[Formerly Given To Fly]

On the music listening spectrum, the two extremes seem to be streaming free low quality mp3’s and buying vinyl. Everything else is in between and most of it is digital, though there is a wide range of quality within digital. Overall, convenience is the number 1 priority.

On the film watching spectrum, things are sort of the same except nothing is free or low quality. Convenience is still important but in order for Netflix, Disney, and every film studio to maintain control over their “content,” some convenience is sacrificed. For example, you can’t watch a movie in 4K HDR on a 15 year old TV. In fact, the only way to watch 4K content is if you have a 4K or higher TV and HDMI 2.0 ports that support HDCP 2.2. If any component does not support HDCP 2.2, all the media reverts to 1080p. The reason things are like this is because of money. TV/Film is really expensive to create so the parties involved implement security measures to protect it from theft. I can burn a CD, I can’t burn a BluRay disc. It can be done but not with your computer at home.

Why has the majority of the music industry done none of this? These protections can be applied in the physical and digital domains but only a few independent labels have done it. This is an honest question. Things can be done differently, but Sony, Universal, and Warner might not be thrilled about it. Your thoughts...

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

This statement has changed for me in unpredictable ways. First, it is Christmas time so the family gets together...and I learn things, specifically how we listen to “music.”

Family Member 1 - AirPods, soon to be AirPods Pro, because of the convenience and the sound quality is fine. I have no idea what they listen to.

Family Member 2 - Classical music in the car.

Myself - Sennheiser HD600’s plugged into whatever I can, though I listen to music less at the moment.

Family Member 4 - At the moment, I’m not sure but they want a record player to listen to their currently non-existent, but future record collection. Nostalgia is the dominant reason.

Family Member 5 - This person suffers from tinnitus. In order to treat the tinnitus, hearing aids were prescribed, paid for through health insurance, and can apparently do amazing things! The way they treat tinnitus is by playing tones similar to wind chimes, which I think is a pentatonic scale, or at least plenty of Perfect 4ths, 5ths, and octaves. The term “fractal tones” was used which I am unfamiliar with.

It turns out, that a musical tone is one of the easiest ways to distract the brain, or get the brains attention. By playing random but pleasing wind chimes, the brain listens every time they are heard thus distracting it from the tinnitus. The cool trick is after a few days to a week, this whole process becomes almost subconscious. Whether or not musical tones that can’t be remembered or eventually noticed counts as music is a fair argument. However, in this case, it counts as treatment/therapy and musical/acoustic principles are used as the basis of the treatment.

I honestly didn’t think my family really listened to music. At the very least, music of some sort is heard by each of us which is a pleasant surprise. The “how and why” is the interesting part.

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

Here is the cool thing... My wife has never been into music, hard for her to talk over, etc. Two Christmases ago she got dehydrated and stood up too fast and fell over backwards, hitting her head very hard. Very scary... blood, concussion, 911, ambulance ride, etc. She keeps trying to figure out what music was playing in the emergency room, but I work at this hospital and there is no music in the emergency room. For whatever reason, she can't get enough music now. We listen to it in the house a lot, she likes to listen on a little Bluetooth speaker while cooking, we listen outside using a bluetooth soundbar w/sub... especially later in the evening while sipping a beer and looking up at the stars. All different kinds of music, classic rock, old blues, even some rockabilly (Webb Wilder) and synthwave (Hello Meteor's Mu & Mea album is her favorite). Just so peculiar to me that after 30 years of marriage she's listening to music... really listening! She'll stop mid-sentence and say, "Listen to that bass!" I'm really enjoying listening with her and explaining music questions she has.

My 2 cents...

This is really interesting. I'm glad your wife is OK, if not better than OK.

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

One point that was brought up in a round about way is how does a person know what good sound sounds like? One line that can be drawn in the sand is digital clipping. People do not like it. Everything that is not digitally clipped will most likely sound good in comparison. The other line is knowing someone, that you trust, who knows what they are talking about and can demonstrate what good sound sounds like. People tend to not like this idea because it calls their taste into question. When it comes to music, people believe they know what they like based off their personal experience. The idea that someone with more personal experience in the field of music might know more about “good sound” or have more refined taste is not very popular. I am not talking about specific musical groups either, just the clarity and resolution of the sound being produced.

Pepperidge Farm’s motto is “if you’re going to have a cookie, have a cookie.” Tasty cookies are easier to spot than better sound quality, but the idea is the same. When you listen to authority and apply your own experience, sound quality may actually make a significant difference to what you hear.

(I realize I am preaching to the choir but I would like to hear the choirs thoughts on the matter. If you think the matter is not very important which is fine, but as has been implied, it shapes the music we listen to and I imagine that is pretty important.)

Merry Christmas!

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

Vinyl works well for older music but really for modern music it's not that suitable, due to the way modern music is mixed and mastered you will end up with a lot of distortion on vinyl unless you aim for it from the start and take that into consideration (especially in regards to panning and low frequencies), and from a mainstream point of view it's really an obsolete medium that holds only a niche relevance. I don't really listen to a lot of music these days, but when I do it's usually through my hi-fi (old KEF reference series) in the form of 320kbs MP3, which is by far and away high enough quality that if someone told me I was listening to 24bit WAV I'd not know the difference, and I regularly record music at 24bit 48khz, which inevitably ends up as 320kbs MP3. Rick Beato did an interesting experiment with this using a trained musician with perfect pitch and fantastic hearing, even she got fooled so you can imagine how that works out for the average person.

It really depends on the kind of music you're listening to also, how it has been recorded, mixed/mastered. Reality is that the vast majority of people are listening to music on their phones (and often with the phone speakers, rather than headphones/in-ears) or in their cars on the go, not in a sound treated room with high end equipment, and the majority of that music is modern stuff mastered loud for radio and generic devices like phones. It's just a different world now, we don't really have a lot of "connoisseur" level analogue style music recordings, but rather a hell of a lot of midi-sampled drums (such as Superior Drummer) and other instruments, along with digitally recorded guitars (Axe-FX, Kemper, Helix) and highly processed/layered/corrected/altered vocals, and it's mostly that way because it saves a lot of time and money, it's convenience.

It's really just a different world, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, things go full circle eventually and we keep moving forward in new ways.

I am quoting your post because you used the term "different world" referring to time, I believe, but it can also apply to geography and cultural values. I found out about "Japanese listening bars" today so I don't really have what I would consider "knowledge" about them. Here is an article and a website below:
https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3485
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/dining/vinyl-records-listening-bar-kissaten.html

I like the fundamental idea and the fact it works (or even exists) in certain places around the world is encouraging. There are people who do want to listen to music in an ideal environment. It may not be for everybody, but it is there for the people who are interested and live near one.

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

As an aside, audio from a CD reaches your ears at 16bit/44.1kHz. Audio from a DVD reaches your ears at 24bit/48kHz. Music does not suffer at 24bit/48kHz so is there any clear reason 24bit/48kHz never became the standard for all audio? Just curious.

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

No expert on the matter, (though I should be in my line of work), but my guess would be: so all songs fit on one cd. The CD technology at that time probably didn't allow a higher bit/sample rate due to file size restrictions. The common audio CD still writes down data and I don't think that, at 24bit/48khz, a CD would be able to contain a standard full album (again, could be wrong here). There's a practically inaudible difference between 24bit/48khz vs 16bit/44.1khz as well, just like there's a practically inaudible difference between high-quality wav. files and slightly compressed mp3 files, or even highly compressed mp3 files. Go ahead, try it out: https://www.npr.org/sections/therec...ll-can-you-hear-audio-quality?t=1580040427911

I have recently given in to Spotify premium out of convenience. Their subscribers get to hear the audio at 320kbps, as opposed to the free 160 kbps. I wouldn't be able to tell the two apart with a ****ed and loaded gun to my head. I'm also willing to bet my life savings (which is around $15) on it that there's anyone out there who would flawlessly be able to tell the difference between a couple of FLAC, mp3, or 32bit/96khz master files through the same set of speakers. inb4 real amps vs modelers discussion

The end result for me is a pleasant sonic result, without audible compromises. MP3's being streamed through a nice high-quality set of speakers will do just fine. Vinyl doesn't add anything to the experience for me. If anything I get distracted by the occasional pops/clicks/scratch sounds.

I meant why didn't the music industry adopt the DVD as the standard when it became available?

As for the audio quality test, I identified 2 of the 6 tracks as uncompressed wav. files: the Mozart - Piano Concerto and Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner." I'm ok with that. I actually took that same test 5 years ago and identified the same 2 tracks as uncompressed wav. files. I remember it as "the NPR audio test" and I got the "classical piece" and the "last one" correct. My memory is not good enough to remember which boxes I checked though.

Here is an alternative to the "NPR audio test." The approach is different: 2L High-Resolution Music .:. free TEST BENCH
2L is a Norwegian record label run by Morten Lindberg. They do some amazing work. 8O

It's funny...we don't have "real amps vs. modeler" discussions. It might be good to have one.

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

And talk about convenience. Double-clicking a file to listen to 1 specific song as opposed to getting the CD, taking it out of the jewel case, praying to God that the disc doesn't have scratches or isn't dirty, skipping through all the tracks to get to the song you wanted. Goodbye back-breaking labour! And a standard family only had one pc standing in the living room anyway so it was there for all to enjoy.

It was also around 2000 that video-DVD's were becoming a mainstream thing. I recall saving up for a PS2 around that time and being one of the first people in class being able to play a DVD. But by the end of the academic year, everyone had a DVD player. Sure, you could download movies on your PC back then, but it was a whole hassle getting it to play on your TV. For the people who watched movies on their PC monitor, it worked just fine. But when you got a family that wants to collectively enjoy movies, DVD's was still the best movie-watching option. I'm starting to feel like Randy Marsh after buying that Blockbuster video store.

Audio-DVD's were a very niche market and offered no new form of convenience. Kind of like why 4K Blu-Rays aren't taking off (and probably never will), despite the fact that the picture quality is better (in theory) as opposed to streaming (4K) video content. The average person just digs the whole comfort of Netflix, Amazon Prime etc, even though they are compromising on quality when compared to the best physical media out there.

Man I used the word "convenience" a lot.

Perhaps this will clarify what I find frustrating: Using the CD as the standard, any resolution below CD quality is described as "you can't tell the difference." Any resolution above CD quality is described as "you can't hear the difference except for film which is at 24bit/48kHz." This does not make sense but implies all sound is the same unless you are watching a movie... lain:

You mentioned "a nice high-quality set of speakers" as part of a pleasant listening experience for yourself. That makes sense. I could be wrong, but I think more people might think this makes more sense (and is more convenient): https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Studio/...&pd_rd_r=93960074-fb39-4806-98b2-a3c48a1d60b7

People like cheap speakers they can talk to and you are an a**hole if you don't like them too. That's frustrating.

Now, after all this negativity I need a pick me up, so I'm going to watch a movie on my iPhone using the phone's speakers because it is convenient...

 

[Formerly Given To Fly]

To branch out the topic of “How We Listen to Music” I am curious about how many times people listen to a song/album they like? Rough guesses are welcome.

Personally, it depends on the music, how long it is, how demanding it is to listen to, etc. It turns out, I like listening to movies as background sound to allow sounds I hadn’t noticed before to emerge. According to iTunes, I “played” Star Wars - The Force Awakens 1,000+ times. I think “played” means “pressed play” not “watched the whole thing” because that would be rather remarkable if I had in fact listened/watched the entire movie 1,000+ times.

The 2nd most listened to song was Muramasa by Periphery at 400+ but closer to 500. I think that is pretty accurate. The song is a 2:52 album intro. I tend to consume specific music in a relatively short period of time until I am familiar with everything about it and then rarely ever listen to it again. This is probably not the norm, which I am fine with, however, when the powers at be were deciding how much a streamed song is worth, they made their decision based on the belief “a song is listened to 30 times over the life of the medium.” I have no idea where they got that number but it seems low.

How many times do you listen to music before the newness wears off?