Maybe I'm Amazed

[ducktrapper]

JW - Black Dog from his first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC8-hnAxK3o

And on a brighter note also from his first album with Robbie Robertson on guitar. Always loved this and have played it for years. Payday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9WLj6TuPLo

[headsup]

OK I retract my initial statements-but for different reasons than you might expect.

By some fluke a friend gave me his JBL Flip 4 Blue tooth speaker recently.
yes it's a pretty cool thing. No it doesn't compete or compare to any of my other listenning monitors in the home.

HOWEVER- the car(s) I drive are old cars, with Cassette players, so I have those cassettes adapter things with the cord hanging out to attach my device to it to hear music in the car.

Unfortunately, the car cassette players- especially on cold days don't work so well.

Sooooo..... the wireless blue tooth JBL speaker is hanging from the rear view mirror of the car, and yes I can listen to what ever I like again, while driving, and yes..

"Maybe I'm amazed"

[ducktrapper]

OK I retract my initial statements-but for different reasons than you might expect.

By some fluke a friend gave me his JBL Flip 4 Blue tooth speaker recently.
yes it's a pretty cool thing. No it doesn't compete or compare to any of my other listenning monitors in the home.

HOWEVER- the car(s) I drive are old cars, with Cassette players, so I have those cassettes adapter things with the cord hanging out to attach my device to it to hear music in the car.

Unfortunately, the car cassette players- especially on cold days don't work so well.

Sooooo..... the wireless blue tooth JBL speaker is hanging from the rear view mirror of the car, and yes I can listen to what ever I like again, while driving, and yes..

"Maybe I'm amazed"

Well there you go. I never said it was the best speaker that I've ever heard, just that it sounded good and worked well for my purposes.   

[skyline]

yes I realize the old days of 20 to 20k @ .04% THD are long gone,

Well those days certainly are long gone for me - partially thanks to the aforementioned Leslies . . . and the odd Hiwatt atop a pair of 4x12's, various brass sections, the odd drummer in too small rehearsal studios . . .

Judging by the number of northern euro heavy metal outfits, I bet there's even a word for "misplacing the joy of lower extremities impacted by the output of dual Orange 8x10's presenting an over-driven open E minor with a sample triggered from a LED Keypad   

Kidding aside - it's true - fidelity has pretty much gone the way of the dodo. It's outrageously expensive to buy a clean listening setup - and no-one should kid themselves that their forty-year-old Macinstosh/Boston-Acoustics setup is still clean, never mind range-responsive.

For the first time ever, I employed ear plugs for a concert over the weekend.

I think once ear-plugs are employed, music has left the room.

The Mosquito or Mosquito alarm is an electronic device used to deter loitering by young people by emitting sound at high frequency, in some versions so it can be heard mostly by younger people. The devices have attracted controversy on the basis of human rights and discrimination concerns.

I've read that Mozart has the same effect     I suspect a good dose of old school Blue Grass vocals would also work

[ducktrapper]

I will still maintain that music, and the joy or whatever other response it brings, happens in between the ears, whatever the source. 

[skyline]

I will still maintain that music, and the joy or whatever other response it brings, happens in between the ears, whatever the source. 

I absolutely agree.

As does everyone who uses a pickup in an acoustic guitar 

[headsup]

OK, I've been chewing on this subject since the original OP.

I've made more than one reference to being a "geezer" cuz, well I am, and a lifetime in music in showbiz has been good to me.

here's the rub: who else has any ancient memories of owning the best audio gear at the time?
lets say, a Thorens turntable with what ever the best cartridge we could buy was, and we ran it through Macintosh tube amps or Quad, or what ever the best was at the time.
and we were oh so fussy about our speakers and we knew so much about wow and flutter and THD @ what % distortion .

Heck we even thought a certain kind of speaker cable would give us the "true" sound.

And then there were releases of our favourite bands/artistrs (Vinyl) and we'd go buy a few when they came out.
and we had our special chair, in front of our very special and most perfect listening system, and we would pour a glass of something.

then careful open the jacket, slowly slide the LP out, use our magic cleaner with the magic spray to clean the new disk, set ever so carefully on the turntable.
lower the needle, get back to that chair, and as the cut one, side one came up we would have a sip, and then hunker down into the liner notes and every printed word on the LP jacket, while listening and sipping and being fully involved in the experience of the moment.

Until....we have to get up and turn the LP over, and do it all again .
some if us repeated this proves for as many LP's we might have brought home that day.

For me; it was always the big event in my life.
and we'd share those events with our close friends who were like minded- at our house, or theirs.

The art of truly listening to music was a serious matter.
I was that kind of listener - and i'm sure I'm not alone here.

Thus my original rant about how (I feel) folks don't give a crap and who cares what kind of guitar was used on the recording or how they did it, cuz, well, with current compressed music files, poor audio reproduction it can't be heard anyways, and really? who cares?

So that was just a stupid old guy lost in another world of listening to music once was.
I am sorry if I spoke and offered the way i did

[ducktrapper]

Nope. I know people who had state of the art equipment but I always preferred to spend my money on the software (records) (which I took very good care of) than the hardware because, like I said music happens between the ears. So I had a superb record collection and a functional stereo. I've known them with great systems and taste in music that would embarrass me if it was mine. I had a housemate back in the late 70's who had state of the art equipment and usually left his albums out of the sleeves strewn all around his room. He used to love to brag about how much he spent for his cartridges. He loved to pooh pooh my inexpensive Pioneer stuff. Whatever. I enjoyed what I had.   

[headsup]

Of course I get that now, back then it may have  stupid musical snobbery (this subject has come up around "guitar" snobbery) on this forum.
Dunno, what i DO know- unfortunately -, is because of who I was hanging with at the time (musicians, audiophile, recording engineers) etc., was that I DID learn a lot, and I absorbed a lot about "fidelity".

maybe its a curse, but I still carry it, with how i listen and certainly with my own gear on gigs, guitars, PA, mics. etc.
if not; i certainly wouldn't be playing what i play, with the systems inside them (pick-up/mics/what ever) and having my wn expectations of wanting to sound as best I can.
Sadly, when listening to music ( in shows) of others, ya I'm pretty fussy about how brittle the acoustic guitar might sound in the mix as well.

And for the record, when I decide to go out to eat, if the restaurant of choice has bad mix, bad sound, I'll leave before it makes me have a bad meal.
pretty sick- department stores with crap speakers blaring out crap- I run.

Ya I guess it's a curse. if my ancient old car has a bad speaker (almost always) and it has certain rattle at certain DB at a certain volume, OFF goes the music.
so I guess that's my place around this stuff, really sensitive ears, that go snakes if some=one plays a song on their phone if I'm in the room ( I get violent).
so again, apologies- as i had to figure out why the subject around "easy" speakers for what ever reason hit a nerve.

Cleary- I'm the issue.
I prefer complete silence to bad sound from any source ( when I have the choice)

ugh. damnit!

[ducktrapper]

You keep going back to bad sound. I don't have much use for bad sound either. However, I guess I would quibble over good enough for most human ears.   

[headsup]

ya sorry about that, just me being judgemental...if my ears and brain are having trouble with the "sound" it must be "bad". 

[ducktrapper]

At the end of the proverbial day, I guess that's why we've chosen Larrivées.   

[ducktrapper]

Further to this discussion, I downloaded an app to make headphones plugged into a computer or laptop sound more betterer. It matches something babble babble with the make of the headphones and works very well. As an added feature, it's got this Bluetooth speaker bouncing off my little table with waaaay more bass. Had to turn it way down. I like it.   

[skyline]

There's interesting physics to study and much fun to be had with small speakers.  I definitely like a full clean stereo, set up in a proper sized room, but it's also quite interesting to hear familiar recordings through different setups.

I have a set of small LG bluetooth speakers that are quite clean - just short on low end, so they reproduce solo mandolin quite realisitically. They use an app to connect in stereo, so you can move them around independently, and really tweak the "left-right" curtain - it's fascinating to hear how instruments shift around in the mix depending on where the speakers are and where you stand.

[ducktrapper]

There's interesting physics to study and much fun to be had with small speakers.  I definitely like a full clean stereo, set up in a proper sized room, but it's also quite interesting to hear familiar recordings through different setups.

I have a set of small LG bluetooth speakers that are quite clean - just short on low end, so they reproduce solo mandolin quite realisitically. They use an app to connect in stereo, so you can move them around independently, and really tweak the "left-right" curtain - it's fascinating to hear how instruments shift around in the mix depending on where the speakers are and where you stand.

It really helped the headphone sound. 100%. I'm going to get a second one of these little things eventually and see how that works. Of course, once we move, I may not need them because I hope to have room for real speakers. Cool for now though.