I recently came
across two disturbing trends in how I choose and listen to music. I am going to
start with the effect on how I select and buy music. For a number of years I
spent my time and effort working towards a home theater system that delivered
the most bangs, shaking, and in your face explosive reproduction the action
genre could provide. Over the last couple of years that has changed, my focus
has been on music. Each upgrade and tweak focused more on dedicated music
sessions than home theater.
As the system evolved
I noted a number of things, the most important being that movies, all movies,
took on a more realistic feel. I turned off the bass shakers at my wife's
request one night and have never turned them back on. In moving further to the
music side, I have in fact improved the movie experience, but this is getting
off topic.
The realization that
disturbs me is that I have been searching for music based on how well it is
recorded, much like I would buy a movie, knowing it would be terrible but the
action soundtrack would make it worthwhile. I found myself searching Google for
"highest audio quality music recordings" or any number of variations
of the same. Looking over the stack of my most recently acquired CD's and
SACD's quickly shows that, well, most of them have been played once, some only
halfway through. I am buying music I don't even care for, but the sound quality
really kicks ass.
I have also avoided
music I like based on the fact that it will sound less than satisfying, OK,
probably terrible on my main system. Much of today's recordings are so over
compressed to make them sound loud on an iPod that no dynamics are left. Granted,
most consumers don't make a habit of sitting down with a good glass of bourbon
and simply listen, sit in the sweet spot and let an hour pass without moving,
checking email, or surfing the web. Most people have music around them all the
time, it has become the background of our lives and few of us still hold onto
the passion of dedicated listening sessions.
So what am I to do?
First off, I am going to stop buying based on reference sound quality, yes, buy
less and enjoy more. I had to do it with my movie collection, now I need to do
it with my music collection.
The second disturbing
trend in my media room began when I built a dedicated PC, mega-dollar soundcard,
and touch screen monitor, to listen to lossless FLAC files. I love the convenience,
and the sound is better than many high priced CD players. It has changed how I
listen to music, and not for the better. I will say that it is great for playing
music around the house in the evening while sharing a bottle, or two of wine
with my wife.
The evil side comes
out as soon as I sit down for dedicated listening time. I have always listened
to recordings from beginning to end, mulling over the artists choice of track
selection, seeing the work as a whole. Now I sit down and start filling the
queue in the Ultimate Jukebox software, jumping between songs, listening to
half a song, and jumping all over the collection. This is great on my iPod or
in the car, but not in my media room.
I spend all my time
mulling over the collection, I am NOT listening to the music, I am busy
planning my next song and rethinking that selection, endlessly ignoring what is
coming out of the speakers. I am vowing right now to stop this lunacy and get
back to what I enjoy most. From this point on I am going to play my discs from beginning
to end and I am only going to bring home the music I love. There may be a
serious lack of quality recordings out there but the music is alive and worthy
of listening. If nothing else, the rare, well recorded disc will be a wonderful
surprise and the rest, well; I can always play them in the car or on my iPod.