Sound and Music

...favorite things to enjoy!

The music of sound spoke well to me for few years. Now  the sound of music  is my favorite thing also...😊

Sound of Music is my Favorite Thing indeed!

Bolong, You have my sympathy. :-) 

Aren’t we all!

I was a "music lover" long before I built up an audiophile sound system. Now I am a "tinker, tailor, soldier, spy" out to uncover the most cryptic audiophile secrets.

Try installing the Daniel Hertz Master Class player/software (small change in the world of audiophilia) and convert some cd rips . It is not snake oil. It has made a lot of albums more enjoyable for me, get more immersed into the music. The following vid should shed some light.

Levinson - what do audiophiles really want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf4O6fiZ0ao

I am in the opposite crowd, a very sparse crowd...😁

The music lover in me is very critical in his choices...For musical reason....

The Audiophile in me will listen to almost anything or better say any styles or genres ( save commercial music which i confess to hate generally with few exceptions ,classical,jazz,persian,indian etc) because all recording original albums sound optimal in my system/room thanks to basic knowledge applied... My best music is the least studio processed...

Then before being hypercritical about a stylus i had investigated acoustics concepts by experiments and other mechanical and electrical devices control of my own...Hypercritical is a disease not a healthy attitude, using acoustics dont necessitate blinding obsession and gear obsessed focus...

hypercritical without creativity and basic knowledge is obsession...

And you are not wrong about the complete difference between sound and music , music is not acoustic and it is only a mere common place fact for sure; but this psychological opposite attitudes generally are prevalent among people ignoring acoustics concepts and basic controls and these two attitudes only reflect objective ignorance of acoustics associated with gear price tags obsession and focus in the audiophile crowd and for the opposite group associated with music as the only knowledge in musicians and average music lovers crowd...( acoustics with an (s) is not mere room acoustic by the way)

The music lover in me will listen to anything, while the audiophile in me is hypercritical. Think about it. I study every stylus under high magnification before it ever touches a record. How neurotic is that?

Not at all RV. 90 % of my listening is in the shop to 4 old Mirage speakers, Adcom electronics, streamed from the main system. The speakers are put in the only location available for them which is way off axis and there is no listening position, background music only. The tone controls were used to give me a rough approximation of what I think I should be listening to. I have never measured the system, no need. The only attribute I cared about was volume and volume it has, to run over the din of machines, to be heard with hearing protection on. 

As I have said before, Music and sound are two separate issues. You can love music and not give a hoot about sound quality. Conversely, I know audiophiles whose collection consist mostly of audiophile specials. I know one audiophile who does not even have one classical record, or one Ornette Coleman record, just audiophile specials of popular music. and he has a $150,000 system. 

I am two completely separate personalities. The shop system is caked with dust. I vacuum it off once every blue moon. The main system is meticulously cared for. I have not adjusted the shop system in decades. The only control I've touched in decades is the volume and that includes the power switch. With the main system every single Hz is looked at and massaged, totally neurotic. The music lover in me will listen to anything, while the audiophile in me is hypercritical. Think about it. I study every stylus under high magnification before it ever touches a record. How neurotic is that? 

Music is not only a pulse,vibration,beat,rythm, i felt in my body, nor it is only a timbre gorgeous auditive perception but it is a set of colors also visible as a dynamics distributed  in space as in a movie.

With high attention orchestral music is so fascinating for me because it tell a story more or less abstract, as in a movie. Choral music begin to be indicibly beautiful. Jazz more visceral or more abstract or even sometimes the two at the same time. Persian music and indian music are like philosophical treatise in sounds. The emotions are highly elevated.

Bruckner Fifth  symphony for example for me is an archetypal description of a human life from beginning to end...

Cannabis only increase this state but does not create it.  Deep Attention create it.

Then sound characteristic in space , their  timbre volume and colored dynamic, their fractals are more important than just sound superficial  isolated and measurable attribute : as bass, high, dynamic, transients and superficial attributes as imaging or soundstage etc Volume of playing instrument his projection in space matter more because in the imaging process the soundstage dimension must reproduce the dimensional distance between the sound source and the listener position and envelopment.  I used acoustic, mechanical and electrical embedding devices to increase or optimize this holographic reproduction of the initial recording acoustic specificities.

Acoustic rule audio not price tags...

I have 2 midfi surround systems and then my two channel system with the good gear.  I can be enjoying listening to the mid fi but always feel that sense of relief when I shift to the main listening room 

Some would consider this a cop out, but I find that a mild cannabis high does wonders for filling in the blanks. I consider cannabis to be a sort of sonic filter that nearly always agrees with me and is a part of my "system." Lots of musicians would agree.

In order to enjoy a record or CD (streaming,) one has to ignore the anomalies of sound which are inevitably there and listen to the music.  
Too many of us listen for the anamolies.

Yes, live music, especially an orchestra, or big band can never be accurately depicted it the home.  A concert hall is not a living room.  It is true that smaller ensembles can come close.  
I also agree that records are especially troublesome, and it’s difficult to listen past vinyl problems. 
If one listens solely for sound, eventually that’s all one hears, and it can bring  you to a very dark place where the music disappears altogether.

The problem you are raising is the one which separated Plato from Aristotle.

Plato said the form can and must exist above and beyond the matter.

Aristotle said the two were permanently entangled.

This is a very old division which you are trying to solve by seeing it in one instantiation -- music vs. sound.

You might consider reading about form and matter.

Of course, you could also see this as a tension between soul and body.  You lament that music -- the soul -- is forced to become sound -- the body -- with all its limitations, defects, fallibilities. Pure music becomes sullied with sonic carnality. How terrible!

So, turn the tables! Revel in your body -- rejoice in flaws and carnality! Be dionysian and play the flute! Drink wine! YOLO, as the kids say.

I think cdc pretty much hits the nail on the head. For myself I prefer a system that does not draw attention to itself and the recording is part of that system. I don’t want to have sounds coming at me which have nothing to do with the music. Vinyl problems were grossly apparent to me and I couldn’t listen past them on a regular basis although I could listen thru them on occasion for a very special performance. CD’s can have too much upper mid range energy, stuff that I would never hear in concert, and for that reason I put an equalizer in my tape loop to compensate. It works for me. IMHO, a home audio system can’t, and never will, replicate a live performance, not even close, so all I require is a quiet, balanced, system and recording, even if the technical merits of the performance are not superb. With this I can just sit back and enjoy the music.

@ghdprentice

I find that records vary so widely in quality I can’t make a blanket statement on the quality of LP’s, especially classical.

OP …”How do you react to musically satisfying LP’s that have sonic defects? ”

I do not react well to bad vinyl. Which is why I have a collection of 2,000 albums largely in pristine condition. So if there is a very good musical pressing with lots of surface noice I will not listen to it.

A note on my system. My vinyl playback and digital playback sound virtually identical. So the variation tends to be around the disk. I believe this variation is due to the fact that the intermediate masters (molds) have a very short life of one to several thousand pressings. I believe the difference is between early pressings from a mold vs late. Because some vinyl of the very same mastering / recording will sound slightly better, some slightly worse than the digital equivalent..

You just have to move to Austria where "The hills are alive with the sound of music". Not the sounds of an audio system. Sorry for that...but I couldn't resist. I do think that we often look for the right things in the wrong places. .:-)

Unlike many musicians, we have this bug tha t craves good sound.

How about this take? Musicians produce the sound. Stereos try to reproduce it. Reproductions have inherent flaws and those flaws can draw one’s attention from the music and to the sound.

For reproductions that are "perfect", hi-res system really shine. For those that are not, maybe it’s better to gloss over things a little. So the flaws are not so noticeable.

Second, as audiophiles, attuned to hearing differences in components, we are our own worst enemy. Consider the people who are happy listening to some crap Bluetooth speakers. Ignorance is bliss.

Third, reproduction is subject to interpretation. Tell 10 artists to paint a given sunset and all 10 paintings will look different. Which one do you like the best? Buy does anyone ever complain about a sunset being too washing out, too bright, etc etc.?

@ghdprentice

I’m just curious. How do you react to musically satisfying LP’s that have sonic defects? Can you listen past the inferior sound? Records are so variable.

OP,

I completely agree that this is a tremendously important topic in a forum with a mixture of experience levels.

I certainly started looking for better sound to hear the music better and by and large the two improved together. Somewhere in the 1990’s after a good twenty years of the pursuit I noticed there was a line that when crossed resulted in detailed sterile sound… not musically fulfilling.

I am highly analytical. So when pursuing high end audio I would go into analytical mode and try and isolate variables that are obvious… detail, slam, imaging. I drilled down to, micro-details, and all sorts of nuances. These all led me (can lead you) away from musicality. You can have them all, but it is really easy to focus the way I did. Some folks get it from the start… typically folks that follow tubes from the beginning.

Not to be too repetitive. I went out to find out what real music sounded like… ten years season tickets to the symphony, acoustic jazz concerts, and sit with every piano played and soloist I could. The result was to change my emphasis to rhythm / pace and authentic presentation of details (not exaggerated / highlighted). Then climbed up better sound quality with this as top priority. This led me to an incredibly musical, relaxing system to listen to, that just gets out of the way. The system is invisible. It has all the details, but in perspective, it has wonderful imaging (without resorting to elevated treble to accomplish this), and dynamics… but not artificial. When I go from my system to the symphony, I get the same experience. Same with a rock concert… only without the horrible distortion and deafening volume.

It took me a long time to recognize the difference from putting together an analytical sounding system and a musical one. A well worth distinction to understand as soon as possible in pursuing the high end. I know lots of folks with very expensive systems that still haven’t figured it out. If you listen for 45 minutes to your system and can get up and do something else without tremendous effort you may be one of those.

I'd say that when I was searching for sound I discovered jazz and found that I kind of like it.  (I cannot say the same about kind of liking classical.  Yet.)

I'd also say that I would prefer sound AND music, but if given the choice of music I like that sounds (due to the quality of the source material's mastering, mixing, recording) like hammered dogcrp and music I am not crazy about that sounds great, I'd pick the good sound over good music.  That is if I could only have one or the other.

Music only.

Although when I choose between 2 DAPs I pick the more involving one.

Speaker systems have additional factors for consideration.

Recently added a pair of GanFET monoblocs to my system and doubt I will have to go any further. A sigh of relief.

I will admit to falling into the "trap" you've highlighted. After a long hiatus, I re-started my HiFi hobby; with all the new technological and evolutionary developments in gear since I last dabbled (some 25yrs ago), I was like a kid in a sweetshop. but, I didn't factor in that my sonic preferences, and musical tastes have also evolved.

I've chased high dynamic contrasts, and detail, but realised that while my system sounded impressive, it didn't really impart "soul", I found it dispassionate if that makes sense. But I have now, eventually, come out of the other side. What I find I'm actually looking for is to feel the music again. For instance, I've bought a pre-loved DAC, which I'm using in place of my main DAC at the moment; the reason being, it has a much more organic, lusher sound character which I find far more desirable.I did a similar thing with my integrated prior to this, for the same reasons.

We all enter this hobby with an innate love of music, but can get lost along the way, chasing an ideal that maybe doesn't exist, or if it does may actually not be what is desired to fulfil the musical yearning.

When the acoustic experience is right and when synergy between gear pieces is there as in my low cost well embedded system, which give me  pleasure by reaching the minimal  acoustical satisfaction threshold , you forgot sound and only music exist in ectasy...

Acoustics rule audio not price tags...

With a one 1000 bucks system am i deluded or deaf ?

No, many are deluded because they had not learned the basic  electrical, mechanical and acoustical facts... Their hobby is a race in gear expanse experience... My hobby was learning basic and once done listening music in sonic ectasy...

It is job done... 😊

Yes i am provocative... I want to motivate people to learn without giving money BEFORE  the  assimilation  of basic learning ..