Do owners of Higher End sytems gravitate to Classical Music?

[Mike]

I listen to several genres. Classical, some jazz, some broadway, and popular music. No rap, hip-hop or other obnoxious music.

I agree with those who have said that most pop recordings sound like crap which is unfortunate because I do like several genres of popular music.

In the car, I don't recognize how bad most pop music sounds.

+1. That was exactly my point. I love the music, but the recording quality and mastering short falls can often sound like crap and create a real distraction from the great music that lays underneath. If you are someone who can "listen through" the bad mixing, recording and mastering, then all the power to you! I only seem to be able to really enjoy it in the car.

No matter how good our systems are, it all starts with the recording.

 

[Mike]

"I used to be into a lot more classic rock, but most of it sounds like sh!t on high end gear - so I prefer it in the car only now."



Wow Mike, I guess I don't have High-end gear either !

:wacko:

Oh baloney! You can just listen through the mediocre recordings and hear the great music underneath. That's a skill I still need to hone.

 

[Mike]

There is one glaring caveat to older rock recordings I would like to add. For some reason, older rock recordings on vinyl sound good and some of the remastered rock albums sound really good. It's just the digital versions whether it be CD or rip I find fatiguing - even some of the high res downloads are just so-so. Maybe classic rock was never meant to be digitized!

 

[NorthStar]

All the CDs made from 1983 to 1993 or so, sounds awful! ...Only from the mid to the end of the nineties some started to sound good (CDs). ...Of course, there are very few exeptions.

Albums? They always sounded better than CDs. ...With some very very rare exceptions.
- Remember? ...Digital albums (LPs)?

Nowadays? Jeezzzz, I guess it all depends of how much money you're willing to pay for new remasters of older music recordings; be it on 200g, 45s, DXD, DSD X 2, JVC 24-bit, SACDs, HDTracks, R2R tapes, hi-res music files at 32-bit/352kHz, tra-la-la...

 

[BlueFox]

This is actually pretty good.

 

[Shadowfax]

Maybe it is more of an age related thing besides higher end gear as they do seem to go hand in hand in many cases. I was never exposed to Classical in any great depth. I tried to play several instruments in grade school but sucked at them all. I sang in the choir until Jr High but again nothing classical.

I saw the Philly Pops when the Kimmel Center opened with a Tribute to Space Exploration with John Glenn but that may be the only real performance I have seen live.

 

[tunes]

I grew up with classical music and crap like Abba and Neil Diamond blaring through the house but never really liked classical until I was in my 20s. Now I listen to classical probably 25% of the time. Mostly chamber, rarely choral. Jazz, electronic and world music make up the bulk of my listening, with indie, rock and folk another 20% or so. Agree that most rock is poorly recorded and mastered. So is most world music unfortunately. I find electronic music is often surprisingly well produced, though clearly not single-miked acoustic audiophile fare. I'm as likely to sit down and listen to Deadmau5 and the XX back to back with Bach Cello suites and Greg Brown. One thing for sure, classical music has become far more interesting to me as my system has improved, retrieving much more detail and dynamic range from the recordings. The other thing is that I buy alot of used vinyl and classical LPs are often dirt cheap and so it's easy to pick up tons of classical lps for a few bucks and try them out. I have had alot of enjoyment from discovering wonderful music this way and then discarding what didn't resonate back to the thrift stores.

 

[BruceLet]

I love Classical and especially enjoy solo piano, but it only makes up about 20% of my total listening.

 

[Mike]

All the CDs made from 1983 to 1993 or so, sounds awful! ...Only from the mid to the end of the nineties some started to sound good (CDs). ...Of course, there are very few exeptions.

Albums? They always sounded better than CDs. ...With some very very rare exceptions.
- Remember? ...Digital albums (LPs)?

Nowadays? Jeezzzz, I guess it all depends of how much money you're willing to pay for new remasters of older music recordings; be it on 200g, 45s, DXD, DSD X 2, JVC 24-bit, SACDs, HDTracks, R2R tapes, hi-res music files at 32-bit/352kHz, tra-la-la...

Good point Bob. I think the conversion of music to a digital (CD) format from 83 to 93 was more of a quick mass manufacturing process rather than a careful quality process. The music industry saw a way to make a lot of money - so they churned out as many old recordings on CD as quickly as they could in order to capitalize on this supposedly great new format.

Since I sold/gave away a bunch of my records in the 90's, I'm busy rebuilding it and I can attest to the remastered 200gram, 45 rpm, whatever LP's.

This is a good site to visit to learn more about these repressings, remastering gems: http://www.qualityrecordpressings.com/

 

[Dewster]

Good point Bob. I think the conversion of music to a digital (CD) format from 83 to 93 was more of a quick mass manufacturing process rather than a careful quality process. The music industry saw a way to make a lot of money - so they churned out as many old recordings on CD as quickly as they could in order to capitalize on this supposedly great new format.

Since I sold/gave away a bunch of my records in the 90's, I'm busy rebuilding it and I can attest to the remastered 200gram, 45 rpm, whatever LP's.

This is a good site to visit to learn more about these repressings, remastering gems: http://www.qualityrecordpressings.com/

Cool vid Mike..