Quality of sound becoming less important?

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1357638255' post='1925605']

Would that be the room that accidentally has no parallel walls in by any chance

[/quote]

Funnily enough it is! Both exterior walls slope outwards, as you can see from the TT shelf, the partition wall behind the speakers (Leema Xaviers, btw, -3dB at 28Hz) is lats and plaster, and the other "wall" is a stone inglenook fireplace.

[quote name='BurritoBass' timestamp='1357642987' post='1925707']
I always favoured buying more music when I was younger rather than getting a decent stereo. The quest for finding great albums was greater than the desire to hear them sounding at their best.
[/quote]

I spent my whole 1st term at uni's grant on a stereo, then much of the 2nd and 3rd term grants on music. And so it's continued, with 3 burglaries when I lived in Harlesden contributing to the upgrade path! (thanks insurance and 2nd hand market...)

[BigRedX]

51m0n, personally I think you're over-worrying about MP3. Every time the delivery medium for music changes, you get a drop in quality because it's all that the technology of the day can manage. Then as the technology improves the audio quality improves with it. MP3 has been with us for little over 10 years now, think how long we put up with AM radio for as our main source of new music.

[51m0n]

Heh maybe BRX, maybe.

But look at it this way, compact cassette was the mp3 of its day, and that was terrible, it had apalling hiss that no amount of Dolby or any other noise reduction system really dealt with without drasticaly removing the top end. Everyone knew its limitations because most houses had at least one of those cheesy midi systems which had a pair of typical large book shelf speakers with a tweeter a mid/bass driver and a port. That was the standard. Some people had a step up from this with real seprerates. This still wasnt audiophile in any sense of the word, it was just liking music a bit more than average. Then there were the audiophiles pending real money on kit.

Vinyl usually suffered from terrible noise too (whether from misuse or poor pressing), and everyone knew this because the amp and speakers were capable of reproducing the artifacts from the rumble and hiss, and pops and crackles and clicks that were standard fair for most households enjoying vinyl. Hell on my dads hifi (B&O were hifi in the 70s, they seem to be a design statement/lifestyle choice now) you could clearly hear the cross talk between the channels on a lot of 70's pop (Abba, I'm looking at you, and Boney M's Night Flight To Venus come to think of it), it was never as apparent on the classical he loved because of the recording methodology (DECCA trees and stereo pairs give no real issues with crosstalk artifacts).

Then along comes CD, there is no transport noise at all, no crosstalk at all, wider dynamic range, as good a frequency response as those speakers could ever cope with. Hi fidelity indeed. And instant track selection (best of all worlds - dayummm!)

Along comes the SOny Walkman (the original was pretty huge) making music listening 'portable' - at the expense of quality - those orange foam headphones were sh**. Then we get minidisc which was awful, and Philips digital tape (can I hear you say Betamax) and DAT (which was never marketed as a consumer product anyway), and finally with the advent of the internet we get mp3 which is the first technology that sounded worse on an average stereo than what came before (with the possible exception of the walkmna version of compact cassette, but cassette was so bad it didnt really make so much difference).

MP3 makes portability a reality though, so people start to only listen to music when they are doing something else (travelling) and it progresses into a background medium, or foreground only when people are mashed and its so loud through a ratty PA that fidelity is utterly compromised. What I find laughable now though is the fear of piracy that mp3 engendered in the music bizz. I mean it sounds as bad as cassette copy, remember we are talking 128kbps at best when the issue really was blown sky high with Napster - people were still on dialup for goodness sake, it took 10 minutes to download a single track that sounded gash!

HiFi is now no more the goal, listening to music is no longer an end in and of itself, people dont sit down to listen to music, they put music on and chat over it, whilst making the dinner (guilty as the next man).

Music is now so utterly devalued that people whilst happy to pay for coffee in starbucks fret at spending the cost of a couple of coffees on an album.

Its not the music thats done this, its the tech IMO....

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

When I moved into my flat, I bought some ceiling speakers( 2 for bedroom/2for hallway). They were about £38 a pair. Got some 79 strand cable as well. played through my Cambridge audio amp the sound is excellent .
When I spoke to a guy in Sevenoaks hi fi, he said "keep your b&w speakers for the living room."
Tbh, I think I should have put ceiling speakers in the living room as well..

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1357646381' post='1925807']
Heh maybe BRX, maybe.

But look at it this way, compact cassette was the mp3 of its day, and that was terrible, it had apalling hiss that no amount of Dolby or any other noise reduction system really dealt with without drasticaly removing the top end. [/quote]

Listen to a Nakamichi Dragon!


[quote]
Along comes the SOny Walkman (the original was pretty huge) making music listening 'portable' - at the expense of quality - [/quote]

Pro Walkman was an excellent piece of kit; record and playback were almost as good as the Nakamichi!

[quote]
and Philips digital tape (can I hear you say Betamax) [/quote]

I heard excellent sounds from DCC once - though to be fair it was using an Ongaku On amp and Tannoy Westminster Royale speakers, around £60k worth!

[quote]
Its not the music thats done this, its the tech IMO....
[/quote]

It's a throwaway, want it now with no effort on my part world!

[BigRedX]

I don't think that music has become as devalued as you think. It simply doesn't occupy as dominant a position in western society's popular culture as it used to. IME there are still people interested in music, but among the younger generation it's now just one of many things to be into. When I was at school in the 70s, everyone except for one or two weirdos were into pop and rock. That's not the case anymore, but this who are into things other than music are equally passionate about them.

My parents liked music, but they didn't own very many records and hardly ever listened to those that they did. I think we might have to accept that the days of pop and rock being a mass-market youth phenomenon are over for the moment.

The problem with MP3 is that the format doesn't degrade. You knew that when you bought a record or recorded something onto tape the quality was never going to be any better than the first time you played it. For then on it was all downhill as the vinyl and tape deteriorated with each subsequent play and often even in storage. With cassette tapes especially you knew that you would eventually have to replace them. On the other hand an MP3 file still sounds exactly the same as the day it was created and will continue to do so as long as there is hardware capably of interpreting the format.

[bremen]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1357647916' post='1925858']
I don't think that music has become as devalued as you think. It simply doesn't occupy as dominant a position in western society's popular culture as it used to. IME there are still people interested in music, but among the younger generation it's now just one of many things to be into.
[/quote]

Spot on.

You could say that quality of sound began to become less important when the pop video took off; people started saying 'have you heard [tune], amazing video'.

Kids nowadays probably wonder how we used put up with poor TV reception or having to find porn in hedgerows and newsagents.

[51m0n]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357647142' post='1925828']
Listen to a Nakamichi Dragon!
[/quote]

Which retailed for how much?

JEEZ! I just checked ebay, nearly £700 for a second hand one today. I mean, really?? What state would the heads be in if its this old??

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357647142' post='1925828']
Pro Walkman was an excellent piece of kit; record and playback were almost as good as the Nakamichi!
[/quote]

If you had the headphones to hear it it was better than average, which kind of made it rather less of a Walkman didnt it? But come on, I've listened to a ton of tape, on a lot of different tape decks of all sorts of quality levels, and hiss was always always an issue. If not hte hiss then the artifacts from the noise reduction, or wow and flutter from the transport, or the tape print through, or the damn things chewing themselves to shreds for absolutely no explicable reason at all.

Cripes we had 1" 16 track and that had noise reduction systems along side it which had all the same issues, cassette had no chance compoared to that....

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357647142' post='1925828']
I heard excellent sounds from DCC once - though to be fair it was using an Ongaku On amp and Tannoy Westminster Royale speakers, around £60k worth!
[/quote]

We had a DCC in the studio for years, it had a far simpler and therefore more reliable transport than DAT ever did, it sounded excellent. It even played analogue tape too. Eventually we couldnt get the tapes anymore for it, it went the way of the Dodo, following Betamax as a better solution to a problem that was just not taken up because (in its case) it was a year or so too late. Crying shame, I really liked DCC!

Yes it woudl chew a tape up about as often as normal quality tape machines did, but DAT used to do one every couple of weeks!

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357647142' post='1925828']
It's a throwaway, want it now with no effort on my part world!
[/quote]

True...

Edited January 8, 2013 by 51m0n

[flyfisher]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1357645163' post='1925769']
51m0n, personally I think you're over-worrying about MP3. Every time the delivery medium for music changes, you get a drop in quality because it's all that the technology of the day can manage. Then as the technology improves the audio quality improves with it. MP3 has been with us for little over 10 years now, think how long we put up with AM radio for as our main source of new music.
[/quote]

I don't think anyone can reasonably claim that CDs are worse than vinyl [u]as a technology[/u] because all the tech specs are clearly superior. How that technology has been used is a whole different matter.

Also, MP3 is a reflection of other technical limitations of the time, namely internet bandwidth and storage costs. These days, storage is cheap as chips so data compression is not really needed any more. I used to rip my CDs to MP3 at 192kbps but these days I use 320kbps and, frankly, I might just just give up MP3 altogether and just store the raw wav data because disk space is simply not an issue any more.

Internet streaming, however, still imposes constraints on file sizes so data compression remains for the likes of web-based services, but I expect that will also change over the coming years.

Digital media can be a funny thing. It provides the basis for significantly higher media quality (I'm including video as well as audio here) but commercial constraints tends to push things towards more stuff at lower quality. Thus, DAB radio has been criticised as being of poorer quality than the FM it's hoping to replace because the broadcasters can now compress the data into smaller bandwidth channels and then broadcast more stations at that lower quality.

The TV broadcasters are doing the same thing with their digital channels and there are all manner of artifacts that creep into digital TV as a result.

But it's amazing how quickly people acclimatise to such thngs, as long as the media companies don't push things too far.

Meanwhile, regardless of the actual reproduction quality, the real challenge is becoming how to choose what we actually spend our time reading, listening to or watching. We can already store more literature on our PCs than we can read in a lifetime and we're getting close with music. Meanwhile, television broadcasters such as the BBC are working on making their entire archives available online. Imagine having 50/60 years of BBC archives to choose from. Do we really want to spend large chunks of our lives reliving history?

[Conan]

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1357648388' post='1925868']
Kids nowadays probably wonder how we used put up with poor TV reception or having to find porn in hedgerows .
[/quote]

Yeah. I never understood how it got there.... does it grow on trees?

[wateroftyne]

Haven't read the thread, but I'd just like to say that it's the mastering that's boils my p*ss. It's all mastered for tin-pot car speakers or earphones bought from a market stall.

It's like listening to wallpaper.

[51m0n]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1357647916' post='1925858']
I don't think that music has become as devalued as you think. It simply doesn't occupy as dominant a position in western society's popular culture as it used to. IME there are still people interested in music, but among the younger generation it's now just one of many things to be into. When I was at school in the 70s, everyone except for one or two weirdos were into pop and rock. That's not the case anymore, but this who are into things other than music are equally passionate about them.
[/quote]

I'm not sure but I think you've just contradicted yourself in one paragraph.

Rock/pop used to be a/the dominant media for youth popular cultrure, and now it isnt, it is therefore of less value within popular culture, surely.

Ergo it is devalued.

I think you are saying what I am, but maybe you see different reasons for that maybe being the case - in truth its probably all of those reasons to a greater or lesser degree I would think. These things have a habit of being far more complex than any of us take into account

I have no idea ctually if In the 70's the amount that people spent on music per head out of there earnings was a greater or lesser amount than they do now. But I do think there is greater expectation now to be able to get music for nothing, or next to nothing, whereas before that wasnt the case. Again I am not sure if its going to end up being a positive thing for artists or not, we will have to wait and see, the thing is Pandoras Box has been opened, there is no way back no (even if you wanted to, which you may not).

[Leonard Smalls]

At least, on the plus side, vinyl sales are up!

[Conan]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1357649475' post='1925900']
Haven't read the thread, but I'd just like to say that it's the mastering that's boils my p*ss. It's all mastered for tin-pot car speakers or earphones bought from a market stall. It's like listening to wallpaper.
[/quote]

Yes. I notice this particularly on the last few Rush albums. i find them almost unlistenable at times.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1357649738' post='1925909']
Yes. I notice this particularly on the last few Rush albums. i find them almost unlistenable at times.
[/quote]

Ah, tell me about it. Everyone going on about how Clockwork Angels is a return to sonic form.

No it isn't! Listen to it! It's terrible!

*hyperventilates*

[Leonard Smalls]

I gave up listening to music years ago; I only listen to test tones nowadays as at least they're properly recorded!

[bremen]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357651278' post='1925964']
I gave up listening to music years ago; I only listen to test tones nowadays as at least they're properly recorded!

[/quote]

Ever heard an MP3 of a 38Hz sine wave?

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1357651443' post='1925975']
Ever heard an MP3 of a 38Hz sine wave?
[/quote]

Who needs 38Hz anyway. After all the lowest note you can get (i.e. bottom E on a proper bass guitar) is only 41Hz.
Any lower and you're weird, or an organist!

[bremen]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357651871' post='1925991']
Who needs 38Hz anyway. After all the lowest note you can get (i.e. bottom E on a proper bass guitar) is only 41Hz.
Any lower and you're weird, or an organist!
[/quote]

There's a world below 'bottom' E!

Used to be, back in the good old days anyway (return to 1st post in this thread)

[51m0n]

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1357651278' post='1925964']
I gave up listening to music years ago; I only listen to test tones nowadays as at least they're properly recorded!

[/quote]

I dont even listen, I have an oscilloscope I can watch, its far warmer...

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1357649228' post='1925893']
Yeah. I never understood how it got there.... does it grow on bushes? [/quote]

Fixed it for ya

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='bremen' timestamp='1357652034' post='1925997']
There's a world below 'bottom' E!

Used to be, back in the good old days anyway (return to 1st post in this thread)
[/quote]
I've had fun with PAs before by setting my octaver to 1 down... And I've got a pair of emergency fallback hifi speakers that can easily cope with it!

[4-string-thing]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1357644694' post='1925754']
Very much this.

Remember also that pop music was mixed to sound good when coming out of the small elliptical speaker of an AM radio as well a decent HiFi. Despite what "audiophiles" were trying to tell us we weren't missing out that much.
[/quote]

I remember reading interviews with loads of producers and musicians in "International Musician & Recording World" in the 70's and 80's and they all seemed to mix using auratone cubes, which was a tiny plastic speaker and apparently gave them an idea of what their music would sound like on a transistor radio. As that was where most people heard music, it seemed logical, as if it sounded good on a tiny radio, it would sell more.

[Leonard Smalls]

[quote name='4-string-thing' timestamp='1357659210' post='1926167']
I remember reading interviews with loads of producers and musicians in "International Musician & Recording World" in the 70's and 80's and they all seemed to mix using auratone cubes, which was a tiny plastic speaker and apparently gave them an idea of what their music would sound like on a transistor radio. As that was where most people heard music, it seemed logical, as if it sounded good on a tiny radio, it would sell more.
[/quote]

Many studios use a Yamaha NS11 for that; as the NS11 is officially the most unpleasantly screechy speaker in the world, the reasoning goes that if it sounds good on those, it'll sound good on anything!
However, when I worked in TV post production studios some mixers would only mix on the NS11s, and ignore the main speaks. Which meant that some mixes had vastly overblown bass and huge cut in treble! Bit like Dr. Dre headphones

[51m0n]

People still reference with auratones (Behringer make a cheap version of the auratone even!)

They allow you to concentrate on the mids on a small box with no port and pretty even though limited requency response. Often people will mix on a single auratone in mono, to get levels, check how transients are reacting together, ensure there is enough space in the mids for vocals etc.

Of course then you have to recheck everythig on the bigger monitors to get any idea of what is going on in the bass, and get soem panning sorted in the mix, theoretically when you get as far as the panning suddenly everything has its own space and the whole mix sounds really defined with a space for everything and everything in its place.

NS10s on the other hand, they just plain suck

Edited January 8, 2013 by 51m0n