Are You Happy?


On another currently running post a number of people have commented that the majority of their digital music collection is unlistenable. One person said 90% falls into this category. I don't get it! Have these people purposely assembled systems to make their favorite albums sound bad? Do they sit and audition equipment while thinking to themselves "hey, this is great, I won't be able to listen any of my Rolling Stones, but wow does it sound good." Why would someone do this to themselves?

As audiophile we are all a little crazy, but these people, IMHO, have gone one step beyond. Please help me to understand what's going on?
128x128onhwy61

Showing 1 response by onhwy61

What got me started on this thread were comments elsewhere by Twl and Justacoder. I appreciate the fact that they chose to respond. I hope they didn't take my comments as personal attacks, since that was not my intent. I was merely trying to learn and encourage civil conversation.

I am an equipment junkie (yes, the first step is to admit you have a problem) and I get pleasure from configuring and endlessly reconfiguring my music system. However, the enjoyment of music trumps any equipment related considerations. In the past there have been times when I probably lost sight of this truth, but an incident two years ago got me back on track. I heard a 1931 recording of "Stardust" by Louis Armstrong. It's the most amazing piece of music I ever heard, yet it has absolutely zero audiophile content. It's bandwidth limited, filled with crackles, mono, numerous crackles etc. I've come to the conclusion that great music makes everything else irrelevant.

BTW, for those recordings that are overly bright I use a digital equalizer. There's really nothing you can do about over compression.