Is this really a new problem? When I was a kid, my parents only had a cheap cassette player and Scott receiver with cheap speakers. They sounded like crap compared to my 2019 system but I still developed a love for all things music.
How many kids of my generation (born in the 60s) didn’t even have a source beyond a transistor or crystal radio?
I don’t believe anyone is ruined by listening to low fidelity music. I think many are ruined by eliminating good sources of music solely because they are low fidelity. I bet less than 1% of developed world population ever even think about sound quality and fewer do anything about it - we’re all in the very top %!
Spotify (good recordings do sound good) and YouTube (yeah, not much sounds very good at all) is exposing millions more to more content that has been possible in any generation prior. This should be heralded, not condemned.
Music exposure and exploration is so massively more important to human good than the reproduction quality.
I have no problem if they feel that is how music is suppose to sound. The reality is this is no different than back when I was growing up listening to AM, FM, 8 Tracks, Cassette, etc. Give me a music lover any day of the week instead of an Audiophile. If one loves listening to music once they get exposed to a good/great system they will be more keen to spending money on it.
Even the best sound system sounds little like an actual chamber orchestra, string quartet, even a solo guitar. It remains a pale reproduction.
We can love music as played by a cassette loaded with recordings of low bit-rate MP3’s and get just as much out of the experience as listening to a $100,000+ system.
I assume the point of your drawing is to say one needs to spend upwards of $500,000 to enjoy recordings? Well I guess no one should be listening to music because I’m sure 99%+ of the people here don’t qualify.
As I said before this is no different than when I was growing up. You just replace the 12.00 earbuds and .99 MP3 with AM/FM radio (or whatever).
I guess this the difference between being a Music Lover and an Audiophile.
Not particularly ironic, IMO - it is exactly the point Neil Young has been yelling about for years. Which is different from the question, “Can you enjoy music reproduced inexpensively?”
One of the fun and interesting bits of marketing for the Pono Kickstarter was when they let a group of under-30 folks plug their own headphones or earbuds they had with them into the Player and listen to the same music they had just been listening to, or were familiar with. There was a lot of “OMG!”- sort of eye-opening going on.
The point being that, even with “crappy earbuds”, people who had little or no experience with “hifi” could easily tell the difference. Sadly, the Pono Player didn’t fit into your pocket, and most of the music was not available in hires via bit torrent for free DL ; ). Kinda like what’s happening over on the Direct Sales thread (and kinda not, I know).
I agree with Neil. It doesn’t mean consumers can’t enjoy low bitrate audio, completely squashed and negligent recordings, or tape cassettes. A beat and melody is all many people need. However, nuance and dynamic range is essentially gone from the musical/auditory consciousness of our civilization. Whole generations have NEVER heard recorded music with greater than 10 decibels of dynamic range. People don’t even understand how much nuance and power can exist in music and generally view it as wallpaper or something to get them pumped on a jog. There will always be a role for cheap, low quality music and playback, but when that is 99.99% of what exists and listeners don’t even know what they aren’t hearing, this is a problem, and I think this is truly consciousness being dumbed down.
I am also saying this as a recording/mixing engineer. The production quality of modern music is extremely low, which is part in parcel with the rush towards low quality delivery. The argument in favor of the current auditory environment seems equivalent to “People love soap operas, so who needs Shakespeare?”
Humans adapt to all sorts of environments, and can find enjoyment in almost anything under the right circumstance. This can also be a bad thing as we often adapt to function in extremely poor quality environments and forget that better environments exist. In the last town I lived in a significant chunk of traffic was extremely loud diesel pickup trucks that you could hear for a mile away and that intentionally spit out clouds of exhaust on pedestrians. Maybe 2/3 of the people don’t even notice that their city is now fully of aggravating noise and air pollution from anti-social bros in monster vehicles, although I suspect it still effects them. The rest are agitated all the time, but unable to do anything about it because of the inertia from people who can more effectively adapt by turning off their senses. The last thing we need is a society where people are even more dulled and dumbed down.
Its inaccurate to make sweeping statements about what is right or wrong in music reproduction. People like us value high quality recordings presented at high bitrates on high end audio systems. That’s what’s important, and therefore, right to us.
Clearly the vast majority of the world could care less about all of that. They just want to hear their music any which way, their filter and priorities are different. That’s what’s right for them.
The key to all of this is enjoyment, however it’s delivered to the parts of our brains that react with enjoyment. I use this story often, but I guarantee my Hawaiian neighbors with their $100 boombox have as much fun listening to music as any audiophile on the planet. They don’t need all the expensive gear and high quality recordings to experience musical joy.
If we make joy the priority instead of bitrates and gear, then the equation looks quite different. And that joy is entirely individual. There is no right or wrong, its in the eye of the beholder. I absolutely enjoy my vast hi-res library played on a very nice system. Do I experience more joy listening to music than I did when I was a poor college student? The honest answer is no. Its really the same joy just reacting to different external stimuli.
Which brings us to the core. As with all things in life, the joy comes from within. Its the joy we bring to listening to music, be it on a $100K system or one costing $100, that will define the quality of our experience.
in 1956 when I was a teen, one of just a bunch of crazy fools. We had speaker less transistor radios. Our minds up filtered the music to audio quality. To quote Jimmy Stewart, “and we loved it!”
My point being, oops I just lost it with age.
Chas
@brett66 Crystal radio. Not many born in the 60’s or later even know what one is. Your mention took me back to assembling a Heathkit ham radio receiver when I was about 8 years old. I remember having to “tune” the crystal. I spent a lot of late nights scanning the bands with that radio. Thanks for the flashback.
Haha, mine was built from a simple parts list from long ago, a cat’s whisker radio. Built it for my radio merit badge about '78 or so. It was fun to sit in my tree fort up high on a clear night and tune in ‘Tokyo’ listening intently to a single earbud
I might have been 10 years old but no older. It was 1965 or so. My uncle was a ham radio operator. He got me interested. He had a huge beam antenna that was hand built. That got me interested in antenna theory and design. I did a lot of reading, built the radio kit, got some help building an Omni antenna and had a great time doing it. My uncle helped me learn to sort parts, read directions, solder, use a VOM, tune the pots.
The hardest part of the radio kit was stringing the indicator needle to the tuner and dial.
In between work and my kid’s Boot Camp Grad. I’ve been following this thread with a smile. So here’s my Son’s take on this whole audio quality thang that he see’s & hears me obsess over. A few years ago I got him two Bose Soundtouch 10’s at the Bose Store Anthem, AZ.It was 40% Off for a pair. Now I gave him my old Denon AVR-1802 receiver and a 10” homebrew Subwoofer and a simple car amp. He’s got an XBox One that he Streams with. Now I could have built him a pair of kick butt desktop Monitors but was lazy. Anyways, both him & I were shocked how “good” it sounded. A Twiddler with some DSP and Funky porting scheme sounded better I than I hoped. He’s also of the earbud/mp3/AAC Generation. Now he listens that Hippity Hoppety music that I don’t. But he also is a huge Jimi Hendrix/Gary Clark Jr. fan. Not to mention Beatles/Stones/Who fan. Prog Rock…nope…I tried. Yes ti always was a BAD IDEA.
Where the Hell am I going with this ? Sometimes he’ll sit on the Sofa with me and is impressed when I have Miles or Coltrane playing. I raised him right I guess. So then on Spotify we’ll cue up something he likes on Spotify Premium. While it’s playing, I’ll switch the same track on either Hi Bit Rate PCM/Red Book, or DSD/SACD. He gets that “Holy Shxt” moment. So whenever the Wife & I go away, he’s in the Living Room having some fun. So yes, he gets Hi quality Audio but for his lifestyle at this moment, he can do without a good quality setup.
I’m sure in a few years when he has a chance to slow down a bit, we’ll have another budding Audiophile in the works. He’s an Ex-Drummer too !
Well I guess no one should be listening to music because I’m sure 99%+ of the people here don’t qualify.
