New Yorker piece on audiophiles

[Anthony101]

I enjoy listening to piano sonatas; can anyone here recommend me a particular album of Philip Glass?

 

[MattHooper]

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

Oh yeah! I did a film school project on Koyanisqaatsi in the 80's and saw it many times after that. Awesome score for the movie, though for some reason hasn't leapt out as a score I listen to on it's own, unlike Powaqqatsi. I guess I like the bigger symphonic/exotic textures in that score.
Though Candy Man is quite spare. I love the "God's Eye View" sense of doom brought by Glass's composition to that otherwise modest horror movie. His score has that combination of eerie and trade-mark repetitious rhythm that implies a sort of inevitability to the outcome.

I attended a live performance of Glass's score for Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast, synced to the projected image. That was fun!

 

[rdenney]

I enjoy listening to piano sonatas; can anyone here recommend me a particular album of Philip Glass?

Glassworks is the intended entry point. That will give you flavor of what his minimalism was like when he first broke out. And it takes a little less commitment than Einstein on the Beach.

Rick "Glassworks was his first album for CBS Masterworks" Denney

 

[rdenney]

Oh yeah! I did a film school project on Koyanisqaatsi in the 80's and saw it many times after that. Awesome score for the movie, though for some reason hasn't leapt out as a score I listen to on it's own, unlike Powaqqatsi. I guess I like the bigger symphonic/exotic textures in that score.
Though Candy Man is quite spare. I love the "God's Eye View" sense of doom brought by Glass's composition to that otherwise modest horror movie. His score has that combination of eerie and trade-mark repetitious rhythm that implies a sort of inevitability to the outcome.

I attended a live performance of Glass's score for Cocteau's Beauty And The Beast, synced to the projected image. That was fun!

My first Philp Glass concert was at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas in, I think, 1982. It was a small auditorium, and the amplification was extremely loud and dynamic. And the system they used was definitely up to his use of the bass synthesizer. A friend of mine dragged me kicking and screaming to the concert, and I went in grumbling like a 13-year-old. It took about 20 minutes for it to sink in. I bought everything the local record store had of him the next day, which was just Glassworks and Koyanisqaatsi.

Rick "lost touch with his later work, however" Denney

 

[Anthony101]

Glassworks is the intended entry point. That will give you flavor of what his minimalism was like when he first broke out. And it takes a little less commitment than Einstein on the Beach.

Rick "Glassworks was his first album for CBS Masterworks" Denney

Thank you very much for your recommendation!

 

[Robin L]

Got "Kanopy" last fall, Gail tuned into "Dracula", the Bela Lugosi original. I'm hearing the soundtrack thinking: "That sounds just like Philip Glass".

 

[MattHooper]

Got "Kanopy" last fall, Gail tuned into "Dracula", the Bela Lugosi original. I'm hearing the soundtrack thinking: "That sounds just like Philip Glass".

I recently re-watched Dracula (blu-ray) original and with Glass's score. While I liked the music, as music, I did prefer the mood of the original.
I should give it another try though.

 

[Robin L]

I recently re-watched Dracula (blu-ray) original and with Glass's score. While I liked the music, as music, I did prefer the mood of the original.
I should give it another try though.

This was random. Gail wanted to see the original Dracula again. While I remember reading about the Philip Glass "Dracula", I was seeing this anticipating the original soundtrack, not some unholy postmodern mash-up

 

[MattHooper]

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.

This is what I mean when I pointed out that the term "music alone" in the "equation" was a useless factor, because there is no real "music alone."
Music is always being presented a certain way in a certain context producing different experiences depending on the predilections of the listener.

q3cpma first equated "music alone" as = "music in digital form using a streaming service/server." Well now what is it? Is streaming music "music alone?" Or is "music alone" actually best understood as "a live performance?" Is so...why? Do you "need" to make a trip to actually see the performers playing? Do you NEED to hear it within a certain acoustic venue (vs, say, played in the local public washroom)? On streaming you can hear "just the music" without those additional things. Isn't going out to see a live performance just adding extraneous factors? Of course not. It would be odd to conclude "if you choose to get out of the house, dress up and make a trip to see musicians playing in a certain acoustic venue, then it means you care about THOSE things, not really "the music." Rather, it's just another way of enjoying music, and one that encourages in many people an even more intense musical experience.

Details affect our experience of music. Some may enjoy music they love most when driving in their car, others in a club situation with everyone dancing, others at home sitting still in front of speakers, some spinning records, some streaming digitally. Folks who love music are different that way. The person who tries to say "Well, I guess you don't really love the music as much as I do, because you need X to enjoy it more" are living in a glass house because the other person can always say "well I don't need the X you are using in order to enjoy music." Because we are always making some decision in how we are going to experience music.

 

[jbags]

I really enjoyed the New Yorker article, thanks for posting it.

 

[Anthony101]

I really enjoyed Glasswork from Philip Glass, especially Philip Glass's album Piano Works; apparently, it took Glass over two decades to write the Etudes, mainly to improve his technique. In my opinion, they're not on the same plane of vision as Liszt's or Debussy's, but there is a lot to admire in this collection. You will find allusions to Chopin and on the third Etude virtuosic demands of Frank Liszt. Definitely, he is one of the great creative composers of the modern age.



Thank you guys for the advice and for steering me in the direction of Philip Glass.

 

[welsh]

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/c...forever-an-expensive-new-years-shopping-guide

Long, very long, article on audiophilia. Skillful writing. The more skillful the writing, the more difficult it is to extract the underlying prejudices and so forth given how natural it seems, and how well all the ideas fit together.

I've never written a "letter to the editor" before. Maybe I'll try that here. Who knows if they would even accept it, given that the piece is from 2018? It would be terrible if the literary types (of which I am one) find this piece a convincing description of listening and audio gear.

Writers make good propagandists, especially if they think they are somewhat removed what's actually going on (the author of the piece treated himself as a kind of observer) and consider their perspective free from influence. Unsure how to organize your daily life into a comforting, cohesive worldview? Want to justify your choices and soothe uncertainty? Find a skilled writer, preferably one who tends towards reflection and expressiveness, and uses a lot of commas.

The defining character of ‘fine writing’ audiophile reviews is the italicising of key subjective descriptors. The ‘rightness’ of the sound etc. And the appropriation of concepts such as Gestalt. And a lot of other bollocks.

 

[welsh]

“High end audio is a luxury class pursuit"

Maybe that’s the definition of an audiophile. One who pursues a class. That doesn’t restrict you to sound quality, and brings things like snobbery, fashion and appeal to authority into the picture as more dominant concerns. That would explain the “golden eared” nonsense so many youtubers present while self declaring their audiophileness?

Actually, appeal to incredulity.

 

[welsh]

Much more dangerous than liars are those who tell the truth as a tool to mislead. Once you convince people that there are different types of truth, you have them in a trap from which they never want to escape. Jim

Convictions are more dangerous than falsehoods.

 

[Robin L]

" . . . You can’t, at the moment, listen to high-res on your iPhone, but help may be on the way, for there’s still another, recently developed high-resolution digital format that has possibly revolutionary consequences. It’s called MQA, which stands for Master Quality Authenticated. The engineers go back to the master tapes of a given recording and recode the information digitally in a new way: the information is compressed (as with MP3s) to get it through the Internet, but then magically reopened, like a field of flowers after rain, by a server at the receiving end. In addition, the information is stripped of certain common digital artifacts—it’s de-blurred. . . "

 

[welsh]

I don't understand it at all. These 'audiophiles' are being ripped off - clearly so - and they think it's fantastic!

Then again, I think we all agree that we make purchasing decisions based on things other than functional necessity. I'll probably buy an RME ADI-2 DAC at some point, although I'm sure I won't hear a scrap of difference compared with my Arcam DACs!

The only reason I would spend more on a DAC is if it offered better interface options - my DAC is the hub of my system. A remote is good, too.

 

[welsh]

As an amateur photography enthusiast with nearly 60 years of experience, I've said on a photo forum based around Fuji cameras (which I own and like) when it comes time for the latest upgrade that if the first gen or second gen of the camera took good images, does it not still? I own three of their cameras, two first gen that I bought new that took marvelous images. Now, while they're on the third and fourth gen cameras (which have different features, better VF, etc.), did my first gen cameras stop taking good photos? Clearly no. I see no reason to upgrade. I think it's pretty much the same as I feel about audio. Just because a manufacturer came out with a new model of my integrated, which may have some additional features, did my amp suddenly stop sounding good? No.

I’m a photographer, and it’s interesting to compare that industry to ‘high end’ audio. Nobody would buy an expensive camera if it didn’t perform. There is no ‘tweak’ market offering upgrades to your camera. There are, however, some subjectivist areas, concerned with lens bokeh and the ‘Zeiss/Leica pop’.

 

[welsh]

6moons has a hilarious review of a Kondo preamplifier: 6moons audio reviews:Kondo Ongaku KSL M-77



Then, after a predictable tea ceremony analogy:

There seems to be nothing that 6moons will not swallow. Often, they will start off by feigning incredulity (how could a simple brass gong change the sound?) before revealing that, yes, it makes a NIGHT AND DAY difference, audible from the next room!

 

[RayDunzl]

Thank you guys for the advice and for steering me in the direction of Philip Glass.

A favorite video...

 

[welsh]

As an amateur photography enthusiast with nearly 60 years of experience, I've said on a photo forum based around Fuji cameras (which I own and like) when it comes time for the latest upgrade that if the first gen or second gen of the camera took good images, does it not still? I own three of their cameras, two first gen that I bought new that took marvelous images. Now, while they're on the third and fourth gen cameras (which have different features, better VF, etc.), did my first gen cameras stop taking good photos? Clearly no. I see no reason to upgrade. I think it's pretty much the same as I feel about audio. Just because a manufacturer came out with a new model of my integrated, which may have some additional features, did my amp suddenly stop sounding good? No.

I have a Canon R5 plus multiple EF (and several RF) lenses. Also a Fujifilm GFX 50R. But I still use my Nikon FM2N, which still takes great pictures (it will even work without a battery)