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”Roon Labs is proud to announce the largest project we’ve ever undertaken. After two years of focused design and engineering, we’re unveiling an entirely new technology we call Vālence.”
This may be slightly off-topic in this thread, but it comes from a person who has been streaming for years, and is now heavily debating with himself whether to go all in on Roon or not, or just skip the whole streaming thing and go back to CDs for ever (just leaving airplay functionality in the hifi system for the occasional youtube concert):
Aren't there some dangers with this kind of algorithms, this limitless freedom of discovery? That we become shallow in our musical listening, just ever going on to the next musical thing instead of really delving into music we can get intimately acquainted with? Is streaming to music what tinder has been to romance? The "swipe next" culture overtakes music?
When I was in my teens and twenties - before streaming - I remember that I knew many CDs by heart. Whether it was pop or rock, or classical pieces and interpretations, or classical jazz albums from Mingus or Coltrane - I knew them intimately. I did not have a limitless supply of music at home, so I really listened to what I had. This, I believe, made this music become a part of me. I knew every single word on Abbey Road or After the Gold Rush, I knew every single note Keith Jarret played on the Köln Concert. And so on.
The last decade - in my 30s - I don't think there is any new music I've only listened to which has become a part of me in a similar way. I suspect this is because of streaming. I almost never to listen to a recording more than twice, at the very max, sometimes three if it's something really special.
I feel that I have lost something. As a singer in a semi-professional classical choir, I also know that intimate exposure to music over time does something. When we practice a difficult piece every week for a couple of month, and then perform at two or three concerts, I really get to know it. It's like the different parts of the piece start speaking to me in a different way after a while - it really gets to me.
Listening to a CD repeatedly had some of the effect on me. But are we losing this now, in our new musical culture? I think so. I've certainly lost it myself, at least, and wonder whether I will need to drop streaming completely to get it back. So even though Valence looks promising, and might turn out to be better at predicting my preferences than other algorithms (Spotify has done the least bad job so far), I'm torn as to whether this would actually be a boon to me, everything taken in account. Maybe I would become more musically enriched by listening to my old CDs one extra time instead.
I've struggled with similar thoughts myself. My internal questions are around feelings I'm disrespecting music by dismissing it too quickly, and the unanswerable question of how much music should you have in your life and how fast should you add to it.This may be slightly off-topic in this thread, but it comes from a person who has been streaming for years, and is now heavily debating with himself whether to go all in on Roon or not, or just skip the whole streaming thing and go back to CDs for ever (just leaving airplay functionality in the hifi system for the occasional youtube concert):
Aren't there some dangers with this kind of algorithms, this limitless freedom of discovery? That we become shallow in our musical listening, just ever going on to the next musical thing instead of really delving into music we can get intimately acquainted with? Is streaming to music what tinder has been to romance? The "swipe next" culture overtakes music?
When I was in my teens and twenties - before streaming - I remember that I knew many CDs by heart. Whether it was pop or rock, or classical pieces and interpretations, or classical jazz albums from Mingus or Coltrane - I knew them intimately. I did not have a limitless supply of music at home, so I really listened to what I had. This, I believe, made this music become a part of me. I knew every single word on Abbey Road or After the Gold Rush, I knew every single note Keith Jarret played on the Köln Concert. And so on.
The last decade - in my 30s - I don't think there is any new music I've only listened to which has become a part of me in a similar way. I suspect this is because of streaming. I almost never to listen to a recording more than twice, at the very max, sometimes three if it's something really special.
I feel that I have lost something. As a singer in a semi-professional classical choir, I also know that intimate exposure to music over time does something. When we practice a difficult piece every week for a couple of month, and then perform at two or three concerts, I really get to know it. It's like the different parts of the piece start speaking to me in a different way after a while - it really gets to me.
Listening to a CD repeatedly had some of the effect on me. But are we losing this now, in our new musical culture? I think so. I've certainly lost it myself, at least, and wonder whether I will need to drop streaming completely to get it back. So even though Valence looks promising, and might turn out to be better at predicting my preferences than other algorithms (Spotify has done the least bad job so far), I'm torn as to whether this would actually be a boon to me, everything taken in account. Maybe I would become more musically enriched by listening to my old CDs one extra time instead.
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”Roon Labs is proud to announce the largest project we’ve ever undertaken. After two years of focused design and engineering, we’re unveiling an entirely new technology we call Vālence.”