Why no as many post about music vs equipment......

Personally, I would love to talk more about music. My problem is that I find writing and communicating about music is a much more daunting task than writing about equipment... which taxes me plenty.

That said, I have been turned onto so much great music here...music that I completely missed and doubt that I ever would have found if not for the contributions on this forum. Thanks you guys.

This is B.S.
If Mountainsong would spend half his time reading the music threads as he does pimping his speaker line, he might actually see that there are tons of music threads with many great bands/music to discover here on Audiogon.

Equipment and sonics aside....no substitute for good music....but that is highly subjective...one can't live on a Steely. Dan alone

What Elizabeth said. That may have been one of the shortest answer she's given, also one of the best. (Did I say that?)
I found Steve Hoffman's forum about a year ago, at the same time Agon was going thru the change, and it has become my most used site.
The ratio of music vs equipment discussion is just about reversed from this site. As I am no longer searching for the perfect system, it works well.

We should be careful what we wish for. Look at what happened to the hardware side of this thing once THEY became involved. If THEY get too much into music we will all end up listening to our Krall LP on a $100,000 turntable. Oh, for the good old days, new equipment with real improvements were the norm. Normal people could afford to buy stuff. CD stores everywhere! WE once had stores like Tower Records and Waterloo in Austin, now we have a bunch of strange looking unwashed people peddling worn out LPs that were old when I was a kid. Ain't progress grand!
Let's keep music Off of this site!!
Cheers

It's called "Audiogon", not "Musicgon".

Off hand (and I got zero data for this one), I'd guess that music is discussed as often/more often here than audio gear is discussed on most music forums. There's a fair bit of music discussed tangentially in the equipment forums, but the question seems to be addressing the lack of activity on the music forum. I spend 90+% of my time there because the posters here strike me as a great resource, but why would you expect the music forum to be high volume on an equipment web site?

Or, to put it another way....

How often is music discussed on guitar or drum kit web sites? How often is literature discussed on e-reader web sites? How often is driving discussed on sports car web sites?

None of that means that the visitors to those forums are necessarily misguided in their priorities, it probably just means that they visit those places for the purposes that those places were established.

Marty

"Because Audiophile people are assholes"

You may think so, but a lot of us could not possibly comment.

Coffee1-I hope your making a poor attempt at satire!

Coffee1,
More of the same logic, all high income earners should be taxed to the max,those selfish bastards.

Coffee, Drugs and alcohol are prohibited on this site.

I think it's like what Stewie said. We like to focus on the means to the end. The tangible. That's what makes it a "hobby". Musical instruments are tangible and so can be a hobby. I don't see how we can "just" listen to music without focusing on the means. Unless it's just in your head. Imo they are inseparably bound together. How can you be an audiophile and not be a music lover? An Electronics engineer who designs the gear not necessarily because he likes music but because he likes electronics you would not classify as an audiophile though his focus is what our means is. At the same time he may have a transistor radio playing at his work bench but not have a dedicated system or music collection at home.

Rather than offer an opinion, basically a complaint, I'm actually going to start a post about music.

Nice post Learsfool,I obviously don`t have your daily exposure to live music.I`ve had the good fortune this year to attend 15 jazz club performances(acoustic instruments and small club enrivoment).
Brownsfan, you are right in that live music does help tune one`s ears in judging what components are similar and those that deviate quite a bit from live instruments.

Brownsfan if you like jazz,here`s what I listened to last night.

1)Carmen McRae, "Bittersweet"
2)Thelonious Monk, "Live at the It Club"
3)Miles Davis, "Miles Ahead"
4))Mycoy Tyner and Bobby Hutcherson, "Manhatten Moods"
5)Doug Raney, "You go to my Head"
Regards,

Learsfool, Well said! I find it surprising when I audition new equipment how much equipment sounds so little like live music. I can only surmise that those who hold the equipment in high esteem have removed themselves from the only meaningful reference, live music. As for learning about music, what little I have learned certainly enhances my enjoyment of the music.

Perhaps we should stop complaining about the lack of music discussion and start posting. Would you like to get us started with 3-4 recommendations?

Because Audiophile people are assholes

Audiophiles start out as music lovers and then become delusional as a form of madness sets in.

Mountainsong, I share your disappointment that the music itself is not discussed much more on these boards here. One site where it is discussed very much more is the audio asylum.

There are unfortunately many audiophiles that get so caught up in their equipment that they aren't even really listening to the music anymore at all, and never attend live concerts, and have lost all reference to what live acoustically produced music actually sounds like, even though most of them continue to state that that is their standard for what their system is supposed to sound like.

Please understand that this is of course not to say that their opinions have no value. I have learned a great many technical things about the equipment itself from some of these folks I have just described. But as a professional musician, it is very saddening sometimes to realize how little some audiophiles know/understand about music itself.

I always really like music posts, not sure if I started any myself though...

frankly I have trouble finding music that compels me to write about it. I have found a lot of what I like already and do not find much new music to appreciate and the odd stuff I enjoy I doubt many would like.

the defendant rests his case ;^)

Music can be viewed as a "Component", since the quality of the recording and the awareness level of the people involved with making it can be VERY important.
Neil Young has weighed in on Analog VS Digital sound in the past. go to Mapleshade and they offer a catalog of cd's all of which have been produced in a certain (hopefully superior) manner. I love Charlie Parker but few of his recordings sound "good"- now someone could remaster them with a great deal of manipulation but i don't think in that case it would produce a better product.
OTOH there are some excellent renditions of Beethoven #5 that sound really REALLY good, while many (cherished) classic versions might STILL be preferred
by musicphiles- but at least here you have a chance to hear deeply into the orchestra, a very complex intereaction of sound.
i have had the oppportunity to hear a 1st generation digital tape (NAGRA)
of an orchestral performance and i thought the musicians were literally hiding behind the speakers. so it was a huge leap forward in getting minute distortions and electronic artifacts out of the way.
So where there is a synergy between a cd/lp/File and some nicely matched equipment to play it on, in a comfortable environment with attention paid to beneficial acoustics, the result is MUSICAL enjoyment. And i don't have
a problem telling people what music i like, even though some threads here start out with subjects like "what is the most irritating female vocalist you have ever heard?", etc. there is music that i will not spend time listening too,
but i would rather not add a comment of my own since it leads nowhere IMO.

Remember also that most music lovers with High end gear are not audiophiles. I used to work in carpentry and have seen some amazing gear in my day and these people just listen to music. If you had to choose between the two hobbies you'll live longer if you choose music.

I'm not an audiophile at all but I find Agon interesting. The music forum is sparse but its why im listening to Mozart Piano Concertos 20,21,23,24 & 25 right now. There's not as many people on here who are in constant gear rotation as it might seem.

Simply this is predominantly an equipment/gear web site. Yes there must be music but they have plently of music as focus websites to visit. Equipment websites are it seems to me in rather short supply comparitively. just my 2 cents , I like gear and I am not afraid to say so..,BTW i don't play test tracks over and over.

I find as I've become more satisfied with the equipment I've put together I spend less and less time on the equipment forum discussions. More and more the music discussions are what interest me the most. So, at least for me, once the hardware lives up to a certain threshold of satisfaction it becomes less and less of the focal point. This threshold will vary greatly from person to person but getting there is a good part of the fun and we really just approach it, we're never quite done.

I`m in line with the sentiments expressed so far.I love to listen to music, yet I do appreciate the audio components that can increase the involvement-emotion connection and thus the enjoyment factor.Like Jaxwire said, music is very personal and it affects us uniquely. I listened for 4 hours last night and was in a state of musical heaven. How would I effectively explain this to someone else on a forum? Components are easier to describe relatively speaking.
Regards,

I share Mountainsong's interest in seeing more discussion of music on this forum. I love the gear for sure, but it is a means to an end, and the end is music. I am left brain by training and profession, but right brain by passion. The consequence is that while I have a deep love for classical music, my last academic work in music was in the eighth grade. Some time ago it was, and rudimentary at best. Many of the music discussion forums are dominated by people who are music scholars or professional musicians or teachers. Most of the folks around here are like me. Music lovers, not music professionals. But I agree, this site should continue to be dominated by discussion of hardware.

All of the above posts are so true. So good to actually see posts like these on this site. I tend to forget these truths, but if I remembered them all the time, there would very few opportunities or reasons to weigh in on threads, and I do like to talk. Thanks for your input.
Cheers

Where the male of the species is concerned (and I'm one, so I know of what I speak), if there's equipment--metal, wood, electricity, etc--there's obsession. We're like crows. Something flashes and we go toward it. We'll deny it and claim that it's really all about the music. But in our heart of hearts, we like thinking about, talking about, and obsessing about stuff. It's wired into our DNA at a very deep level. I fish. But plenty of guys--myself included--obsess over equipment there too: fly reels, fly rods, best waders, best boots, best rig, etc.... Astronomy? Telescopes, eyepieces, focusers.... The male of the species--and some females too--love objects, gadgets, gizmos. I love music, salmon, and stars. But I also love the things that bring me music, salmon, and stars.

Your are right to point out that audiophiles are not necessarily musicphiles and musicphiles are even less likely to be audiophiles. Quite ironic.

I happen to be both and their are plenty like me on this site. I don't post about music because I've found it to very unsatisfying. Music taste is so very personal and so very unique that it's hard to find common ground with other music lovers. With the audiophile hobby it's easy to find common ground and therefore there's a lot more discussion on the topic.

Music is so subjective, a particular polka song may be fantastic, spectacular even, the pinnacle of polka music, but if you aren't a fan of polka music, you won't appreciate it, so there isn't really anything to discuss.

Besides, like Religion and Politics, most folks already "have their own" and don't really care what your opinion may be.

Equipment on the other hand is universal, and it can be compared and contrasted in an objective manner that has widespread appeal.

Rather than discuss Bible vs. Torah vs. Quran, we are here to discuss the various types of ink, paper, bindings, and so forth.

This is my opinion.

This may be because we can relate to the experiences we have with the sound produced by the equipment but not necessarily connect with the music preferences (style, genre, etc) themselves.

Because this is, primary, an equipment forum. Folks whose prime interest is in music look at forums elsewhere.