[odigg]

Quote:

I do agree with portability and it's benefits. But what it has done is made music something people can't enjoy unless they're doing something else, they're usually on the go and trying to fill time. That's the general point of my rant. Also, the demographic that I'm appealing to
A) won't pay attention to these details (they're not even sure what Sanza is)
B) All have pretty bad iPods or Blackberries as sources, and they're using them with those horrible tinny worse-than-apple-earbuds kind of earbuds. This is, again, the demographic I'm appealing to.

You might be overestimating how much people used to listen to music as a singular activity.  IME a lot of people listened to their massive sound systems while cleaning, doing office work at home, paying bills, balancing checkbooks, homework, eating meals, etc.  For a lot of people music has always been a background activity.
 
As for the demographic you are talking about, remember that in the 70s/80s many people didn't have big systems.  They had these massive boomboxes that sounded absolutely terrible.  Those were the affordable systems the majority used, and they were the background noise for other activities.
 
If you want a time when people listened to music as a singular activity you need to back in time when the only way to listen to music with proper instruments was to go to a concert.  Even back then, people sung songs when they were doing other stuff.

 

[scompton]

Music was every bit as much background music in the vinyl days as it is today.  I remember people arguing over who was going to flip the record because no one wanted to interrupt what they were doing. 
 
In the 60s, everyone I knew had a transistor radio.  If you think things sound tinny now, you have no idea.  My iPhone's speakers sound 1000 times better.   We listened to music on those radios both though their speaker and though crappy mono ear buds that make Apple buds sound great.
 
Really, 128kpbs AAC, an iPod and Apple buds sound as good or better that what most people listened to in the 60s. 
 
Most people who listened to LPs, never cleaned the records or stylus.  It was common practice to tape quarters on the head shell  to hold it down on the record.  And that was just the people who had turn tables.  In the 60s, the most common way people listened to music was AM radio.  In the 70s, FM radio.  When I went to college in the 70s, most fellow students didn't have any stereo system.  Most used either radios or stand alone 8-track players to listen to music.
 
Truly, today is much, much better.

 

[deadlylover]

Quote:

 It's true, but it seems like after hearing higher-end gear, music doesn't seem the same all distorted and tinny. Most people are happy with their gear, but I don't think they realize it's potential as an amazing experience.

 
Yeah I agree, there are things you can't unhear, but I guess I just all depends on how picky the individual is. For me, I've come a long way in my headphone journey, but I can never really say for certain that I'm enjoying the music 'more'. I do fully enjoy the experience of 'good sound', but I'm usually too busy to listen properly, and yes, I'm guilty of primarily being a background noise music listener.

 
Quote:

Do some blind testing of lossy vs lossless and you'll find that above ~192kbps it's near impossible (if not impossible) to distinguish lossy versus lossless.

 
It's possible, it just depends on your music/gear/alignment of sun and moon etc etc, there's a thread somewhere in sound science with plenty of positive ABX results. But yeah, the differences aren't even worth worrying about IMO, the actual recording has a greater impact on sound quality.
 
I really like the digital age, as there are plenty of artist's that I would not have discovered if not for the internet being an important part of content consumption. I also think it's nice that practically EVERYBODY has a portable music player nowadays (smartphones, ipods, whatever), more people are listening to music more often, and is that truly a bad thing?

 

[odigg]

Also, there is more to "illegal downloads" than you've presented.  Search for articles where musicians have talked about the music labels.  The music labels want to blame all their problems on piracy, but they've done plenty of things to damage themselves and the artists.  Here is an article talking a bit about it - http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make
 
 
 

 

[Hifianddrumming]

Quote:

Also, there is more to "illegal downloads" than you've presented.  Search for articles where musicians have talked about the music labels.  The music labels want to blame all their problems on piracy, but they've done plenty of things to damage themselves and the artists.  Here is an article talking a bit about it - http://www.theroot.com/views/how-much-do-you-musicians-really-make
 
 
 

 Thanks for the article I've got some searching to do. Again, I've had to kind of squeeze everything in, so I'll try to fit this in somewhere.

 

[baka1969]

As already pointed out there are many holes in your "rant". That said, rants are known to become verbose so, if it were me (I was known to debate issues with teachers), I'd use as many words as needed and justify it to your teacher.

Also, some people with the proper system and knowing what to listen for can differentiate between 256 mp3 and lossless. Believe what you want, with storage being extremely cheap there is really little excuse to use mp3.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Also, some people with the proper system and knowing what to listen for can differentiate between 256 mp3 and lossless. Believe what you want, with storage being extremely cheap there is really little excuse to use mp3.

As much as people like to say this, it's not universally true.  Storage may be cheap, but it's just plain not available in a portable player in the size I would like.  So that's far from being cheap.  I can't fit all of the music I'd like on my iPod Classic at 128kbps, let alone lossless.  Fortunately for me, I've never, with any equipment, been able to pass a ABX test of 128kbps vs lossless, let alone with portable headphones, an iPod, and less than ideal listening environments.

 

[baka1969]

As much as people like to say this, it's not universally true.  Storage may be cheap, but it's just plain not available in a portable player in the size I would like.  So that's far from being cheap.  I can't fit all of the music I'd like on my iPod Classic at 128kbps, let alone lossless.  Fortunately for me, I've never, with any equipment, been able to pass a ABX test of 128kbps vs lossless, let alone with portable headphones, an iPod, and less than ideal listening environments.

I have 3586 songs on my iPod Classic in lossless. According to iTunes that's 11.2 days of music. That's more than enough music for a trip to the store or a week-long vacation.

If you store the main body of your music on a computer in lossless, and have, say, 1TB of music, you can always build a library of 160GB of music for most situations to take with you.

 

[Maxtcc]

MY rant in response to Hifianddrummings rant:

Firstly:
 
 "50 years ago, people had massive stereo systems. "
 
For me It wasn't 50 years ago, but rather it was 30 years ago. Perhaps, Hifianddrumming was overshooting the time mark on stereo listening, for before that it was mono and live radio mostly. 
 
I'll begin with the issue I believe to be central to this RANT.
 
"They would sit down, put on some vinyl, and blast it through a massive set of tube-amplified, floor standing speakers. The sound came through warm, rich and crystal clear, the sound was immersive, and people sat and just listened, listened to all the nuances and emotion. Music was something like TV is nowadays. It was a primary source of entertainment, considered normal to just sit and listen to it, with no other distractions."
 
For me absolutely. In my early teens I worked very hard in commercial Kitchen, mostly to support myself, but importantly to support the style of life which I aspired to have. Namely, to make music and listen to others' music. I was forever upgrading my stereo system with first the best amp I could get then the best speakers, then the best turntable, ever onwards and upwards in the search for quality. All in the hopes or lounging back in bliss to the sounds of the performance.(yes I had to live in broken down old houses, because of the volume of the music and the size of the components needed to make up my personal nirvana. You couldn't do that in an apartment, without someone becoming outraged.) I would indeed become entranced and listen for hours at a time, (when I could get time off, and not be invited to be at or have a party going on, or be at a live show.) 
This was my life. It was all about the music. Making it, listening to it, and being part of it. The time lasted a long while. And it was Great. Then came the late 90's, with economic difficulties, career changes, and priority changes. Hell Life changes. Many things happened, time became a miasma of requirements and survival. Working at a job and not a career. Nicotine, caffeine, aspirin, and no sleep. Little was apparent as a lifestyle or direction.  The music was lost and forgotten to me. 
 
Now, older and wiser I find the joy and ferociousness of living has returned. Music once more takes me to lead.  I am embarking on the refund desire to hear the angels singing and the trumpets to blare. ( Yes, I love the sound of flocks of bagpipers.) I return to the sounds of my youth with a critical ear, and find some dross among the former  heroes. But, not to fear for, in the beginning there are the gems, and golden throats, virtuoso strums and powerful cadence. Some formative sounds that are now the heart of some modern sounds. 
 
So guess what, I now begin a Herculean task of building again a tower of sound, a megalith of technology, an electronic organ, to whisper sweet sweet nothing into my ears.
 
On the next point I have only an opinion on the format of music.
 
Vinyl, cassettes, reel to reels, cd's, and digitized, all have their place in time. Each has a particular aspect which I find can be enjoyed for its own right. Always it is the quality of the recording with needs be interpreted to find its sweet zone via the equipment available at hand.
 
I say find your own groove and rock on it.
 
I love modern portability of the digitized.
 
I love the soul and timbre of vinyl.
 
I love the voluminousness of the wall of sound generated by Reel to Reel.
 
I would pass on cassettes now, if only all the hundreds of handmade and independently produces tapes could be found elsewhere, but for about ten years there this was the way to find out about and enjoy so many many assortments of the human musical range.
 
Digitized music, this is now my mode of choice to archive and encase in the ice of perpetuity, that which may never come my way again.
 
I am currently working on a megalith of current technology to perfect the playback of sound to which my earful brain craves.
 
 
 

 

 

[scompton]

Quote:

I have 3586 songs on my iPod Classic in lossless. According to iTunes that's 11.2 days of music. That's more than enough music for a trip to the store or a week-long vacation.
If you store the main body of your music on a computer in lossless, and have, say, 1TB of music, you can always build a library of 160GB of music for most situations to take with you.

That works fine for you, but not for me.  The way I listen is random by album though as much of my library as possible.  3500 songs is not enough for me to listen in that way.  If you think it is that's fine.  If you think it is for everyone else, that's not fine.  I have 32,000 songs on my iPod and I hate the fact that I constantly have to figure out what to take off to put a new purchase on. 

 

[baka1969]

That works fine for you, but not for me.  The way I listen is random by album though as much of my library as possible.  3500 songs is not enough for me to listen in that way.  If you think it is that's fine.  If you think it is for everyone else, that's not fine.  I have 32,000 songs on my iPod and I hate the fact that I constantly have to figure out what to take off to put a new purchase on. 

If you think mp3 is fine for you that's ok. It's not fine for me.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

If you think mp3 is fine for you that's ok. It's not fine for me.

It might be if you tried a blind test. You could be using a lot more portable space than necessary. Even if you don't need more songs, it could mean you can switch to a flash memory player.

 

[baka1969]

It might be if you tried a blind test. You could be using a lot more portable space than necessary. Even if you don't need more songs, it could mean you can switch to a flash memory player.

I won't turn this into a let's-see-who's-penmanship-is-better-in-the-snow. What I will say is whenever someone posts a link that compares mp3 to lossless I consistently pick the lossless files.

Again, if someone likes mp3 that's good for them. But not everyone shares that viewpoint and I am one of them.

 

[Elysian]

Things are much better now than they were 20-30 years ago.  Starting with the cassette Sony Walkman, then going to portable CD players, then the first few generations of PMP3s, and finally good quality players like the Apple and Cowon devices, there has been a definite improvement in sound quality every few years.  Even with radio, we've gone from AM to FM to satellite and HD radio.
 
Most of the systems people listened to, including those $1000-2000 Sony and Kenmore rack systems in the 1980s, did not have very good SQ.  From DACs to speakers (now both $5-10k production and DIY models that rival $40k+ offerings), people have it much better in terms of SQ now than they did decades ago.
 
Unfortunately, I think OP doesn't appreciate how much things have changed since he hasn't lived through a lot of the past, as many people have pointed out.

 

[Astrozombie]

I love things like this, narrative/myth/exaggeration/rose colored glasses about the past. Reminds me of baseball, and it's with baseball that i learned to look deeper and love the bloggers who do. In the thread posters provide their own experiences where they thought things were actually worse back in the day, someone would have to conduct some sort of study.
 
It's just always funny when people say "things aint what they used to be" "they don't make um like that anymore" "oh those were the days" but were they really? Were things actually better or are you only focusing on the positive and forgetting the negative? "Baseball players would play for the love of the game", but of course we know they were paid, they always played for money and always tried to cheat. It was a corrupt system that kept their salaries down and exploited them.
 
Another example is my beloved Dodgers who sometimes get called out for only caring about money (lol whut all teams do) and not the fans when they moved from Brooklyn. But nobody mentions white flight to the suburbs during the 1950's and the city not wanting to give them a new stadium. Then the ordeal here in LA about evicting immigrants from their land and bulldozing their homes, that was already planned years before the team agreed to move here. Also they offered to pay people for their homes and then some to move somewhere else, they were just stubborn, eminent domain is nothing new.
 
And yes when reading the article i was picturing your average family listening to some crap radio in the living room, which from movies sound like ibuds in speaker form.............