it fresh roasted, grind the beans and make it right away. Yet how many coffee drinkers will go to a micro roaster and buy that coffee? As a percentage, very few will. The chain store price on average 4.99-7.99 for 1 lb. The micro roaster price on average 12.00-15.00 for 12 ounces or less. I don't see the venture being profitable long term unless I cater to a select group of buyer and advertise that I'm there. 

 

I see the music/audio industry as being very similar. The consumer has been conditioned to think of music as a thing they can get for cheap or free both in terms of the music and the gear used to play it. How can we add more value to music? The best we can do is make good music and mix it to sound the best it can sound on those cheap inexpensive consumer systems.

 

What the consumer thinks really doesn't change the heart of a true musician. They will still make music because they like to  make music. The rest of it could go to hell and they will be sitting somewhere with a guitar making music. So we have the problems, what are the answers? Someone had to work hard to make pretty much everything we enjoy possible, yet we seldom acknowledge it.

 

This is a good time for a plug for John and SS...if you can contribute please do so. It takes a lot of effort and time to keep a website alive. I can tell you as a website owner it isn't a cash cow, far from it.

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3 hours ago, starise said:

I then roast it to the exact best flavor.

You simply won't get a better cup of coffee or espresso, especially if you buy it fresh roasted, grind the beans and make it right away. Yet how many coffee drinkers will go to a micro roaster and buy that coffee?

 

I sometimes grind the Kenco granules to a finer powder with the back of my spoon. I used to think this didnt make any difference, and I still do.

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Rudy you're drinking mp3 quality coffee You might end up like this guy-:vuur1:

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I know. You're shocked to discover that I'm so unsofistikated. 

 

I am making progress though. I have actual wine glasses now. I cant remember  the last time I necked straight from the bottle.

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55 minutes ago, Rudi said:

I am making progress though. I have actual wine glasses now. I cant remember  the last time I necked straight from the bottle.

 

Drinking from the bottle  helps the environment. Drinking directly from the bottle saves dirtying and washing a glass. You save money because you don't need to buy a glass. Not washing glasses saves precious water going to the loo drain and saves time in the kitchen. Rudi drinking from the bottle was genius. The only reason we buy glasses is there are women around. That also covers everything else, walking erect, wearing clothes, bathing etc.

 

This has to be true. I read it on the internet. :violinplay1:

 

 

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Why do you think I bought the wine glasses? I am hoping to entice women into my house.

 

I bought a vacuum cleaner too. I'm sure it works. Its got a plug on it.

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On 19/04/2017 at 1:48 PM, starise said:

 

 I've been kicking this thought around too Steve. The manufacturers dish out some pretty bad stuff at lower price points. How many people buy those 5$ headphones at 5 Below? ( it's a chain here in the states). I dare say most parents are buying that for their kids and most college students are buying that because they are on a budget and the goal is to hear music in your ears..not much more thought goes into it. The manufacturers give us tone controls as a pacifier to make us feel like we have total control of the sound. Add to this the mp3 and what we have now is probably much worse than what we had 30 years ago. High quality can still be had, but at a price not many want to pay.

 

I compare it to my recent coffee roasting venture. I can go buy 1lb of no name coffee at the store for 4.00. For some people that's good enough. If you drink the really good stuff you'll know there is a huge difference. The cheap coffee was sourced from the lowest quality beans coming from the worst growing areas and the worst strains of coffee bushes.

I seek out green beans imported from the very best areas and the very best strains and hybrid plants, grown organically with no chemicals. I then roast it to the exact best flavor.

You simply won't get a better cup of coffee or espresso, especially if you buy it fresh roasted, grind the beans and make it right away. Yet how many coffee drinkers will go to a micro roaster and buy that coffee? As a percentage, very few will. The chain store price on average 4.99-7.99 for 1 lb. The micro roaster price on average 12.00-15.00 for 12 ounces or less. I don't see the venture being profitable long term unless I cater to a select group of buyer and advertise that I'm there. 

 

I see the music/audio industry as being very similar. The consumer has been conditioned to think of music as a thing they can get for cheap or free both in terms of the music and the gear used to play it. How can we add more value to music? The best we can do is make good music and mix it to sound the best it can sound on those cheap inexpensive consumer systems.

 

What the consumer thinks really doesn't change the heart of a true musician. They will still make music because they like to  make music. The rest of it could go to hell and they will be sitting somewhere with a guitar making music. So we have the problems, what are the answers? Someone had to work hard to make pretty much everything we enjoy possible, yet we seldom acknowledge it.

 

This is a good time for a plug for John and SS...if you can contribute please do so. It takes a lot of effort and time to keep a website alive. I can tell you as a website owner it isn't a cash cow, far from it.

 

This is true about making it sound as good as possible on cheap headphones. I have heard some recordings that sound terrible on everything you play it on and then I've heard some recordings that sound amazing, no matter what you play it on.

 

Tim I know you use Izotope Ozone and although I have the essentials one, I still think some of the mastering options are excellent, so there really is no reason for someone to produce a song and have it sound great on a budget.

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OK you guys are going over my head.

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16 hours ago, Richard Tracey said:

This is true about making it sound as good as possible on cheap headphones. I have heard some recordings that sound terrible on everything you play it on and then I've heard some recordings that sound amazing, no matter what you play it on.

 

Tim I know you use Izotope Ozone and although I have the essentials one, I still think some of the mastering options are excellent, so there really is no reason for someone to produce a song and have it sound great on a budget.

 

True Dat.

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I think ears and your brain adapt to what you subject them to!  I have a pair of high end Sennheiser heaphones that I use at home. But when I travel, I use a cheap pair of headphones. When I first put them on, the sound is pretty average to say the least! But after a few tracks, my brain has adapted to the sound and everything sounds great!

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16 minutes ago, Steve said:

I think ears and your brain adapt to what you subject them to!  I have a pair of high end Sennheiser heaphones that I use at home. But when I travel, I use a cheap pair of headphones. When I first put them on, the sound is pretty average to say the least! But after a few tracks, my brain has adapted to the sound and everything sounds great!

 

I experience just that scenario every time I play my old records. On the first song it sounds pretty cruddy, but by song two I don't really notice.

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24 minutes ago, Steve said:

I think ears and your brain adapt to what you subject them to!  I have a pair of high end Sennheiser heaphones that I use at home. But when I travel, I use a cheap pair of headphones. When I first put them on, the sound is pretty average to say the least! But after a few tracks, my brain has adapted to the sound and everything sounds great!

 

The same thing happens with cheap wine.

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1 hour ago, Steve said:

I drink Tea.

 

 

 

And wine. :)

 

 

Lots of wine.

 

I wine, sometimes my wife wines too.

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15 hours ago, RobAsh15 said:

 

Amazing how a sample or three can so readily entice me to buy one or two bottles of wine. Not sure how that correlates, but it does seem to occur on a regular basis.

 

 

 

Its only what happens in pubs/bars. You nip in for a quick beer, but stay for several.

 

Tim's thread now entirely de-railed. Sorry man! :blush:

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Audio equipment.

It's still makes me wonder why or how Bang & Olufsen have survived.

 

I remember as a kid going around to various Hi Fi stores.  B&O had mediocre sound quality compared to everything in those shops.  Yet they sold surprisingly well.   It was all about looks.  The systems looked pretty   So it's not always about price point.  

 

My Brother in law spends a lot of money on home theater systems.  He has several to choose from for watching / listening pleasure.  Often I think he keeps them around to show off how many he has. I'll never understand why one room needs four distinctly different audio systems.  He's not in the music / television production industry, he's an investment consultant. like....... Bernie Madoff

 

 

 

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My ears are not as good as they were. MP3 seems fine most of the time. I no longer have high end gear. Well.... I still have my 30 year old Mordaunt Short speakers, but they just serve as stands for the much smaller Denons.

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Wha?? Wine? Hops? OK. 

 

FWIW I don't necessarily think we need high end gear to listen casually although for me just knowing I'm missing some of it bothers me. A high bitrate mp3, say 320kbps is a decent file.I wouldn't ever want to mix with an mp3. I've done it and the result is usually way less than what I wanted. a 128 mp3 compared to a 16/44.1 audio file or higher is a BIG difference. At 128mbps you start to get artifacts and they take out a lot of the bass information and some of the mids.You end up with tinnier sounding version of the original. Compare the two side by side and you'll notice a difference. Even with old ears :)

 

For casual background listening I probably wouldn't tell the difference because I'm not really listening intently to the music.

 

For mixing I want something I can trust like decent studio monitors in a space I, at the very least , understand the limitations of. Knowing the limitations has helped me a lot. Having said that I'm not Mr. Wonder Boy mixer. I'm still learning it. I recently listened to some mixes several years old. They sound dull and aren't mixed loud enough. I'm tempted to go back and remix at least a half dozen of my tracks,.

 

Rob, Rudi, I highly recommend Apothic Red.You can get it in the UK. I'm not really a  drinker per se, I seen it ruin two generations before me. I do like the occasional sip of a decent wine. I've tasted just about every decent beer known to man and I can't really develop any great appreciation for most of it.I might have one of the common ones here mass produced in the states on a hot day. The dark chocolate almost black gut rot they call beer. I don't care for it. When I seldom drink a beer  I'm more inclined toward a wheat or Pilsner. I don't care for anything too "hoppy" tasting. There's a local brewery right down the road from me, Victory Brewing .They make a beer they call " Hop Devil". If you like hops you would probably love that one.

 

 

 

 

 

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Wine: apothic red. Ok I'll give it a whirl. I usually avoid Californian and French wines. Californian often tastes ok at first sip, then artificial aftertaste. French? They only export the stuff they dont want. I dont want it usually either.

 

I'll give you a report on the apothic red when I've tried it Tim. -Better be good! :angry2:

 

Ears. I would never choose to listen to mu0isc on studio speakers. That goes for headphones and NFMs. Too sterile. I had some Pioneer phones some 30 years ago that made everything sound great. I bought another pair when the originals wore out. I bet a sound engineer would know what it was made em sound like that.

 

Beer. Until I was 40 I hardly touched lager. I was into uk style real ales. Yes the hoppy stuff. That gig we played at the Wickham Beer Festival, and they gave us flagons of beer to take home at the end (they couldnt store it) was fantastic.

 

These days I do drink lager at home. Stella Artoise or Fosters usually. I also like to have Guiness on hand. Guiness Original if its out of  can.

Out and about in pubs, its still bitter beer usually.

 

No I have not been drunk for more years than I care to remember.

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