Audiophiles and their music preferences!

[jdc115]

Originally Posted by krazeyeyez

although i wouldn't consider myself an audiophile, i do care about the quality of my music. i will not however limit myself to only high quality recordings, some of my favorite music is bootlegged live recordings with a very very low quality, marley, sublime, greatful dead, old punk bands etc.... i won't pass on these rare recordings or songs just because they wern't done in a studio and have AWFUL quality lol. this is why i consider myself a music lover, and not an audiophile, but obviously i would love to hear some of my favorites in higher quality.

Very well said, this reminds me of a conversation I had back in university (around 1989/90) with a friend that was majoring in Jazz. I have no musical talent but always loved music and had a pretty high quality system at the time for my age, Boston Acoustic speakers, NAD preamp and amp, yamaha CD player.

My friend that was majoring in music use to listen to tapes, often live recordings of not so high quality, through a portible stereo. I asked him how he get stand to listen to it, and he replied he was more into the quality of the players then the quality of the recording. He could always get over a poor recording if he could feel what the players were doing at the time.

[Gremal]

In the purest sense of the word, an audiophile is someone who loves audio for its own sake and not necessarily for musical or aesthetic reasons. This technically does not describe most of us who just want to get as close as possible to the performances of our favorite artists.

As for who that is, I have very broad tastes, ranging from Bach to Brubeck to the Beastie Boys to Black Sabbath (and that's just under "B"). Jazz from the mid-'60s is probably closest to my heart. My favorite band is probably Miles' second quintet featuring Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, etc. While Miles was signed to Columbia, his sidemen had many recordings separately and exploring their Blue Note output was pretty much the pinnacle of my musical enjoyment--especially Shorter's run of Blue Note titles.

[ryoohki]

I Like Femele voice singer mostly. I Like a lot of post 90 stuff. I'am a huge Cranberries Fan, my goal is to own all their vinyl one day (i got 1).

I like Metal too, mostly Metallica, Guns. Rock too but mostly Def Leppard 80's stuff because that the stuff i listen in school.

I like Sarah Mclacklan (wrong spelling here), Dido, Nellly etc

and for a weird reason i like DragonForce, never been in Speed Metal that much, but i don't know. I bought their latest album on Vinyl and it sound great. I have the previous one in CD and it sound like crap so i had low expectation. But that production seemed better

[kingofgrills]

Originally Posted by Big Daddy

I listen to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue on SACD at least once a week. I also own the regular CD, LP, and cassette of this masterpiece. I suppose that means the mainstream jazz lovers laugh at me or maybe this album qualifies as being part of the "wide genre of jazz" (whatever that means) because there are only lounge players and no lounge singers in it. Who cares what others think?

I also listen to Dark Side of the Moon, Tommy by Who, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #2, Beethoven's Symphony No #9, Kitaro, Azuma, Linda Ronstsadt & The Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Dead Can Dance, Beatles, Rolling Stones, and many more on SACD, CD, DVD-A, and LP. My only regret is that I sold most of my LP's a few years ago when I had to move.

+1. I don't think there would be any jazz lovers laughing at you for appreciating Kind of Blue. I listen to it on SACD probably more than any other disc I own, and I also own a couple of other CD versions too. It is a masterpiece, completely improvised, and it has withstood the test of time. I have several friends who are hardcore jazz musicians, and Miles Davis is a cornerstone of their listening and performing foundation. Most of them cringe at the thought of having to play with jazz vocalists.

I also listen to a lot of other jazz, including a lot of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and Cannonball Adderly.

I listen to many different types of music though, including rock, pop, R&B, and classical as well. If you want a few good non-jazz/classical SACDs, which are few and far between, I'd recommend the following:

Norah Jones - Come Away with Me
Keane - Hopes and Fears
Snow Patrol - Final Straw
Billy Joel - The Stranger
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Texas Flood
Eric Clapton - Slowhand
Elton John - Goodbye Yellowbrick Road
Dire Straights - Brothers in Arms

and of course

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

[Beta Man]

I'm certainly not an audiophile....... so I'm listening to some good ol' fashioned poly-ethnic-slam-grass (Leftover Salmon) and just GETTIN' DOWN right now


Some audiophiles will avoid poorly recorded/mastered materials.... others embrace them, and critique their flaws......


As a "music lover" I listen to a wide variety of music, but for "Lights-out, Vinyl time" (don't open my door!!!) I usually go with Jazz, Classical, and even John Lennon "Legend" or early Beatles type of stuff (which I don't want to lump into any other classification)

[Johnny Vinyl]

Originally Posted by Beta Man

I'm certainly not an audiophile....... so I'm listening to some good ol' fashioned poly-ethnic-slam-grass (Leftover Salmon) and just GETTIN' DOWN right now


Some audiophiles will avoid poorly recorded/mastered materials.... others embrace them, and critique their flaws......


As a "music lover" I listen to a wide variety of music, but for "Lights-out, Vinyl time" (don't open my door!!!) I usually go with Jazz, Classical, and even John Lennon "Legend" or early Beatles type of stuff (which I don't want to lump into any other classification)

Hey Beta! Just picked up a copy of BEATLES'65 at a record fair last weekend. The vinyl is near Mint and the jacket/cover/sleeve is VG- (in my opinion). My version, which I purchased in the late 60's has seen better days and it has always been one of my fave Beatles albums.

[Alkali]

Well, you can certianly count me as an audiophile.

I care more for the sound than the picture, and bought my DVD-Audio player the moment it was manufactured. There are some truely awesome multichannel DVD-Audio discs such a BBKing & Eric Clapton, Riding with the King. Modern music gets a whole new perspective too, the 'Staind' DVD-Audio disc really shows up limitations of other formats except SACD of course.

[Blu-baton]

Interesting Subject,

My Dad certainly was an audiophile when I was growing up; he seems to have a lot less interest in that hobby nowadays. His brother also was of that ilk and even hosted a classical roadio show in Montreal for many many years. Their tastes certainly ranged from the very popular to the frankly obscure. I learned a lot from the both of them

I thought I'd give my perspective as one who is a professional musician (I'm a "classical" performer, but I also do some commercial writing). I have bought some reasonable equipment over the last few years, and have started to buy a few Audio DVD's and even some SACD's, but the equipment I bought is really for Home Theatre use, because it's something my wife and my two teenage boys enjoy.

The Truth is: I should be an audiophile, but in the end I'm not really. My wife is also a musician are we are both insanely busy (as my low posting count can attest). The time we can devote to purely recreational listening is extremely limited and sometimes can feel like work anyway. Lately, I've been hired to write a couple of scores for documentaries (I hadn't done film before) and I even find myself listen to film soundtracks rather than paying attention to the movie! Oddly enough, we actually rely on iTunes a great deal because when preparing performances, it's very easy to get to or three recordings of Sibelius Symphony no. "X" upon demand which we can then listen to while practicing or in the car etc ... Despite the rate of compression (those mp3's sure sound terrible on my home theatre), we have a large collection of mp3 due the practical aspect of it. In some ways, it echoes JDC115's message that great performances tend to be more valuable to us than great recordings, but boy is it ever great to have both! Sadly, I have a concert this weekend, another on Tuesday, and must finish 10 full orchestra charts for a C&W artist for a SYmphony Pops concert this coming December and will have very little for myself. SOme of the free time will be taken to watch a great flick in our basement with my whole family, which is more valuable to me - hopefully, I won't be trying to analyze the soundtrack ...

Someone wrote about Alison Krauss; I wrote a full orchestra show for an excellent Blugrass band once. It quite quite successful and really got me interested in that music. Now: writing for Alison Krauss - that would be great fun! One day maybe ...

[Intamin]

Originally Posted by btf1980

I've found that many "audiophiles", and I use that term loosely, listen to music that "audiophiles" are supposed to listen to. What do I mean by that? Well, invariably in many circles this means listening to boring, no pizzazz, jazz lounge singers that would get laughed at by most people who actually give a damn about the wide genre of jazz, but hey, it was recorded well!! Too many people listen to music because it was engineered excellently. That defeats the entire purpose of being a music lover.

QFT. I buy music I like, and if it happens to be well recorded, it's a bonus. However, I don't just search out music because it was recorded well. I find this no different than buying a Blu b/c it has good PQ even though you hate the movie. The better PQ isn't going to suddenly make you like a movie, just like a good recording isn't going to make one like music they generally don't enjoy listening to. That being said, I enjoy most types of music, with my favorites being in the metal/rock genre.

[prerich]

Gopsel (live prefered - all genures - jazz,traditional, urban, rap), Jazz (Studio and live), and classical - that's what I listen to. I also direct choirs, compose, and mix. I don't consider myself an audiophile but I like good sound and well recorded music - even a "mistake" can add character to recording. Very interesting listening.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by prerich

Gopsel (live prefered - all genures - jazz,traditional, urban, rap), Jazz (Studio and live), and classical - that's what I listen to. I also direct choirs, compose, and mix. I don't consider myself an audiophile but I like good sound and well recorded music - even a "mistake" can add character to recording. Very interesting listening.

This is a man after my own heart. Are you my twin brother? I do consider myself an audiophile, and have worked for the last 15 years to raise the production values(recording techniques) of my three favorite genres of music, classical, jazz, and gospel. Since I write, play, produce and engineer, I want my music to sound as good as it can. Jazz and classical have always had high production values, but gospel recording(live) were often of very poor quality. I have worked with five of the largest gospel labels to teach their technical staffs how to accurately capture the magic of a live gospel concert so I can enjoy them on my system.

Personally I like great music recorded well. I am about to stir up some dust here. I believe that two channel recordings no matter how good, are always a bad distortion of a live event. It is spatially impossible to capture a live event with just two channels, so I have never believed that it is the best way to listen to music regardless of the price of the system. We hear binaurally, so surround is really the only way to capture and playback an event accurately. While most audiophiles revere vinyl, I celebrated the day when SACD and DVD-A arrived.

[mr.hidef]

Sir Terrence....Please post some pic's of your awesome theater set-up.....

(after working professionally in the music industry for many years...Live and in-studio.....I tend to agree with you.)

[desmond]

Originally Posted by Sir Terrence

Personally I like great music recorded well. I am about to stir up some dust here. I believe that two channel recordings no matter how good, are always a bad distortion of a live event. It is spatially impossible to capture a live event with just two channels, so I have never believed that it is the best way to listen to music regardless of the price of the system. We hear binaurally, so surround is really the only way to capture and playback an event accurately. While most audiophiles revere vinyl, I celebrated the day when SACD and DVD-A arrived.

Personally I think any recording distorts live event - I am yet to hear a high end system that can fully reproduce sonic quality of a great concert hall.

I am not the biggest fan of multichannel music - I mostly see it as a work in progress. Also, there is a bunch of historical recordings that will never be available in that format.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by desmond

Personally I think any recording distorts live event - I am yet to hear a high end system that can fully reproduce sonic quality of a great concert hall.

The object is not to fully produce the sonic quality of the hall, but to add a portion of the sound qualities along with an accurate recording of the orchestra. It would require far too many mikes, and a mixing board far larger than a facility could handle to do that. However, multichannel as opposed to two channel keeps things where they are supposed to be. A live audience when picked up will sound to the rear and sides of the listening position in multichannel, but it would sound like it is coming from BEHIND the orchestra in two channel. Besides it would be impossible to recreate the acoustics of a good concert hall in a room that already has its own acoustical signature. You would have to swamp that room with speakers to essentually drown out the rooms acoustics, but potientially creating more problem in the process. So recreating the acoustics of the concert hall is not your goal.

While you are correct about any recording being a distortion, your goal when recording is create as few distortions of that event as you can. That would mean kicking two channel recording to the curb in my opinion right from the start.

I am not the biggest fan of multichannel music - I mostly see it as a work in progress. Also, there is a bunch of historical recordings that will never be available in that format.

There is alot of well recorded multichannel music(mostly jazz and classical) that has never been released because of the demise of both SACD and DVD-A market. I am not so much concerned at this point at what has been done already(historical recordings), I am more concerned about what is going to be done going forward. What is already done, is done.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by desmond

I am not the biggest fan of multichannel music - I mostly see it as a work in progress. Also, there is a bunch of historical recordings that will never be available in that format.

Several of the classic RCA Living Stereo recordings have been released on multichannel SACDs that also include a two-channel SACD layer and CD layer. These were original three track recordings (left-center-right) which were recorded using tube Ampex 300-3 1/2" machines running at 15 ips and later at 30 ips and were mixed down to 1/4" masters. The SACDs are a way to access the original recording as never before.

The question of live is moot unless you have a time machine and can go back to watch Heifetz play Beethoven's violin concerto in D and Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor. Until time travel is developed I strongly suggest you get the SACD, as that may be as close as you get to the original 3-channel recording.