Ah! A music lover over an equipment lover. For me, an excellent composition and performance played on my Bose compact in my backyard with a beer can bring a tear to eye and touch my soul as it does on my main system with a 99 rated Barolo. Admittedly, the sonics of my main system enhance the emotional experience greatly, but it does not overshadow the primary response to the composition and performance. I think your strategy is sound for keeping you from falling into the audiophile trap of never being satisfied with your system, and remaining a connoisseur of composition and performance. From some of your past posts, I know you understand differences in performances, and you have a pallet for classic compositions. I believe we are of the same generation. Over 55 years an audiophile, I have only made system changes a few times, either because my means improved, or technology advanced. I have always been satisfied in long periods between. Good luck. Stay true to your strategy.
More enjoyment
In my never-ending quest to achieve more enjoyment from my stereo, I’ve found one more strategy to do so. Without eliminating the quest for enjoying the sheer sound of the equipment.
I try to, at first, just choose music that I really love, regardless of sound. I try to forget about the sonics completely and go completely for the music. I know this is very hard to do. But if I approach my music that way, little by little I can find my way back into the sound , and the combination of music and sonics is blissful.
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Regarding the music of my youth. In the olden times, for me early 60's and up, most of my listening was through AM/mono radio. FM was not even a thing in my area. When I revisit some of that music on today's even modest equipment, it can be cringeworthy at times. One of the best examples is the Mama's and the Papa's (the bathtub record). It has zero stereo blending. Trying to listen on headphones is a real trip because you can have one channel playing in one ear and a total suck-out int the other. Rather disconcerting. |
@gkelly @ozzy62 Agree that Back in Black is not bad (hard to believe there's never been a remaster of such an iconic album, at least not to my knowledge) but the remastered Highway to Hell is pretty dang good! I haven't heard any good VH recordings and in fact they have some of the absolute worst recordings I've ever heard which is a borderline crime, but I'll check out VHII and Women and Children First again, though I feel like I have listened to the latter fairly recently. Or tried to, anyway. Also, Molly Hatchet holds a special place for me as the first real rock band I was ever into in junior high. I have found that "The Essential MH" is actually a pretty decent album, recording-wise. Those compilation albums are typically pretty thin sounding but that one was a welcome surprise. Not saying it's great, but it is definitely good enough to enjoy the music, if you like MH. |
one of the best features of roon as a streaming platform/software is that after you play a piece of music you select, after that song ends, roon will select and play other music it believes is in the same genre and style that isn't in your library, for you to hear this really adds to the musical enjoyment -- the software curates new music for you based on what you have played -- I have learned about and now enjoy so many new artists and albums that i would not have otherwise found as a result this makes me listen to music more and my system less |
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