# Let's talk about sound gear once again, and the need for cd or vynil?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Mp3 format has volume, decibel limitation , therefore thus said, you can't crank it up in headphones yah? so you most purchased original format cd or vynil and located your personnal gems, to blast them in your sound gear mine powerfull and decent.Except my cd playyer an used denon label thaat handle some cd and other he dosen't like most cd-r (jesus why?) but original format or quality cd-r or luck sometime they works.

I can tell you this , decibel abuse trought headphone whit a decent sound gear(arsenal) you get the music essence, you wont get this on a computer, i have pc in living room it sounds decent but not mundo see , for this i need sound gear reckless power.

Have a great & wonderful day folks :tiphat:


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

In my opinion, both CDs and vinyl are not ideal for classical music. Both have limitations as well. The limitations of vinyl are more hindering than CDs. You can only have ~20 minute per side, and you can't have dynamic contrast without having noticeable noise during quiet parts and/or distortion during loud parts. The only limitation of CDs is that they can only hold 1 hour and 20 minutes of audio to be able to play properly in CD players. That isn't a major problem because most pieces are less than that length, but there are a lot of pieces I love that are too long to fit on one CD (not just Feldman either), so it's arbitrarily chopped up and put onto multiple CDs.

As for volume levels, the speakers and headphones I use with my computer can easily reach ear-piercing levels, even without a pre-amp (which might be a good purchase for you). Volume being too quiet isn't a format problem as far as I know. Sometimes CDs are released with extremely quiet volume, and some recordings on YouTube are so quiet that I can hardly hear them with the volume turned up all the way. Also, it can be fun to listen to classical music super loud, but in real life it never gets to an ear-piercing level (speaking as someone who's played in orchestras at full volume in confined rooms).

It doesn't seem like a popular opinion around here, but I definitely prefer purely digital recordings. At least for Feldman, I can't tolerate his deliberately immense monolithic works being haphazardly hacked to pieces to fit on CDs. Sadly, to my knowledge, the only long piece of his that has been recorded and not hacked to pieces is the String Quartet No. 2. Aside from that I try to edit chopped up recordings so they flow together, but its not so easily reversed, and it's sometimes impossible.

I don't ever buy CDs (with one exception being a hand-painted remastered reissue box set of one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite bands), but I do like collecting vinyl for genres besides classical.


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## GrotesqueFugue (May 18, 2018)

CDs are an ideal format for domestic listening IMO, aside from the time constraints for certain larger pieces. Shouldn't be such an issue nowadays with good inherent speeds and lossless audio codecs making physical media less relevant for many, but there is nothing technically useful to be gained by going beyond the 16 bit format - this does limit total dynamic range, but not to an extent that will ever affect the listening experience in a domestic environment.
I still buy everything on CD as I like the physical presence of them, but that's all really.

To the OP: There is no inherent loudness limit in the MP3 format - the volume you hear depends partly on the recording, but also very much on the amplifier driving your headphones and the impedance that the headphones present to the amplifier. You may find that even a modest headphone amp improves this for you, although the better you can hear it the more likely you are to notice that it generally sounds awful even at higher bit rates 
It may still be useful for portable listening where storage space is limited and sound quality doesn't matter much, but otherwise I'd avoid it. 
There is no reason you can't get a good sound from a PC - just need a reasonable interface (even a modest one will make a huge difference compared to the onboard sound card) and to choose the right encoding format for the music, and it should be just as good as a CD player


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

CDs are still great for me and I buy plenty every month. 80 minutes of fine sound is a blessing compared to LPs - no hiss, no scratches, warps, inner-groove distortion. Yes, there are some things that can't fit on one CD. It takes two LPs for Mahler's 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th. Each of those, except 3, can fit on one CD. Early CDs were quite short, I have some Telarcs that have only 30-40 minutes or so. 

The Decca releases on Blu Ray have been exciting - the Solti Ring on ONE disk. Amazing! I wish the demand were greater for these products; I can imagine a lot of other wonderful Blu Ray releases which would sure open up some shelf space. The Solti Mahler set just cries out for that treatment.

Mp3 can sound good, but not for headphones. In my car they sound fine. The Nimbus Haydn symphony set is on mp3 encoded cds and I defy anyone to tell the difference between those and the regular cd edition.


Yes, you can get great sound from a PC. As I write this I'm listening to the BBC Proms 1 through the Radio 3 website. The sound card has a lineout that I run through the Onkyo home theater system and it sounds absolutely terrific!


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> Mp3 can sound good, but not for headphones. In my car they sound fine. The Nimbus Haydn symphony set is on mp3 encoded cds and I defy anyone to tell the difference between those and the regular cd edition.
> 
> Yes, you can get great sound from a PC. As I write this I'm listening to the BBC Proms 1 through the Radio 3 website. The sound card has a lineout that I run through the Onkyo home theater system and it sounds absolutely terrific!


I convert all my music down to a fairly low bitrate mp3 that would make a hipster scream, but as a musician, composer, producer, sound engineer, etc., I say that it still sounds great. I go for small size over quality when it comes to music files except when I'm in the process of producing/recording.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

When I grew up into music, during the 1960s and 1970s, people spent oodles of money on sound equipment to listen to analog recordings. Many classical labels of the time were very good and vinyl was still de rigeur in the period. The CD came around in the 1980s and dominated everything. Once digital advances arrived in the 1990s and 2000s, super audio helped CDs sound better if you had super audio equipment and at least a 5.1 system (the .1 being a subwoofer.)

Was this ever realistic? Yes, it was realistic; it was even better than real, the main problem I've had with music since the digital revolution. If you go to a concert and hear music, then play the same music at home, it sounds different at home. Some people think this is "better." I'm not so sure.

Today, with people listening to streaming and downloads on phones and ear buds I wonder what they think about music at all. One of the great failings of the latter is that music is meant to be heard in space. This is why some concert halls are very famous and why others are given bland marks by listeners.

I think if you want to know what music sounds like, go to concerts that take place in some kind of concert hall. If you don't care, listen through your computer, stereo, phone or any other way. Just don't delude yourself into thinking electronic means in the 2010s is what music sounds like in concert or what it sounded like to Beethoven in 1720. To me, this is like thinking texting is an actual replacement for conversation. It's not and it has degraded it. I feel it pretty much the same with what the world has done to classical music listening.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

larold said:


> When I grew up into music, during the 1960s and 1970s, people spent oodles of money on sound equipment to listen to analog recordings. Many classical labels of the time were very good and vinyl was still de rigeur in the period. The CD came around in the 1980s and dominated everything. Once digital advances arrived in the 1990s and 2000s, super audio helped CDs sound better if you had super audio equipment and at least a 5.1 system (the .1 being a subwoofer.)
> 
> Was this ever realistic? Yes, it was realistic; it was even better than real, the main problem I've had with music since the digital revolution. If you go to a concert and hear music, then play the same music at home, it sounds different at home. Some people think this is "better." I'm not so sure.
> 
> ...


Definitely. There's no comparison between an acoustic performance and a recorded performance. That's why I always try to evaluate a piece of classical music by the intentions of the composer rather than the sound produced which may be marred by bad sound quality or acoustics. It's even a bit of a shame when instruments are amplified for a performance.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Well, of course you're right. No home music system can ever replace a live concert. There are sensations and nuances that cannot be captured by microphones - a spatial presence is missing. But have you heard a good binaural recording? It's frightening how realistic it sounds. What you don't get it the physical power of a bass drum or organ and such. 

I don't delude myself that a recording sounds the same as a concert, but in some cases recordings sound better! There's no audience participation noise: no coughing, talking, candy unwrapping. No cell phones ringing. And a well recorded disk can reveal orchestral details that are completely lost in live performances. Try Elgar or Mahler if you don't believe it. And for my money, recordings offer a wealth of repertoire that is never going to happen in live performance. Think of the glorious symphonies that no one will ever produce live - but thankfully I can hear them recorded.

I subscribe to the Berlin Philharmonic concerts and watch them on Roku. Is it as good as being there live? Nope, but it's still thrilling and worth every penny. I just wish that more orchestras would follow their lead. I'd love to subscribe to Boston, London Symphony, Concertgebouw. In 5.1 Surround Sound Berlin is surprisingly effective.


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## vmartell (Feb 9, 2017)

Well - the OP titled it "gear" so let's talk gear first

First of all, complete and utter Schiithead.

Main system - Components

DAC: Gungnir Multibit (Gumby)
USB: Eytr
Headphone Amp: Mjolnir 2 
PreAmp: Freya
Phono Stage: Mani
Amp: Vidar (1 in stereo mode)
Speakers: ELAC Uni-Fi FS U5 Slim (2X)

Main System - Sources
Turntable: Pioneer PLX-1000
Cartridges: Revolving cast of Nagaokas, ATs, Shure and Ortofons
CD/SACD/Bluray: Oppo UDP-205
Digital: MacBook Pro running JRiver MediaCenter 24

Desktop System - Components
DAC: Modi 2 Multibit (Mimby)
USB: Eytr
Headphone Amp: Magni 3

Desktop System - Sources
Digital: Dell Precision 7510 running JRiver MediaCenter 24 

Work System - Components
DAC: Modi 2 (Delta-Sigma)
USB: Wyrd
Headphone Amp: Vali 2

Work System - Sources
Digital: Dell Precision 7710 running JRiver MediaCenter 24 


And for all of the above:

Headphones: Revolving cast of Beyerdynamics, Grados, HiFi Man and AKGs
Cables: Monoprice because cables make absolutely no difference.

Plus Nitty Gritty and SpinClean record cleaners.

Records are clean and in good condition - I do not tolerate crackle pops so I don't have them. That said, my classical LP collection is relatively small . Like I said records are in perfect condition but you still notice when you switch to digital (Jazz, Prog Rock sound fabulous, though). That said, take for example Speaker's Corner excellent remastered pressing of Jochum's performance of Carmina Burana on DG - FANTASTIC - sounds so great, a room shaking experience, warm and nasty - If there is surface noise, crackles or pops, nobody that listens to this LP is bound the notice - great cover art, which they turned into a gatefold. Beautiful thing to hold in your hand.

I came of age during the CD era, so I amassed a great amount of CDs - I lowball it at around 5000. Even though for a while I did not have a system, so for many years, my listening was done using iPod Classics (2X) and decent Sony dual driver earbuds. But ripping was taking to long, so did not do it often. Very limited listening.

That sad state of affairs (iPod listening) lasted for a while. Then I got the vinyl bug. That lead to getting the system with a final state described as above. Remember the 5K CDs? They were languishing until I decided to get the CD (universal) player. FANTASTIC. It was like getting 5K new CDs at the same time!

I still listen and buy CDs, well, SACDs if I can - the concept of either buying "air" (digital files) or insulting the artist by turning music into a utility (streaming) is completely anathema to me. However, the highest resolution music is only available as a download buy, so I do that once in a while.


My order of preference is 1.- SACD - 2.- CD - 3.- Vinyl/Files (tie).

Regarding live music - I will confess, even though I live in L.A. there are two problems - 1) extremely busy working and being a taxi service for the kids and 2) hate dudamel, so I don't go to concerts often. I have to also confess that I am so used to recordings that it takes me some time to appreciate live sound - I need to adjust to it! 

That is all - this is getting too long, will leave further details to replies if applicable and if they happen.

v


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I’ve been ripping CDs to a NAS, and the main thing I notice is that having my music on a tablet encourages frivolity. The very ease of access encourages short attention spans, and I have a much greater tendency to not finish a track and want to hear something else. At least with physical media one actually has to do the work of changing an lp, CD, or tape, which discourages rapid fire changes, and then one reaps the rewards of being patient. So while I continue to archive my collection, I still prefer discs for the actual listening


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Fredx2098 said:


> I convert all my music down to a fairly low bitrate mp3 that would make a hipster scream, but as a musician, composer, producer, sound engineer, etc., I say that it still sounds great. I go for small size over quality when it comes to music files except when I'm in the process of producing/recording.


I have been quite satisfied with my music on 128 kbps mp3 files. I once tried 64 kbps and there was some bad stuff happening to the sound.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> Well, of course you're right. No home music system can ever replace a live concert.


I went to a couple of live telecasts of the LA Phil at a local theater, when they were doing those. It was a big space, with a Dolby THX whatever sound system, a few thousand watts, professionally tuned, etc. The sound was not as good as at the concert hall, it was better! Of course the equipment alone probably cost more than my house…

Now that would be a nice "home theater" to have, but it just ain't gonna happen.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Fritz Kobus said:


> I have been quite satisfied with my music on 128 kbps mp3 files. I once tried 64 kbps and there was some bad stuff happening to the sound.


I remember reading a study that concluded that any difference in audio above 128kbps is imperceptible. I decided not to go with the lowest quality possible, but go the extra mile and convert to ~160kbps VBR mp3  But yeah I can definitely hear wonky stuff happening lower than 128kbps. It's ridiculous how some people pretend like 320kbps mp3 is low quality. I've seen downloads for single-LP-length albums that are several gigabytes. It's pretty absurd.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I can't hear ANY difference between a 256K VBR MP3 and a CD. But I'm getting along in years any my ears certainly aren't what they once were.

A direct WAV file, bit-for-bit, from a CD is about 700 MB. A FLAC file that can be decoded losslessly to the same is about half that. There's no point, even given the most wild-eyed theories, to go beyond that!


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## les24preludes (May 1, 2018)

I'm another musician and not as young as I once was (surprise, surprise...). I do a lot of listening on YouTube through my pretty sophisticated audiophile tube system and when the rest of the equipment is good it's fine for casual listening, usually when I'm working and music is in the background. But for serious listening I still buy the odd CD and rip it to my external hard disc. I have the storage available, so I prefer lossless, but as said above I don't see any reason to go beyond CD redbook standard. Might be nice, but the audio world isn't set up for hi-rez in practical terms. All my music, TV, Internet etc goes through my Mac Pro and I use iTunes for the convenience of the playlists. I couldn't live without playlists. My Chopin Mazurka playlist uses at least 12 pianists and I have "best version" playlists for a lot of works with multiple items like Preludes, Etudes etc. 

I abandoned LP years ago, sold my several thousand LPs and never regretted it. My CDs are stored away after I've ripped them to my hard disc, and all this brings the storage down to low levels - which is necessary when you live in inner city apartments.


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## vmartell (Feb 9, 2017)

I made a lengthy post describing my gear, my audio history and philosophy re audio and classical, including vinyl - hope it will show up - If this post shows up, then there is some bug in the forum when posting using "Go Advanced" - I think it has happened to me in the past. Ah well.



Fredx2098 said:


> IIt's ridiculous how some people pretend like 320kbps mp3 is low quality. I've seen downloads for single-LP-length albums that are several gigabytes. It's pretty absurd.


If you want a fun couple of days - I invite you to go to any audiophile forum and post this ! Grab the popcorn and watch. 



KenOC said:


> I can't hear ANY difference between a 256K VBR MP3 and a CD. But I'm getting along in years any my ears certainly aren't what they once were.
> 
> A direct WAV file, bit-for-bit, from a CD is about 700 MB. A FLAC file that can be decoded losslessly to the same is about half that. There's no point, even given the most wild-eyed theories, to go beyond that!


First of all, I am an skeptic with engineering training - so I will be the first one to admit that any human, least of all myself, is capable if hearing a difference, if any.

That said, I prefer hi-res - *on principle* - meaning the argument for hi-res files is, hmm, kind of artistic, and consumer rights related, as opposed to an audio/hearing related argument.

The mp3 is a degraded product. Again, I won't even try to test myself - the result will probably be that I won't hear a difference. However in principle I cannot accept a degraded product. MP3 was necessary necessary back in 1995, *20 years ago*, when storage size and speeds were a fraction of what they are now.

These days, the consumer deserves a product as close to the master as possible. Hi-res files gives us that. Simple. Lemme tell you - recently I bought Manfred Honneck's Shostakovich 5 + Barber on Reference Recordings, at DSD256 - download size came to 10GB - it only took 10 mins to download and it only moved the centesimal digit on my NAS usage - nothing.

So no need anymore to accept a degraded product. As a consumer I want it, whether I can hear the difference with Amazon Music's 256kbps mp3s or not.


v


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

It seems like "high bit rate enthusiasts" (don't know what else to call them) don't seem to understand that acoustics, recording equipment, production, and playback equipment are monumentally more important than bit rate when it comes to how "good" a recording sounds. You just need enough bits to create a continuous wave in the air, and after that there are extremely diminishing returns.

In my experience YouTube is extremely hit-or-miss, especially for classical music. It seems like more miss than hit. Some recordings are good, but others sound like a glitchy robot having a stroke.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Fredx2098 said:


> In my experience YouTube is extremely hit-or-miss, especially for classical music. It seems like more miss than hit. Some recordings are good, but others sound like a glitchy robot having a stroke.


The quality of the YouTube audio depends on the video resolution used:
240p -> 64 kbps
720p and above -> 192 kbps
Between the above ->128 kbps

A fair number of YouTube videos use 240p so the audio bitrates are going to be low.


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## les24preludes (May 1, 2018)

Fredx2098 said:


> ...acoustics, recording equipment, production, and playback equipment are monumentally more important than bit rate when it comes to how "good" a recording sounds.


And how innately musical the engineer and producer are. I had friends in the ECM studios in Oslo and one evening a bunch of us listened to the award winning master tapes of Keith Jarrett with his Scandinavian quartet. The engineer was Jan Erik Kongshaug and the drummer, Jon Christensen, was with us in the studio. Listening and talking and playing the kit in the studio, the thing that stood out more than anything else was how exceptionally musical Jan Erik was. He's a good guitarist, by the way. The drums were set up, mic'd up and mixed beautifully - there was clearly an art to it. Nothing to do with fancy cables or esoteric hardware. It was a human factor that made the difference, plus the quality of the actual instruments. The studio Steinway was ravishingly good.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

les24preludes said:


> And how innately musical the engineer and producer are. I had friends in the ECM studios in Oslo and one evening a bunch of us listened to the award winning master tapes of Keith Jarrett with his Scandinavian quartet. The engineer was Jan Erik Kongshaug and the drummer, Jon Christensen, was with us in the studio. Listening and talking and playing the kit in the studio, the thing that stood out more than anything else was how exceptionally musical Jan Erik was. He's a good guitarist, by the way. The drums were set up, mic'd up and mixed beautifully - there was clearly an art to it. Nothing to do with fancy cables or esoteric hardware. It was a human factor that made the difference, plus the quality of the actual instruments. The studio Steinway was ravishingly good.


Definitely, that's why it's good to be everything at once! I'm fascinated with every aspect of music, sound, and the recording/producing process. I've never recorded any classical music sadly (except with my phone, which I do not count...). One of my dreams is to have my own recording studio or to work in one as both a producer and sound engineer (and musician for my own music). I'm strongly influenced by Steve Albini's recording techniques for rock music. Actually, my own ideal technique is even simpler. I like to use only two mics in an XY setup to record an entire group playing live. That's probably the technique I would use for classical music as well.

This might be a better question for its own thread, but does anyone know if it's appropriate to offer to record a small-scale performance? I'm going to a performance of not one but two Feldman pieces for *FREE* in Chicago at a small venue (a church I think), and it would be amazing if I could record them.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_It seems like "high bit rate enthusiasts" (don't know what else to call them) don't seem to understand that acoustics, recording equipment, production, and playback equipment are monumentally more important than bit rate when it comes to how "good" a recording sounds._

I think I'd restate this differently: they don't understand that the reproduction has become more important than what is being reproduced -- or the music, the point of it all. And in a larger sense the reproduction has replaced artistry and discernment. This was once the point of music listening and collecting.

I'm not saying this is new to millennials. When I was young a fellow named Marshall McLuhan came forth with an interesting theory based on the cliché that "the massage is the medium." I saw a demonstration of this in a class in college; essentially the technology -- or the "massage" (often mixed up with message -- replaced whatever was supposed to be the message or point of the presentation.

So it's been coming a long time, probably at least back to Stokowski using reverb chambers and other gimmicks to produce monophonic LPs in the 1950s. I can't say I've been immune to all this because I adore Stoki's recordings from the 1950s far more than his later stereo stuff. London produced a bunch of recordings in the 1960s called Phase 4 which used as many as 20 microphones, mixed everything up in a studio, then redid it in recordings where a flute or guitar could overwhelm an entire orchestra.

I've seen every new technology -- from 78s to LPs to cassette to reel-to-reel to CD to download to streaming to portable players and computer storage -- become more important than the music it is replicating. The addiction to new technology somewhat blinds people to what they are consuming.

I haven't reached a point where I don't trust modern recordings but am skeptical of everything. In a way I better trust 78s and old LPs as representations of sound than I do modern recordings which are made perfect every time around.

I once saw a program about singers where a guy said he only listened to Caruso on 78s because, "That way I know I am hearing Caruso."


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

larold said:


> _It seems like "high bit rate enthusiasts" (don't know what else to call them) don't seem to understand that acoustics, recording equipment, production, and playback equipment are monumentally more important than bit rate when it comes to how "good" a recording sounds._
> 
> I think I'd restate this differently: they don't understand that the reproduction has become more important than what is being reproduced -- or the music, the point of it all. And in a larger sense the reproduction has replaced artistry and discernment. This was once the point of music listening and collecting.
> 
> ...


I agree with this mostly, however there does seem to be a group of people who have an elitist attitude about listening to massive lossless files instead of mp3s. None of them seem to seriously interested in the music; they just feel some placebo effect because the term "higher quality" sounds attractive to a person who doesn't know how pointless that is past a certain point.

But speaking of analog media, one of the biggest drawbacks aside from time constraints is that they degrade over time. The more you play it, the worse the quality gets. Depending on how old and mistreated the records/tapes are, they could sound like a ready-made musique concrète piece.

In terms of properly interpreting a piece of classical music, I'd rank from best to worst: thinking about the pure concept of the score if you have that level of musical ability, hearing a live performance, digital recordings, CDs with time constraints, and analog media. Each of those can sound as good or better than any other depending on other factors, but it gets less practical and harder to get right as it goes down that list.

The current societal aspects of music in popular culture really make me sad. I just try not to think about it, because no one can stop me from enjoying the music I enjoy, the way I want to enjoy it.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2018)

You haven't lived till you've had tinnitus.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

dogen said:


> You haven't lived till you've had tinnitus.


As a drummer/percussionist...... WHAT? SPEAK UP!


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## les24preludes (May 1, 2018)

dogen said:


> You haven't lived till you've had tinnitus.


Don't......... there are musicians reading this!


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

dogen said:


> You haven't lived till you've had tinnitus.


I get ringing in my ears, so maybe tinnitus, but usually don't notice it--probably because am most always listening to music on an earbud.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I would suggest we often do the best we can to hear something, and that our judgment about what we hear (sound quality-wise) has a lot to do with our own preferences. Subjectivity.

We can talk about "live music" being different from recorded sound. And it is. But "live music" one day (in one venue, by one performer, by a certain instrument ... etc.) compared with that of another day (venue, performer, instrument ... etc.) will differ. And not _every _performance will be ideal.

Forget cables and microphones and processors and tonmeisters for a moment. Consider something as fundamental as the instrument itself. If the acoustic guitar sounds lousy, the "live" performance will likely sound lousy. Recording manipulations may actually improve things. But often a lousy performance, whatever the reason, will still please us if we like the song, the musician, the environment .... So much is subjective.

Tinnitus aside, even ears affect how sounds are heard. I note that if I push the backs of my ears forward I hear everything quite differently than when my ears are in their "natural" position. I suspect folks with big, forward facing ears hear everything differently than those with small, stubby close to the head and side-parallel ears. Maybe headphones equalize this, but stereo speakers won't. Nor will any amount of production. Not if the positioning of ears has something to do with quality of perception.

And of course equipment will always alter sound. I notice differences when I change the tubes in my amp. Let alone the CD deck, the turntable cartridge, the line filter. (I plug my devices into a Panamax. The single greatest improvement I've ever noticed in an equipment change in my system was when I first added an electrical line filter. The improvement was profound: the silences darker, the dynamics sharper, the timbres more real, the spatiality -- soundstage -- more expanded and real seeming. I no longer needed to push at my ears!)

So, when we all discuss quality of sound, let us remember that it is all rather subjective. I understand that the producer and engineer attempt in a recording to capture the "live" sound they hear in the concert or in the studio, but I wonder what positioning their ears have on their heads. Will I hear what they heard?

And of course a lot depends upon the instruments and music genre. Electric guitars plugged into amps are already a subjective distortion in comparison to, say, an acoustic guitar. Microphones make so big a difference. There's that recording on, I believe, a STEREOPHILE set-up disc where the producer records his voice over a number of different microphones to demonstrate the great differences in the sound. It's all so artificial, right up to the roofing beams of the concert hall. No one concert hall sounds the same as any other.

Thus, to continue arguments about which is preferable: vinyl, silver discs, enhanced silver discs, or downloads of whatever bit-rate seems almost absurd. If you like what you hear, if you enjoy the performance, what difference does it make?

Sure, I try to achieve a "quality sound" with my playback equipment, and I've acquired some formidable devices to assist in that achievement. And sure, I tend to prefer a pristine LP disc sound over that of a CD of the same material. But not always. And sound changes even from one LP or CD to another of the same music, especially of different releases. Sometimes a new remastering will improve the sound I know; sometimes it does not. Too much remains subjective.

And like many of you, as I age I suspect my hearing is changing. Though it's hard to tell from one day to the next. Fortunately I have not suffered (yet) from tinnitus. But I intuit that I'm hearing Beethoven's Fifth differently today than I once did. Still, I like the music and so will continue to access my various mechanical renditions of this music (some several dozen discs at present) on the various playback equipment available to me, and I shall continue to visit the concert hall when I can to hear this music. (I've heard two performances at Heinz Hall with the PSO in the past couple of years.)

So much could be said here, but I prefer to listen to music. And I'll do so today without pushing forward on my ears.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

The differences I'm talking about are mostly related to practicality. With vinyl, you have 40 minutes of music on a 12" disk. With CDs, you have 80 minutes of music on a smaller disk. With digital files, you can have hundreds of hours of music ready to play instantly on your phone (unless you have superfluously high bit rate files), not including streaming websites or apps. And they all reproduce sound just as well, so it comes down to the physical factors in my opinion. I think vinyl colors the sound a little in a pleasant way, at least for some genres like hardcore punk and certain kinds of electronic music. I don't think it sounds good for classical music though; I don't want it to be colored. Not to mention that a vast quantity of classical music can't fit on vinyl properly. I buy vinyl as collector's items for my favorite albums and/or because I like the way it colors the sound. On the other hand, I can't see a reason to buy CDs unless they're some special edition, because they're just digital files put onto a physical disk. I think digital files are the best for both casual and serious listening, and vinyl is good for collecting or having a slightly different sound quality. Of course people are free to think otherwise, but I think my point stands up to scrutiny.


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## vmartell (Feb 9, 2017)

I had a couple of posts that got delayed - they showed up now, but in the past, not at the latest end of the thread - just wanted to bump them here so you fine people can see them and comment - I am curious of your opinion... although from reading what came after my post, I suspect what it would be...

here they are

Let's talk about sound gear once again, and the need for cd or vynil?
Let's talk about sound gear once again, and the need for cd or vynil?

thnx!

v


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