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New Yorker piece on audiophiles

rdenney

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So, for a guy who only cares for the music and not the SQ, how much you have invested into your vinyl playback gear?
I’ll answer for me: $300 for a used Thorens TD166II (sans dust cover), $95 for a Grado Green cartridge that I didn’t much like, $250 for an Audio Technica AT440mla that I do like, $79 for a new dust cover because it looks nice, $24 for 3D-printed hinges for said dust cover, $39 for a Q-up arm lifter, and $21 for a 3D-printed cartridge alignment tool. My one really foolish purchase was $100 for a used Music Hall Cruise Control, which provides a speed-adjustable 16 VAC power source for the turntable.

And I put some hours into getting it tip-top, though I have a bit more to do.

I’ve paid more for CD players that are reliable.

Rick “not that much in the grand scheme of things” Denney
 

MattHooper

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I’ll answer for me: $300 for a used Thorens TD166II (sans dust cover), $95 for a Grado Green cartridge that I didn’t much like, $250 for an Audio Technica AT440mla that I do like, $79 for a new dust cover because it looks nice, $24 for 3D-printed hinges for said dust cover, $39 for a Q-up arm lifter, and $21 for a 3D-printed cartridge alignment tool. My one really foolish purchase was $100 for a used Music Hall Cruise Control, which provides a speed-adjustable 16 VAC power source for the turntable.

And I put some hours into getting it tip-top, though I have a bit more to do.

I’ve paid more for CD players that are reliable.

Rick “not that much in the grand scheme of things” Denney

Yer making me blush about how much I spent on my vinyl rig :eek:
 

Sal1950

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TulseLuper

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I realize this is going deep into the weeds, but this is also the sort of byway that makes audio gear and recordings desirable. Also the sort of digression that The New Yorker would go into, at least during its heyday.

I'd say Beethoven went "full deaf" by the time he composed the Opus 101, A major sonata for piano. And a lot of what I'm pointing to is in the following:


I'd point in particular to about 6:28 in, where the false beginnings of a fugue turn into an actual fugue. The kind of a fugue where the melody paths lead to dissonances instead of resolutions. This happens repeatedly in Beethoven's music from this point on, and it reminds me of both Ives and Nancarrow in that he seems to be seeking out music that naturally leads to difficulties, like a force of nature, as if the difficulty is the point. Claudio Arrau has said as much. That creation of the "romantic sound" is one aspect of Beethoven, probably the best known, but his baroque influences come to the fore in his later works. I think it's worth noting that Beethoven first made a name for himself with performances of selections from Bach's "Well Tempered Klavier" along with improvising tunes on the spot as a "child prodigy". I can hear Bach's influence in just about all the piano sonatas. And there's some aspects of the Late Quartets closer in construction to French Suites than Haydn's Quartets. It's interesting that Beethoven was so influenced by music he probably never heard in performance, only in his head.

I recall Glenn Gould making a comment along the lines that the finest music is best heard in memory. Again, this all points to the notion that performance, in the usual sense, in "real time", is not the necessarily the best possible realization of music and not necessarily the best possible mode of experiencing music.

Thanks for the insights. Beethoven as baroque-influenced classical composer has always captured me more than Beethoven as romantic era usher, but that's just instinct.
 

q3cpma

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I'm sorry mate, but there are massive logic errors in your post (mainly a big strawman that is elaborated upon with lots of words) and replying properly to each would be long and probably not very productive. I'll point the first (and easiest) one because I'm nice and because your post is axed on it.
It's similar to the inference that someone who cares about sound reproduction therefore doesn't really care about the music he's listening to
Absolutely not, one implies that interest for music and the science of music reproduction/wanting to experience music in a "better" way are somehow exclusive. I didn't, my deduction is as simple as that:
Code:
music + X (vinyl, tubes, whatever floats your audiophile boat) => enjoyment
music alone => "significantly less" enjoyment
=> most enjoyment came from X, not music
 

ahofer

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Code:
music + X (vinyl, tubes, whatever floats your audiophile boat) => enjoyment
music alone => "significantly less" enjoyment
=> most enjoyment came from X, not music

However, what if music.live=>max(enjoyment)?

I don't have a dog in your argument, but your framing raised a question in my mind. Is the assigned constant "music" perfect reproduction, or some assumed level of fidelity?
 

q3cpma

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However, what if music.live=>max(enjoyment)?

I don't have a dog in your argument, but your framing raised a question in my mind. Is the assigned constant "music" perfect reproduction, or some assumed level of fidelity?
That would be perfect (in a reasonable way; within the room's constraints, basically) reproduction. After that, some may pepper with either imperfections or unrelated distractions.
 

TimF

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Thanks for the insights. Beethoven as baroque-influenced classical composer has always captured me more than Beethoven as romantic era usher, but that's just instinct.
What Beethoven did with the fugue structure is not what Bach did with that structure. Recently I listened to a couple movements of Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies for solo piano. I didn't like it at all....yuk. Try to whistle a Beethoven symphony. You may give a rendition of the main themes but you won't covey the varieties and colors much at all. It becomes hutzpah but that is about it.
 

MattHooper

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I'm sorry mate, but there are massive logic errors in your post (mainly a big strawman that is elaborated upon with lots of words) and replying properly to each would be long and probably not very productive.

Ok. I'm afraid I won't just take your word for it, though, since I still see you making the same error, and since I have already explained how I can know your claim:

my point is that the people for whom music was trivialized by its ease of consumption didn't care that much about music in the first place. I mean, it's basic deduction, isn't it?

Is wrong.

By observation.

I found that the experience of listening to music became harder to concentrate on and instant constant access tended to make it feel less special.
Yet I know from the facts of my own experience that I care deeply about music.

So, you've gone wrong somewhere in your attempt to make a deduction about human psychology. It's a frankly naive deduction for the reasons I've already given.


This is hardly an uncommon feature of human psychology. Take your favorite desert from your favorite restaurant, one you love, but only have once in a while. Now switch to being served that desert with every single meal, every single day. If you are like most people, you will get bored of that desert. It simply will not sustain the stimulus that it has when you only eat it occasionally dining out. Is the correct deduction "therefore you NEVER REALLY valued or enjoyed that desert?" Of course not. You loved it. Savored it. But the fact of human psychology is that our reaction to something is affected by the context in which we experience it.

And people are affected in different ways.


I'll point the first (and easiest) one because I'm nice and because your post is axed on it.

I'm sure glad you are nice, and letting me down easy. ;-)


Code:
music + X (vinyl, tubes, whatever floats your audiophile boat) => enjoyment
music alone => "significantly less" enjoyment
=> most enjoyment came from X, not music

Yeah. Naive deduction, unfortunately. For the reasons given. Part of your error is contained in the "music alone" because it simply hides everything of relevance I spoke about, since it's not simply "music alone" because the music isn't simply "appearing alone" it is being delivered by a particular technology that provides a specific experience of the music, which will affect some people differently than others.

Here's information from which we'll make a similarly fallacious deduction:

Fred has a bad back and requires a chair with good back support in order to be comfortable.
Fred has gone with his wife to see his favorite piece of music, Mahler’s Symphony n 5, conducted by his favorite conductor.
It turns out Fred's seat's back support is sunken, so that he is too uncomfortable to enjoy the music.
He switches seats with his wife, and now has a comfy chair - he's able to focus on and enjoy the symphony.

Now here is the deduction in the way you have made it:

X(music) + comfy seat = enjoyment of music
"music alone" = "significantly less" enjoyment.
=> Most enjoyment came from the comfy chair.

See the problem? In "music alone" I've left out the very rational facts of the matter - Fred's bad back and the broken chair - that made for Fred's significantly less enjoyment of the music in the first place. Which makes for a ridiculous conclusion.

Another way of putting the poor conclusion more explicitly:

X(music) + comfy seat = Fred's enjoyment of music
X(music) + broken seat = Fred's "significantly less" enjoyment of music
= Most enjoyment came from the comfy chair
Therefore Fred really didn't care that much about music in the first place (Mahler’s Symphony n 5)

See the fallacious inference? It's not that Fred loved the comfy chair more than Mahler, it's that a comfy chair ALLOWS Fred to indulge in his love for Mahler at the symphony.

But that initial fallacious inference is what you were doing. By not acknowledging how the situation in which X is presented can affect how a person responds to X.

Similarly, if someone is prone to distraction, and takes pains to reduce distraction so they can concentrate on X that he loves, it is fallacious to infer that therefore the steps he takes to reduce the distraction ENTAILS that it's the STEPS the person actually cares about instead of X.

I hope this has cleared things up :)

Cheers.
 
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Robin L

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What Beethoven did with the fugue structure is not what Bach did with that structure. Recently I listened to a couple movements of Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies for solo piano. I didn't like it at all....yuk. Try to whistle a Beethoven symphony. You may give a rendition of the main themes but you won't covey the varieties and colors much at all. It becomes hutzpah but that is about it.
Of course, Beethoven was not Bach. One could say the same of the Stones playing Chuck Berry.
 

lshivamber

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Creative writing can be great reading. But so is good fiction.
I am of the view that unless there are actual measurements taken, any listening test is purely subjective and not relevant to what I am likely to experience.
 

rdenney

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Ok. I'm afraid I won't just take your word for it, though, since I still see you making the same error, and since I have already explained how I can know your claim:



Is wrong.

By observation.

I found that the experience of listening to music became harder to concentrate on and instant constant access tended to make it feel less special.
Yet I know from the facts of my own experience that I care deeply about music.

So, you've gone wrong somewhere in your attempt to make a deduction about human psychology. It's a frankly naive deduction for the reasons I've already given.


This is hardly an uncommon feature of human psychology. Take your favorite desert from your favorite restaurant, one you love, but only have once in a while. Now switch to being served that desert with every single meal, every single day. If you are like most people, you will get bored of that desert. It simply will not sustain the stimulus that it has when you only eat it occasionally dining out. Is the correct deduction "therefore you NEVER REALLY valued or enjoyed that desert?" Of course not. You loved it. Savored it. But the fact of human psychology is that our reaction to something is affected by the context in which we experience it.

And people are affected in different ways.




I'm sure glad you are nice, and letting me down easy. ;-)


Code:
music + X (vinyl, tubes, whatever floats your audiophile boat) => enjoyment
music alone => "significantly less" enjoyment
=> most enjoyment came from X, not music

Yeah. Naive deduction, unfortunately. For the reasons given. Part of your error is contained in the "music alone" because it simply hides everything of relevance I spoke about, since it's not simply "music alone" because the music isn't simply "appearing alone" it is being delivered by a particular technology that provides a specific experience of the music, which will affect some people differently than others.

Here's information from which we'll make a similarly fallacious deduction:

Fred has a bad back and requires a chair with good back support in order to be comfortable.
Fred has gone with his wife to see his favorite piece of music, Mahler’s Symphony n 5, conducted by his favorite conductor.
It turns out Fred's seat's back support is sunken, so that he is too uncomfortable to enjoy the music.
He switches seats with his wife, and now has a comfy chair - he's able to focus on and enjoy the symphony.

Now here is the deduction in the way you have made it:

X(music) + comfy seat = enjoyment of music
"music alone" = "significantly less" enjoyment.
=> Most enjoyment came from the comfy chair.

See the problem? In "music alone" I've left out the very rational facts of the matter - Fred's bad back and the broken chair - that made for Fred's significantly less enjoyment of the music in the first place. Which makes for a ridiculous conclusion.

Another way of putting the poor conclusion more explicitly:

X(music) + comfy seat = Fred's enjoyment of music
X(music) + broken seat = Fred's "significantly less" enjoyment of music
= Most enjoyment came from the comfy chair
Therefore Fred never really didn't care that much about music in the first place (Mahler’s Symphony n 5)

See the fallacious inference? It's not that Fred loved the comfy chair more than Mahler, it's that a comfy chair ALLOWS Fred to indulge in his love for Mahler at the symphony.

But that initial fallacious inference is what you were doing. By not acknowledging how the situation in which X is presented can affect how a person responds to X.

Similarly, if someone is prone to distraction, and takes pains to reduce distraction so they can concentrate on X that he loves, it is fallacious to infer that therefore the steps he takes to reduce the distraction ENTAILS that it's the STEPS the person actually cares about instead of X.

I hope this has cleared things up :)

Cheers.
Interesting. Thought comes to mind: As instrument technologies improved, the tonal palette expanded and composers were more ready to use those expanded colors. To me, Renaissance music is about architecture--the first use of polyphonics. Baroque added rhythmic architecture. Classical added additional colors and more rhythmic architecture. Romantic added chromatic harmonies and much more color--many instruments underwent radical change or where invented during the Romantic era. For example, workable valves were invented for brass instruments and that made chromatic playing on trumpets and horns possible and convenient, and it made tubas possible.

The late Romantic fed into the Impressionistic period, where color became more important than architecture for the first time. Vaughan Williams studied with Ravel in the very early 20th Century, and said of the experience, "Ravel taught me to orchestrate in points of color." (my slight paraphrase--I didn't look it up.) Of course, that doesn't mean what went before was abandoned, but was absorbed into a large mix of new techniques.

Where it went in the 20th Century is a whole other topic. :)

Rick "not a musicalologist" Denney
 

ahofer

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Where it went in the 20th Century is a whole other topic. :)

Thou shalt use all of these twelve tones, not in succession, and without repeating a tone until all tones have been sounded? Thou shalt write music that is more fun to perform than to hear?

Andrew "not that into serialism, but open to having his mind changed" Hofer
 

rdenney

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Thou shalt use all of these twelve tones, not in succession, and without repeating a tone until all tones have been sounded? Thou shalt write music that is more fun to perform than to hear?

Andrew "not that into serialism, but open to having his mind changed" Hofer
To which Vaughan Williams replied, when a tone row was demonstrated to him by one of his students: "If you happen to think of a melody, please do write it down."

Rick "that was in the 50's" Denney
 

Robin L

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To which Vaughan Williams replied, when a tone row was demonstrated to him by one of his students: "If you happen to think of a melody, please do write it down."

Rick "that was in the 50's" Denney
Atonality, serialism and dodecaphonics are such a tiny element of 20th century music. You forgot Musique Concrete, minimalism, musical fusions, unperformable music performed by machines, the unintended effects of editing, the rise of distortion, Rock, Blues, Jazz and so on. The twentieth century is a rich and strange time in music, moving out in all directions
 

rdenney

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Oh, yes. The first needledrop I make with my new-to-me Thorens table was my LP 4-disc box set of Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. This is one of the few recordings in my experience that seemed better on LP than on CD, but that impression was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Rick "who actually likes a lot of the 20th- Century avant garde" Denney
 

ahofer

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Atonality, serialism and dodecaphonics are such a tiny element of 20th century music. You forgot Musique Concrete, minimalism, musical fusions, unperformable music performed by machines, the unintended effects of editing, the rise of distortion, Rock, Blues, Jazz and so on. The twentieth century is a rich and strange time in music, moving out in all directions

Agreed. Serialism is just my pet peeve, partly because I still feel I'm being forced to clap for it. And whenever I try to get a (less classically-inclined) friend to see a pianist I admire, somehow Stockhausen ends up on the program and I can see they never want to do *this* again.

Andrew "old and married, so shouldn't feel like I have to impress anyone, yet somehow still feel that way" Hofer
 

Robin L

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Agreed. Serialism is just my pet peeve, partly because I still feel I'm being forced to clap for it. And whenever I try to get a (less classically-inclined) friend to see a pianist I admire, somehow Stockhausen ends up on the program and I can see they never want to do *this* again.

Andrew "old and married, so shouldn't feel like I have to impress anyone, yet somehow still feel that way" Hofer
There were several series of brand spanking new music I was recording---I'm guessing for the purpose of writing grant applications---back in the nineties. One was working out of a dance studio in San Francisco, could hold an audience of about 50, another was for the Woman's Philharmonic, various venues, usually without much of an audience. I think the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra had one they had me record from their "Wet Ink" series. I've seen/met recorded Terry Reilly, Lou Harrison among others you'll never hear from.
Oh, yes. The first needledrop I make with my new-to-me Thorens table was my LP 4-disc box set of Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. This is one of the few recordings in my experience that seemed better on LP than on CD, but that impression was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Rick "who actually likes a lot of the 20th- Century avant garde" Denney

I guess I'm naturally drawn to weird music. I think there was a re-recording of Einstein on the Beach, the original was from Tomato, the later performance from Nonesuch. So there are two different performances on CD. I do have fond memories of playing Einstein on the Beach off the LPs from an Empire 598 turntable via a tube amp into a corner horn speaker in the kitchen, back around 1981.
 

MattHooper

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Oh, yes. The first needledrop I make with my new-to-me Thorens table was my LP 4-disc box set of Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. This is one of the few recordings in my experience that seemed better on LP than on CD, but that impression was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Rick "who actually likes a lot of the 20th- Century avant garde" Denney

I love some of Philip Glass's work, though I gravitate to his soundtracks. His scores for Powaqqatsi and Candy Man sound stunning on vinyl.
 

rdenney

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I love some of Philip Glass's work, though I gravitate to his soundtracks. His scores for Powaqqatsi and Candy Man sound stunning on vinyl.

Don't forget Koyanisqaatsi. I struggled with the movie, but the soundtrack is stunning.

Rick "also liking Glassworks, and The Photographer" Denney
 
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