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What do you listen to music on?
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Cheeky_Chappie
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by Yosemite:
“"Wean them off" ...

It's certainly sad that interest in the quality of music reproduction has declined.
<snip>
Sadly, since digital formats became dominant, this seems to have changed. For most young people (certainly those under 20), quality really doesn't appear to be an issue, & the overriding factors now seem to be portability and the ability to share with others (legally or otherwise).”

This is all too apparent with a lot of the younger generation (I'm beginning to sound old now!) insisting on playing their music through the mobile phone speaker which is a) highly annoying to other people (eg on the train) and b) sounds absolutely awful. It seems to me that they're more interested in background noise, rather than actually wanting to listen to the music.
Cheeky_Chappie
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1:
“The ipod is just style over substance. I have a ipod shuffle , but i ionly use it now & again, spend mor etime listening to minidiscs on the move or at work. Minidisc is ace for recording vinyl onto. Even for analogue recordings off my micromega is pretty good (micromega only has a coax & my minidisc deck only has optic!)”

I have always been (and still am) a fan of MD, and used to use a portable MD player/recorder for listening to music on the move (I also have an MD deck as part of my separates).

However, I ended up using the portable MD player less and less as I found it a bit of a hassle to carry around a a load of discs to cater for my different moods. In the end I went for digital players for convenience (my iPod Nano carries a large number of albums to suit my different moods)...the sound quality isn't a patch on the MD, though, and I do miss the rich, deep (and undistorted) bass and crisp trebble that MD can give (compared to the iPod).
SheepdogNo1
28-03-2008
MD has been swamped my the 'hard drive' . I find carting the discs about is at times a hassle. Even getting hold of a new deck with a coax on is getting dificult & expensive , guess they dont want you running perfect digital copies off. Even getting hold of blank discs is getting tricky as the Sainbury's in St Annes have none left , they had reduced them from £5.99 for 5 down to £2.99. I can still get the gold 'premium' discs off ebay , but they are getting more expensive.

As for playing music on mobile phones , its awful even when blasted out through the little speakers that came with mine (very good for playing on the bus when these goons have it loud , they soon turn it off when the heavy artillerty gets wheeled out) To me they are devaluing music , as just throwaway , background noise that you listen to first minute of then get bored & put some other racket on. But i suppose thats indicative of the low attention span goons that use them.

Its amazing in this country that the worst formats are always the most popular. My wife loves her ipod & is uninterested in the sound difference as she says she cant tell the difference. Is HiFi just a bloke thing? Knew a girl at uni who was into serious hifi & thats been it , a succesion of noise/flashing lights box users.
sancheeez
28-03-2008
Welcome to the 21st century people!

Believe it or not, small and portable is actually quite good.

Also, just becuase music is digital, doesn't mean the sound quality has to be absolutely terrible. There is a huge difference between a well encoded, well organised, digital music library and some ned listening to techno through the speaker on his mobile phone on a train/bus!

I have some of my more favoured music encoded as FLAC files (non-lossy format so sound reproduction is equivalent to CD) but a well encoded MP3 can still sound very good ..... especially played through any sort of half decent amp and speakers.

But, the sheer convenience of having thousands of easily portable tracks stored in a very small amount of space is always going to win the day I'm afraid.

To store the amount of digital music I've aquired over the last 10 years I'd probably need to build an extra couple of rooms onto my house ..... which isn't really practical is it.

I do still have several hundred vinyl LP's (and a turntable .... in a box in the garage ) and I plan to keep them but I'm just as happy listening to a decent quality digital version.
SheepdogNo1
28-03-2008
I have downloaded music onto my ipod then plugged the ipod into my amp & then mindisced (anologue !) the tracks onto disc, seems a bizarre way , but it works & it does sound okay. I suppose the its the argument of vinyl versus CD all over again , when in fact it comes down to whatever suits your needs best. I never been that drawn towards the hard drive side of musical reproduction. Some interesting posts about this facet of music listening though & provides food for thought.
Dan Sette
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by Yosemite:
“ I would be interested in your views on this subject.”

always an interesting debate. I'll post something at the weekend when I've more time to compose an epistle.
Dan Sette
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“I have some of my more favoured music encoded as FLAC files (non-lossy format so sound reproduction is equivalent to CD) .”

And hereby hngs the problem - what says that CD was the be all and end all of quality?

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1:
“ I suppose the its the argument of vinyl versus CD all over again .”

There are some interesting things happening in audio (largely to pursuade people to move to greater frequency reproduction (SACD etc) that shows why vinyl, on a good day, was better than CD.

I think the battle is almost lost, though. Too little, too late. As the majority of music listeners are happy if the reproduction is merely OK.

I doubt (and this is a sweeping generalisation) that nay of them have regular exposure to real music. If they did I don't think they would be so complacent.

I've broken the bank on my audio system as I get exposed to a lot of live music (probably more than most) and was always frustrated at not being able to hear what I'd recorded in the same quality at home.
JohnD2000
28-03-2008
People used to buy cassettes. Even audiophiles used to record on them. What's changed? We now have a couple of hi-fi formats (CD/SACD) and a lower quality, but portable, medium (mp3). At least these days the quality of mp3 far exceeds cassette recordings.
sancheeez
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by Dan Sette:
“And hereby hngs the problem - what says that CD was the be all and end all of quality?”

Well, not me for a start.

But ..... it's hardly 'bad' sound reproduction is it?

You're getting into the upper 5% or so of sound reproduction that 99.9% of people simply aren't bothered about and/or don't have the budget and/or will to try and reproduce.

Put simply ..... sound snobbery.
Yosemite
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“Believe it or not, small and portable is actually quite good.”

It depends what you mean by "quite good".

Obviously, mobile devices are ideal for music on the move, but this says nothing at all about sound quality (which is frequently dire)..

Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“ Also, just becuase music is digital, doesn't mean the sound quality has to be absolutely terrible.”

Agreed - I wasn't criticising digital formats in general. Indeed, it would be ridiculous for me to do so, having sold my turntable & large vinyl collection around 5 years ago in favour of a CD based system. However ...

Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“ There is a huge difference between a well encoded, well organised, digital music library and some ned listening to techno through the speaker on his mobile phone on a train/bus!”

... this was my real point.

A large proportion of younger members of society have never listened to music on anything other than mobile phones, iPods or tinny computer speakers.

They simply don't know what they are missing.

Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“ ...but a well encoded MP3 can still sound very good ..... especially played through any sort of half decent amp and speakers.”

The emboldened section is debatable but through a high quality system, the compression inherent in the MP3 format is clearly audible, & music sounds dull & lacking in dynamic range as a consequence.
sancheeez
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by Yosemite:
“but through a high quality system, the compression inherent in the MP3 format is clearly audible, & music sounds dull & lacking in dynamic range as a consequence.”

True ..... hence the need for the MP3 to be well encoded (LAME 320kbps or something like that). Or, even better (as I've done for some of my favourite music) use a non lossy format such as FLAC.

My amp and speakers are adequate. Better than a midi-system or something like that but nothing near high-end separates. Even so, a well encoded MP3 through them sounds fine to me. You're right though, the bad ones show their poor quality quickly enough .... even through an average setup like mine.
UKMikey
28-03-2008
Just bought a Cowon A3.

It doesn't sound as good as CD on a deent system even with well encoded FLACs but it's a heck of a lot easier than hunting through a big pile of discs. I guess it's all about taking a minor hit in sound fidelity for a major increase in convenience (I hope that's not a dirty word).

Friends donated their old Yamaha Natural Sound amp and a pair of Acoustic Research monitors to me along with a Denon 20x oversampling CD player. Not sure of the model numbers, sorry.
sancheeez
28-03-2008
Originally Posted by UKMikey:
“Just bought a Cowon A3.

It doesn't sound as good as CD on a deent system even with well encoded FLACs but it's a heck of a lot easier than hunting through a big pile of discs. I guess it's all about taking a minor hit in sound fidelity for a major increase in convenience (I hope that's not a dirty word).”

It's not far off though is it ..... and it wee's on the output from an iPod from a great height.

For a portable device, the sound quality from Cowon players is pretty damn good IMHO.

Was tempted to upgrade my A2 to the A3 until I read about all the problems it has playing back x264/h264 files ....
toasties
29-03-2008
Originally Posted by JohnD2000:
“People used to buy cassettes. Even audiophiles used to record on them. What's changed? We now have a couple of hi-fi formats (CD/SACD) and a lower quality, but portable, medium (mp3). At least these days the quality of mp3 far exceeds cassette recordings.”

Thats the way I see things too. MP3 is a far superior format for portable listening than cassetes were and there are better options for the audiophile portable listerner than there have been before. The quality of portable headphones is better, there are a variety of portable amplifiers, and some high quality portable players. Even a poorly encoded mp3 will sound better than cassetes, let alone a high bit-rate mp3. For home listenening the options are better than they were before as well. I think some people are being a tad nostalgic to think that before the ipod the general public cared about fidelity to a great extent, I certainly don't remember things ever being like that.

I also think people are being a bit harsh on the ipod, the problem with the ipod isn't the unit itself (although the latest models aren't up to the former standard), but the quality of the headphones that are sold with it. Even when people upgrade the headphones they will still only spend 10-15% of the price of the ipod on the headphones, which is tiny compared to how much one spends on a pair of speakers in a hifi system. With a truly hifi set of headphones, even the lowly ipod can sound great.
UKMikey
29-03-2008
Originally Posted by sancheeez:
“It's not far off though is it ..... and it wee's on the output from an iPod from a great height.”

That ain't hard. It's not just the 'Pod I have problems with but the whole DRM selling system. But I guess that's another issue.

Quote:
“For a portable device, the sound quality from Cowon players is pretty damn good IMHO.”

The best I've heard.

Quote:
“Was tempted to upgrade my A2 to the A3 until I read about all the problems it has playing back x264/h264 files .... ”

No kidding, dude... hurry up with the new firmware, guys. It plays fine on my Bravia but I think it's only 480p. (sorry for the off-topic).

Originally Posted by toasties:
“I also think people are being a bit harsh on the ipod, the problem with the ipod isn't the unit itself (although the latest models aren't up to the former standard), but the quality of the headphones that are sold with it.”

Not in my case. I'm comparing like with like on the same external sound system.
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