What percentage of the time do you you listen to your set JUST for the SQ and what percentage do you listen to your set JUST for the music? I know the obvious answer is you do both, but can you honestly answer the question?
Initially thought this was a funny question but now I find it pretty fascinating.
I must be truthful: I listen to the sound quality. Would have liked to say music. But I only buy records I want to hear anyway.
I think I have a sheer joy for the way things sound. I also play drums and they’re meticulously tuned. I will not spend a minute playing until they sound the way I need them to sound.
So I give special attention to how each instrument and the vocals sound on any given track. It gives me a lot of joy and comfort to hear beautiful sounds.
Can not breakdown an accurate percentage but I do rate sound quality(SQ) on a scale of 3-5, Anything rated <4 is distracting and takes away the pleasure of music. I would estimate that approximately 1/5 of my collection suffers from being poorly recorded.
Never really thought about it. When I sit down to listen, I would guess that I listen more for SQ for a short while and then the music takes over and from then on the SQ is secondary.
When you are no longer young, as many of us are, We all have a database in our listening history of our favorite music. Many of my favorites have been heard thousands of time over many systems, using many sources. You know when it is good, and that is what makes me smile. I just calculated that I bought my first serious system in 1969/70. That is over 50 years, or 2,600 weeks. I know when to listen to the decay of cymbals, or sustain of guitar. I have become much more sensitive to source materials. And I look back and smile at the journey and how lucky I have been.
When you get your setup correct you will spend your time listening to the music and forgetting about how it sounds anymore but the journey getting to that point can be a nightmare. It is hard to concentrate on the music if you are worried about the sound so my answer is 70/30 sq to music till you get it right and 95/5 sq to music when all is perfect for your ears and your tastes.
My recent tweaks have caused me to take notice of the music due to the change in sound quality. My office system is mostly for work, but after upgrading my DAC/Streamer/Ethernet/Interconnects, I found myself listening while working and suddenly noticing subtle/positive changes that had me more engaged with the music that before.-And, doing less work... Bob
Way too many audiophiles are hung up on "sound quality" to the detriment of enjoying an emotional connection to The Music!
It is only so with an exact correlation with their incapacity to create an optimal audio system, except by throwing money...
When an audio system is installed rightfully in his 3 working embeddings dimensions, only music exist, no more sound...A natural timbre playing piano is only that: a natural timbre playing piano; then only music with no more sound problems...
It is impossible to stop any cd or files playing in a very good audio system....The pleasure is too great and the boredom and frustration are at zero level...
Always was music, sound quality came second but today both serve the same. Music and sound quality for the ones I like and for the unknown. It is nice to hear how many are involved in a track but to see how they do it together is better. You cannot completely separate them as I can sing the ones I like even in the car but without Sq I would not have broaden my music tastes.
Way too many audiophiles are hung up on "sound quality" to the detriment of enjoying an emotional connection to The Music! Now where did I put that Ozawa/BSO Mahler 1 LP?
Ninety Percent of the time I listen for the music. I only get hung up on sound quality if the quality is truly outstanding or pushes my buttons the wrong way. Tizzy violin sections and buzzy male vocals do drive me nuts. As does boomy or excessive bass.
I never listen to what is commonly called music. This is all noise to me. I always listen for the sound, that’s where true music is.
I wonder why in some strech of the imagination the great Maestro Ernest Ansermet, also a mathematician, wrote a 1,200 pages book demonstrating that music is ANYTHING in consciousness except only sound...
I wonder why Celibidache another great maestro was attentive to silence first and sound in second...
Myself i will bet that music and silence are there when we listen to an audio system IN SPITE OF the sound, good or bad...
Thats why it’s particularly disturbing to me when SQ becomes such a seductive force.
This is true ONLY when some optimal point is not passed by... Or when some obstructive negative force working in the audio system impact our unconscious ears...Be it vibrations, too high level noise floor or some acoustical settings problems...
But passed some quality level, sound is no more an obstruction but the vehicule of music....
My system is not perfect, but i was listening yesterday on youtube a very costly system,7 figures one, compared to my 500 bucks system, and even in spite of the youtube formating, i discerned problems in the acoustic of the room that negatively affect the sound unbeknownst to the owner it seems...The instrumental timbre and timbre voices were fatiguing and unnatural even through my own system... 😁
Then listening to this high cost system i was prefering my low cost system in my room.... 😊
This is why there is no more upgrading costly upsetting dreams for me.....For sure if money were on my tree branch i will upgrade but it does not disturb me at all not being able to do so...
Controlling the three working embeddings dimensions of an audio system is way more rewarding than buying an illusion or a small increase in S.Q....
Acoustic controls for example are in general way more impactful than the changing of an amplifier.... Why people never figure it out ?
The answer is simple: consumer conditioning through audio reviews about gear and through audio threads... Couple that with an unconscious depreciation of the huge importance of the controls methods in the 3 working embeddings dimensions, calling these essentials controls methods now secondary addition of "tweaks".... And like everyone know almost all costly tweaks are alleged "snake oil"....😁 All the importance is shifted then on buying the new electronic design.... This is consumers conditioning not audiophile experience at all....
At the end it is not suprizing that most people dont have a clue about how to install their audio system....They end up frustated and never satisfied....
I would like to say that I always listen to the music first.
However that wouldn’t be true.
Just a few weeks ago I found myself beginning to feel a bit sick listening to the Jam compilation Direction Reaction Creation.
Something felt wrong, despite an apparently nice full sound there was a distinct lack of dynamics, particularly bad on the more punchy tracks such as Start! or Going Underground, Funeral Pyre etc.
I later managed to get hold of a copy of Snap! yet another compilation, but far closer to original vinyl, and all was well again.
Digital compression nowadays seems to be a huge problem with heavy rock as fans of bands such as Motorhead or the Dead Kennedys might testify.
Why anyone would want to deliberately mute the dynamics of music (essentially its life), especially of rock, is disturbing.
If the majority of consumers genuinely prefer that mush, then they need to get to an Hi-Fi dealer and see just what they’re missing.
Who knows, maybe when listening on some weak-assed Walmart system, they might feel that kind of compression is adding some much needed body to the sound?
If so, they’re ruining it for many of us who are not using such systems.
Having said all that I usually can forget about sound quality once the actual listening starts - providing the sound is listenable.
Of course I might never quite stop wanting a little more, I’m a long time recovering audiophile.
Since childhood, music has been an overwhelming passion in my life. Thats why it’s particularly disturbing to me when SQ becomes such a seductive force.
I rarely listen to SQ: it just creeps up on me sometimes, as in 'Holy crap, that sounds good'.
But on my crappy bedroom system--a cd player w/ a mixer and computer speakers--I will often adjust everything to make it sound as good as it can sound. I admit, the 'quality of sound' is in this case likely more related to the quality of [I'll just call them ingested sound enhancers] than anything in the system itself.
At this point in time, with all of the tweaking that’s been done, I marvel at how real the music sounds.
I guess i am on the same boat and anyway sound is not music but music is also sound....
I must confess that for 2 years i look for the sound in my listening experiments but now passed a certain minimal quality point, i am done mostly with the sound.... I dont even contemplate seiously an upgrade...
The piano i listen to now is a real one with the wished tonal timbre when playing notes.....I am conscious of the sound for sure but i listen now to the music .....
I'm always listening for the music. The thing of it is though, music and sound quality are inseparable. A violin is not a Stradivarius, nor is a Strad wrapped in a blanket played in a closet. There's a reason concert halls are built the way they are.
I almost never do JUST one OR the other. It did however take a while to get here. In the beginning it was impossible to hear any difference between things like DACs and CD. All CD sounded just the same to me. In learning to hear the difference there was a lot of time spent focusing on just one thing, like the way a cymbal or guitar note decays off into nothing. When doing this I was pretty much oblivious to the music. It was all just listening to "ting" vs "Tinnnngggggg".
Then tone, harmonics, dynamics, on and on, one thing, one tiny little aspect of the sound after another.
Eventually one day it was not only the improvement of demagnetizing a CD I was hearing, I was also noticing that the improvement dissipated and was gone within about 8 to 10 minutes. It was not just the difference between Cones, it was the difference between using stainless steel vs brass studs to attach the Cones. As impressive as it was being able to discern this much detail at such a deep level it was detracting from musical enjoyment- which was a concern, that being the whole point after all. I was deep in audiophilia nervosa and a hard core case at that!
Around this time I was also starting to blame my equipment, thinking things like maybe you can reach a point where the system is "too good" and you would be better off enjoying music more with a lesser system. One of the most fun systems I ever heard cost only about $2500 so this seemed to be the case.
Right. As if.
My system is about a million times better now than it was then, and I enjoy listening to music on it more than ever. The difference is not the system. The difference is me. I learned a long time ago that just because you can listen for something doesn't mean you have to. Nothing ever is always perfect anyway. So relax and enjoy the ride.
Doesn't mean you don't ever check the tire pressures. Doesn't mean you forget tire pressure affects handling and ride. Just means you understand you are there for the ride, and not the psi. Yes they are inseparable. But one is the reason for the other, and not the other way around.
So to answer specifically, there was a time I listened 100% for the music. Then there was a time when I listened 100% just for the sound quality. Now I just listen. It's a zen thing.
Questions do arise and there are times when you have to listen for sound quality. For instance, is the subwoofer on, are the channels reversed, should I change the volume, etc. It probably adds up to 1 or 2 percent of the total listening time.
The two are not really separable. When I listen, I put on some music that I want to hear. Often while listening I'll think, "that album sounds really good" or, "that album wasn't recorded very well" or, "they compressed the hell out of that one."
I even make note of certain aspects of the music. How does the bass sound? Do the vocals sound natural, etc? But that happens while I'm listening to the music.
I have some test CDs but I can't remember the last time I got them out. When I have it's usually to measure the bass at various frequencies with an spl meter on my phone.
I don't have a set of demonstration CDs that highlight certain aspects of the sound that I play to hear how good they sound. I guess you'd say that I notice when an album sounds good or bad frequently, but I don't listen for that specific purpose very often.
Since no one has yet dared to tackle the question, I’ll answer it myself. I find that, ashamedly, I listen for the sound only a large percentage of the time. I guess that’s the pitfall of spending a lot of time and money in this hobby.
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