@bolong - I have it on vinyl, just a regular $25 pressing, and it’s the same. The first track has some issues with the recording. I thought it was just my pressing, but your post confirms what I heard as well.
Stuff You Tried To Love
I know we talk a lot about confirmation bias- we buy something and then convince ourselves we like it. Or something like that. But did you ever buy something you wanted to love and just couldn’t make it work? For me, Esoteric X-05 SACD/CD player. Bought from a local who was upgrading to the X-03. Big, beautiful piece of gear, but I couldn’t get used to the sound after 6 months of trying. Sold it to another local- I insisted he listen before he bought and I believe he sold it soon after as well. Totem Forest and Hawk. I loved the whole concept. Slim, easy to live with. Couldn’t get them to work in my room. The Model Ones were much better. I had a couple of other pieces, but this is long enough. BTW, these were bought used without audition.
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@stuartk - I guess I do miss your point. Penguin Jazz guide rates most very popular titles highly, and some I don't like because they are unlistenable to me (Love Supreme, Eric Dolphy, etc.) but they don't exactly overlap. I like what I like - although not specific to one narrow type of jazz. Mostly late fifties to mid 60's slanted toward smaller (sextet or less typically) groups. I guess the way Sirius XM divides them is how listeners categorize them, and real jazz has most of what I prefer and watercolors has some. It would be nice if they had a progressive (maybe modern?) jazz (or experimental or whatever you want to call it) but I guess the demand isn't there. |
I can't imagine that anyone would find the Mal Waldron/Eric Dolphy album "The Quest" unlistenable, but, it is a matter of personal preference. I am often shocked at what clicks with different listeners. A friend asked me for some examples of jazz recordings because he was new to jazz. I supplied an extreme range of albums, and his favorite was Coltrane's "Interstellar Space," an album many find totally inaccessible. Another friend asked for a range of classical recordings; again, I included music from a wide range of styles-- Renaissance to modern. The chosen favorite was Harry Partch "Delusion of the Fury." |
Our consciousness level and our perceptions is related to the ways are oriented our acts of thinking, feeling and willing... Music is a symbolic forms embodied in sounds grounded in the body existing on specific consciousness levels which cannot be perceived and understood as interesting and meaningful by all people in all cultures all at the same time ... The deep meaning of Yoruba speaking drums or Didjeridoo meaningful experience can escape the mind of someone vouching only for Mozart or Miles Davis ...Or rock-pop etc... There is no linear hierarchisation of value from the worst to the bests ... There is only music more able to elevate conscious levels or not and this for a specific person at one point in time in his journey which will make no sense for other people.... But there is a cycle of working thinking-feeling-willing-perceptions which at some point in time ask our consciousness to enlarge itself for a deepest experience and ask us if we are ready to open ourself to something out of our habits... Because of all i just said: music is meanings engrammed and produced by the gesturing body (mouth and members) then the more distant from the creative body music is the less significant it is...( i speak about artificial sounds here not natural sounds) . Then we must be ready to hear and understand Eric Dolphy... And we may prefer didjeridoo to miles Davis or Chet Baker ...Or praise youruba drums over kind of blue... This means nothing for others people... This only reflect a part of our soul journey in music
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There is also the case of instant love while other pieces slowly become favorites, or in some cases music might fall out of favor. I find it impossible to say why certain music did not click at first while others were instant favorites; there is no obvious characteristics that make sense to me about what I like. Instant favorites include Shostakovich Piano Trio No. 2, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Beethoven late string quartets, anything by Schubert, most of Mahler, but, Prokofiev and Bruckner did not initially tickle my fancy. I did not pay much attention to British composers like Britten, Vaughn Williams, Walton and Tippett, but now I like them a lot (throw in Alwyn too). |
@viridian The ortofon bronze sounds wonderful with a tube phono preamp. Its a great cartridge. Fremer mentions the use of a tubed phono stage with the bronze in one of his cartridge shootout articles. |
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For me it was a Cambridge Audio 840A integrated. When I took my first real step into the audiophile world it was the other amplifier that I was considering. I had already stretched my budget with speakers and wasn't planning to upgrade from my consumer level Onkyo receiver, but it sounded so bad that I couldn't live with it. I wasn't completely ready to give up on home theater, so ended up with an Integer Receiver that I still have have enjoy around 15 years later. I eventually picked up the 840A used with the plan of using its home theater bypass capability to separate out my stereo components. The first issue was it. being incompatible with my Integra receiver which results in a lot of noise (not necessarily its fault). If found a Cambridge Audio receiver for a great price so picked it up with the goal of making the total change and confirming if the 840A had an actual issue, but that combination simply didn't sound good to my ears. I sold the CA receiver to a friend who's still using it and then played around with the 840A as a stereo component. It always sounded digital and grainy to my ears. It was the one that got away so to speak, but once captured it got sent away. It was the gateway to my current Pathos Classic One MKiii integrated by way of trade-in, so it served its purpose. Expectation bias and a sentimental desire to own it were both strong which is likely the only reason that I didn't move it along right away. |
ATC SCM19 v.2 speakers Rave reviews abounded, but I was very disappointed. Just lifeless (was using a Hegel H190 at the time). I have had the opportunity to hear several other ATC speakers in the meantime and not once did I hear anything that I would be willing to live with. Only my Spendor A3Rs sounded worse to my ears. This is in the context of the 16 different pairs of spears that I have owned since the late-1980s. I now own JM Reynaud Abscisse Jubiles, which I just love. |