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Music and better gears

post #1 of 7
6/23/11 at 12:21pm
Thread Starter 

I have updated to high resolution gears over this year, and certainly some music sound amazing.  Having said that, it is also true that some music that I used to love sounds pretty terrible.  The music is the same but unlike earbuds, high resolution headphones bring out more details for better or worse.

 

My tastes in music seems also evolving to listen more to take advantage of the high resolution although not exactly my music style used to be.  Not even sure if what's happening is right or wrong thing.

 

How do you to handle this in your life?

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post #2 of 7
6/23/11 at 1:03pm

Simple answer: I buy more music.

 

For me, this all happened with CD. Because tape hiss was no longer a problem, I got a nasty ECM monkey on my back and ended up buying lots of music with silence and acoustic instruments. Then, as my equipment began to improve, I went for more complex material that it could handle easily without coming unstuck.

 

Basically, technology will always drive your taste more than you'd want it to.

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post #3 of 7
6/23/11 at 1:05pm

Change your music to .flac or play off the cd. Depending on what I'm doing I may use cheaper earbuds/headphones to listen to music on the go in some cases. 

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post #4 of 7
6/23/11 at 1:23pm
If you listen to modern rock music, odds are listening to uncompressed files instead of compressed ones probably won't help. A lot of current music is hot mastered- burned into the cd at too high of a volume level. This makes the music sound louder on cheap equipment, but on good equipment the clipping becomes painfully obvious.
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post #5 of 7
6/23/11 at 1:35pm

^^ Loudness war right? I've noticed this as well...it's okay though I tend to like older music anyways ;) Though I'm starting to get an upgraditis itch xP

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post #6 of 7
6/23/11 at 3:43pm
Thread Starter 

That's the precisely the problem I'm experiencing with many pop albums that I used to like.  Sure it's no delicate classical or jazz music, but there is place for all kinds of music, right? :)
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by bigshot View Post

If you listen to modern rock music, odds are listening to uncompressed files instead of compressed ones probably won't help. A lot of current music is hot mastered- burned into the cd at too high of a volume level. This makes the music sound louder on cheap equipment, but on good equipment the clipping becomes painfully obvious.


 

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post #7 of 7
6/23/11 at 4:12pm

The problem is with the mastering of the music by the record company, not whether the file you are listening to is compressed or not, or whether your equipment is good. The only solution for that is to return bad sounding CDs as defective immediately after you buy them and let the retailer know exactly what is defective about them. Companies won't pay attention to audio quality until consumers demand it.

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