Question for the boomers: what was it like to live through major improvements in audio fidelity?

[xanalog]

...I went back to monogamy (bought a turntable)...

+

...I love my V3 Monoblocks!....

++

...Now, I practically run a harem in the house...

=
It must be spring! Hard love is definitely in the air!
Some of us like it hot analog, others cold digital!

 

[LtMandella]

In the 60’s I was too busy enjoying the benefits of the sexual revolution to pay attention to audio improvements.

For me in those years, I figured out how to do both at the same time

 

[jsrtheta]

Growing up through the changes in audio tech was a decades long test of patience! Radio, vinyl and tape; ouch! Actually, during the '60s, radios were nice at the beach. '70s album covers, especially gatefolds, were good for removing stems and seeds. '80s tapes were useful, convenient and for many, even a creative outlet. Analog sources still offer pleasant diversions with lots of rabbit holes and nostalgic rituals, but the digital revolution has improved the overall quality of sound at every price point. Digital sources with vintage downstream gear can be a beautiful combination.

The gatefold album covers were indispensable for those of us who went to college in the '70s. The amount of cannabis residue on them, though, provided more than enough probable cause to get arrested if the cops ever came around.

 

[digitalfrost]

The gatefold album covers were indispensable for those of us who went to college in the '70s. The amount of cannabis residue on them, though, provided more than enough probable cause to get arrested if the cops ever came around.

I once sent a chat message to a co-worker who happened to hold a presentation for the higher-ups, and for some reason his chat was not muted during this, so my message popped up for everyone to see. I wrote:

Why is vinyl better than FLAC?

- Because you can't roll a joint on a file.

 

[jsrtheta]

I once sent a chat message to a co-worker who happened to hold a presentation for the higher-ups, and for some reason his chat was not muted during this, so my message popped up for everyone to see. I wrote:

Why is vinyl better than FLAC?

- Because you can't roll a joint on a file.

Hah!

 

[wadude]

I have trying polygamy and polyandry I went back to monogamy (bought a turntable).

Feels more wholesome

There is a “hole” in wholesome.

 

[xanalog]

The gatefold album covers were indispensable for those of us who went to college in the '70s. The amount of cannabis residue on them, though, provided more than enough probable cause to get arrested if the cops ever came around.

We thought we were more hip because we carried our own Frisbees with us, everywhere. Every vehicle I've ever owned had to have a frisbee because they served many a purpose in a car (e.g. tools, burgers, ....cannabis, and even barfs).

Nostalgia from a Boomer to Millennials: In the late '70s, I recall news stories that the majority of the Benjies, in circulation around NYC area, were found to be laced with cocaine residue [...and probably mucus]?

 

[krabapple]

Szell's Cleveland recordings (the originals were comparatively "dry"), the 1960s HvK/Berlin Phil Beethoven cycle. I've owned both multiple times in different LP and CD masterings. Szell's recordings seem to have had digital delay added little by little over time beginning with the "Essential Classics" series. The "Beethoven Overtures" album has lots of reverb compared to the originals. The first time I heard the Karajan Beethoven cycle with additional reverb was with the Tidal Hi-Rez stream posted. I gave my CDs away after hearing the Tidal remaster. The first Leonard Bernstein Mahler cycle for Columbia famously was remastered using a Hi-Rez format, including a small amount of reverb, but the stream offered by Tidal is Redbook. However, that remastering was intended for SACD.

George Szell - Szell Conducts Beethoven Overtures ((Remastered))

Listen to Szell Conducts Beethoven Overtures ((Remastered)) on TIDAL

tidal.com

Berliner Philharmoniker & Herbert von Karajan - Beethoven: 9 Symphonies

Listen to Beethoven: 9 Symphonies on TIDAL

tidal.com

George Szell - Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" ((Remastered))

Listen to Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" ((Remastered)) on TIDAL

tidal.com

Leonard Bernstein - Leonard Bernstein: The Complete Mahler Symphonies

Listen to Leonard Bernstein: The Complete Mahler Symphonies on TIDAL

tidal.com

I've been collecting Classical recordings (including remasters) since 1969. I also made a lot of recordings of classical music. I'll bet you'd be surprised at how many classical releases have additional reverb added in postproduction.

I'm well aware that reverb is an ingredient added to many recordings as part of their production process. That's been true across genres for decades. But that's simply part of the artistic choices that determining the 'sound' the artist and producer are looking for in their new recording. It doesn't tend to vary across remasterings of that recording/album, its baked in.

I know of an instance where a compilation of a band's old tracks had reverb added to them, so the compilation versions were wetter than the originals. The original albums, though, stay the same, delay-wise, across multiple remasterings.
And of course in the opposite direction, there's Paul McCartney releasing the 'Naked' version of Let It Be, removing (among other things) the drench of reverb that marked Phil Spector's aesthetic. But that's literally a remix; you can't remove 'verb without remixing, unless someone had the foresight to archive a 'dry' version of the original mix back in the day.

I know it's common in classical for performances that originally shared space on the same LP (or LP set) to be split up and re-released in various combinations over the years, and I don't doubt that fashions in mastering EQ and noise reduction and compression change, but gradually adding more and more delay from mastering to mastering is something I've not encountered. I wonder how many of these are actually remixes.

The links you posted don't compare 'dry' versus 'wet' masterings for any particular recording, which could be more enlightening..

 

[DMill]

The gatefold album covers were indispensable for those of us who went to college in the '70s. The amount of cannabis residue on them, though, provided more than enough probable cause to get arrested if the cops ever came around.

The top cardboard section of a board game like Monopoly functions much better. Not that I would know. I preferred my LPs remain pristine. In fact, I’d typically record most of my LPs on cassette and listen to those to avoid wearing them out. I don’t miss those days at all and music formats have gotten much better today IMO. And you can still pick up Monopoly for less than $20 at the local Target.

 

[Fahzz]

Just don't tell the OP that our music was MUCH better!

 

[Robin L]

I know it's common in classical for performances that originally shared space on the same LP (or LP set) to be split up and re-released in various combinations over the years, and I don't doubt that fashions in mastering EQ and noise reduction and compression change, but gradually adding more and more delay from mastering to mastering is something I've not encountered. I wonder how many of these are actually remixes.

The links you posted don't compare 'dry' versus 'wet' masterings for any particular recording, which could be more enlightening..

Sorry. In the case of the Herbert von Karajan recordings, I had the first issue CDs to compare to the remasters. Don't have those CDs anymore as I preferred the remasters on Tidal. The Szell recordings have been in my collection numerous times in various formats, including the original Epic LP issues. In part I'm going by memory here. But as I recall, the original Epic LPs had a lot less room sound. There's been documentation elsewhere of the remastering of the Bernstein "Columbia" recordings, noting that the DSD remasters had more of a sense of hall sound. So that might have been affected by other means, but I'm betting that a touch of digital reverb is involved. The Karajan and Szell recordings are early enough that most likely the masters are two-channel. Some of the Bernstein Mahler recordings might have come from multi-tracks. The earliest is the 4th symphony, from 1960. There's a disc of the adagio from the 10th symphony that was recorded in 1975, but of the other nine symphonies, symphony #6 was recorded in 1967. 2, 3, 4 & 5 all could have been recorded straight to two-track, considering when they were recorded.

In any case, I don't think reissues involve adding more delay from remaster to remaster, though there's a good chance that different and improved technologies are used when a new remaster is prepared.

I used to have a t.c. electronics M2000 signal processor. It was something of a digital Swiss Army Knife, ADC/DAC, 20 bit capable, designed to juice up dry sounding recordings. It had some very useful settings for orchestra and/or chorus.

 

[JohnnyAudio]

Well, it certainly was not about sound quality. The first music I heard was from a shortwave radio and later a handheld Japanese transistor radio that played a beach boys song, little deuce coupe. The fascination was the emotion of the music. I would go to the city swimming pool in the park and listen to Motown over metal horn speakers and remember those days with joy.

My grandpa brought me to see big band concerts, Duke, Dizzy, Buddy Rich and there was some amplification. I was 5 years old and would dance in front of the bands. The sound of the standup bass and horns at the Italian weddings solidified love for music.

A few years later, my uncle played the LP of Telstar on the Magnavox console, it was the first time I heard stereo, I was hooked. I became an engineer because of that experience.

I would sit on my mom's dryer and listen to her radio with 2 speakers, enjoying early rock from Cleveland radio stations. Then there were the concerts, underage, seeing most every emerging band on the Agora circuit, seeing Rush, Bowie, TR, etc for 2$ bucks was a great way to spend the evenings.

Then I grew up and started buying systems, big powerful solid state systems with awesome speakers.

Janzen, Mags, JBL, ESS, EV, powered by Sansui, Kenwood, Yamaha. I discovered DBX products.

I would play records vertically on a Thorens TD-125. I started DJing with Pioneer gear. I eventually deposited 4000 vinyl's in a NJ dump as CD took away my spare change. I got into car audio and produced tracks for competitions in Daytona Beach. I enjoyed the massive sound systems and many 3 day raves, although being 40 years old was a little tough.

I've had so much gear as a poor boy, it has to be a sin.

Today, it's all vacuum tubes and amazing pairs of speakers, kids who play piano's and strings.

Music, showed me how to live the dream and I am forever thankful for the friend I've had all my life.

 

[amarsicola]

... But there was not much innovation after that!

I think we are living an incredible era of improvement in hi-fi right in these years.
1. For 10€/month you have hi-res streaming services with most of the possible music ever recorded at your fingertips.
2. Electronics are making a gigantic leap forward thanks to the combination of 2 factors: the "objectivist" approach promoted in this forum and the will of chinese manufacturers to use objective measurements as a marketing claim.
3. Similarly for loudspeakers, thanks to the Klippel nearfield scanner, guys like Erin or Amir have the best measurements device in their garage, and every year new manufacturers appear in the market and use measured performance as a way to promote themself, and many well-established manufacturers are now publishing extensive measurements even for budget series.

If we want to measure the improvement of hifi in quantitative terms, we should see the improvement of some synthetic indexes such as Sinad or Olive's preference score compared to the cost of an "average" hi-fi system. While for sources, the average cost per minute of music played is tending to zero thanks to streaming services.
I am not sure that such analysis would reveal that major improvements happened when switching from LP to CD. Maybe the best improvement is happening right now.
I think exactly we on this forum are making the history of hi-fi.

 

[DVinylfan]

I'm Gen X, and was underwhelmed by CD, it's better, but not a game changer, good vinyl playback is good enough to get most of the music across. Adoption of DSP is the big one for me, I missed hifi with good tone controls when that was a thing, they had all vanished when I got my first good system.

You might like this book, it's an enjoyable read about the history of recording music.

+1 myself GenX, according to the accepted definitions/timeframes.
I do think that 'Boomers' (in fact my parents' generation) did not see nearly the extent of revolutions in sound reproduction evolution as my GenX peers did.
Vinyl dominance, then the great CD replacement, then MP3 (iPod) players then streaming.. if we're talking generations it is GenX, not Boomers, that have seen the profoundest changes.

 

[xanalog]

Being able to directly access my music library (in a 2-bay NAS) from anywhere in the house has been a welcomed surprise for me.
Now, the owner of a bunch of cigar-box sized, SOTA and networked SMSL/Topping/FOSI hardware; I am impressed by their sound quality, simplicity, and pricing.

In the last few years, I've revamped, replaced, retired and/or sold all my costly multi-channel, audio/video gear.
Including multi-channel A/V receivers, pre-amps, processors, power amps, even my floor-standing speakers.

I've come to detest this All-In-One (AIO) marriage of audio and video.
This A/V AIO integration has been decades in the making as a marketing solution, but became fully reliant on heavy processing, glitchy codes, firmware updates, software upgrades, plug-ins, etc.
I must have a dozen hardware that can do WiFi/BT; but I've never bothered... as it should be! TV/streaming audio is fed via SPDIF, rather than buggy HDMI e/ARC, as it should be!

I gifted myself a pair of SourcePoint10s with the savings and for going old-skool but with new tech.

 

[Petrushka]

I will be downvoted for saying this, but the main function of high end gear is to pay the R&D costs of designing satisfactory inexpensive gear. Mass production makes stuff cheap.

Robots are coming that will make manufacturing cheap, even in developed countries. In ten or twenty years, labor will not be a factor, except for aesthetics.

New ideas and prototyping are expensive.

 

[Mike Madigan]

Trying to be an audiophile for 50 years. Retired EE and SWE from Aerospace. I have enjoyed the audio ride. I enjoy the availability of music at home and on the go. In 74 I put a FM converter in my 68 Corvair and drove across the USA. I thought that was amazing. Next I put a cassette player in it . Nirvana . But the general public no longer hears good audio. An iPhone with cheap earbuds doesn’t cut it.

 

[RayDunzl]

Robots are coming that will make manufacturing cheap, even in developed countries. In ten or twenty years, labor will not be a factor, except for aesthetics.

Yeah, it's crazy.

How many robots does it take to run a grocery store?

Music to watch Robots By

 

[LtMandella]

Yeah, it's crazy.

How many robots does it take to run a grocery store?

Music to watch Robots By

and that robot picture is actually somewhat unrealistic since those robots are like CNS machines in that all movements are programmed and they do not have or need visual sensors, so the factory would be completely in the dark: no need to pay the electricity for lighting...

 

[FraJazz]

My audio milestones:

-- A Sony Walkman when I was around 12. This was much better than the cheap, crappy stereo we had at home (my father was not into music). A Walkman (cassette) was my main source of music for years and years. My only upgrades were various headphones I purchased throughout the years.

-- A Sony CD Walkman (which I still have) when they first came out. CDs = Halleluiah.

-- An Onkyo surround receiver and Polk speakers when I got my first apartment.

Everything else has been a case of incremental upgrades. Heck, even now I could get by with a portable CD player and a good set of headphones.