4 ms·
I remember when CDs were very very new the first review of them in an audiophile magazine a friend subscribed to. The reviewer was quite unhappy. The next mon
by JJMcJ 4y ago
I remember when CDs were very very new the first review of them in an audiophile magazine a friend subscribed to. The reviewer was quite unhappy.
The next month he reviewed a different player. He basically retracted his opinion of CDs but said the player from the previous month was obviously terrible, at least the particular one that he did his review on, if not the entire brand.
And for audiophiles themselves, I notice many of them seem to have very poor taste in music. Like do you really need $50,000 of equipment and sand weighted speakers that weigh 700 pounds each to play 1968 bachelor pad music?
- gerdesj 4y ago"I notice many of them seem to have very poor taste in music." Great response and critique until that point. I'm old (52) enough to have seen quite a few media changes too. I recall that when you were off your tits at a party, and discussing music, you tried to find common ground. That could lead to some impressive contortions! Can't say I ever spent much on playback hardware. I generally went second hand for speakers/amps etc. Once the Walkman was invented and then rather a lot of Chinese (and other copies were available) clones appeared then you could ruin your hearing close up with seriously decent quality sound on the move. I was still walking around with a mini cassette player with wired ear plugs in my jacket's breast pocket until around 1993ish. I did lay out something like £200 on a pair of decent headphones for use at home. They make anything from O Fortuna to Ghost Town via say Schehehererherereherezade, Finlandia and One sound rather ... Special.
- JJMcJ 4y agoThe term "audiophile" describes someone who indeed spends huge amounts on their audio setup. It is different than someone who appreciates music, which it seems like you do.
- kazinator 4y agoI will have you know I have great taste in total harmonic distortion and frequency response!
- CamperBob2 4y agoThe next month he reviewed a different player. He basically retracted his opinion of CDs but said the player from the previous month was obviously terrible, at least the particular one that he did his review on, if not the entire brand. He could have been right both times. Many early CDs were just plain awful. Same with the first couple of generations of CD players, even some pricy ones. The early development of MP3 and other lossy audio codecs recapitulated the history of digital audio pretty well: lots of truly crappy recordings got passed around. Like do you really need $50,000 of equipment and sand weighted speakers that weigh 700 pounds each to play 1968 bachelor pad music? I've never understood audiophiles. How can it make sense for me to spend more money on my equipment than the freaking recording studio spent on theirs? Do these people think studios use $10,000 power cords on their sound boards, and atomic clocks to drive their ADCs?