Question on hearing


Apologies in advance for rambling, but this is something that has been in the back of my mind for years.

When I was a teen growing up in the 70's, I listened with a basic Kenwood receiver, a Thorens turntable, and either Advent or Bozak speakers, all inherited from relatives. Speaker cables and cables were basic Radioshack. What I remember is having intense, hair-raising moments of connection to music, especially in response to fine textural and harmonic details.

Nowadays, I have what I consider to be a reference-level system with a mixture of tube and solid-state electronics, digital and analog sources, and a treated listening room.  I've achieved what I consider to be reference-level sound. Listening is truly enjoyable for me these days, but those special moments of physical and emotional connection to musical moments are much rarer than in the old, old days. Part of this is no doubt a result of mildly diminished high frequency hearing, but I suspect that other factors are at play. I was just wondering if others have anything to say about this? 
psag

Showing 1 response by dbtom2

@psag I think there's still plenty of emotions to be mined from music even after suffering aging and hearing loss. 

While I don't experience the marijuana induced epiphanies of my youth any longer, there is still music that engages me. Maybe it sets a melancholy mood or gets my feet jumping or evokes a time passed. 

Thnking about it, much of my recent music emotion have come from the soundtracks of motion pictures. Whether it was a score written for the movie or a song - or group of songs - hearing them later always sets my emotion to the scene it accompanied. 

Then there's opera. And Youtube and those Flashmob videos.  In the last year Sturgill Simpson made my heart soar, Margo Price made me laugh out loud, Radiohead made me wonder what the heck, and Ramin Djawadi did these wonderful piano covers of some old and classic rock songs for the Westworld soundtrack.

Back in the day I couldn't imagine enjoying music without a little mind alteration. But no more. So change things up a bit. If you're imbibing while listening, try stopping. If you're not imbibing or doing anything mind-altering, well, I am certainly not going to be the one to recommend it but I understand it has worked for others.