Don’t listen to 25 songs, listen to your whole collection!

Mike.......I agree, but it isn't something that comes natural for me. I have favorites, and playlists of mixed music from all sorts of artists, and my mood often impacts my music selection. I do have days where my entire listening sessions are purposely selected from music I haven't listened to in years. Other nights I make a point to pull CD's without looking at the title or artist, just pull several from different CD racks and play them. That is always fun because I generally rekindle my original interest in the music after being reintroduced to albums I have been ignoring. More than anything, though, my mood dictates the genre that begins a listening session.
 
Stages of a system:

1. Everything sounds good, no changes in selections.
2. Bad sounds BAD, decent sounds bad, and good/excellent sound good.
3. Bad sounds BAD, decent sounds BAD, and good/excellent sound great.
4. Bad sounds bad, decent sounds OK, good sounds great and excellent sounds SUPERB.
5. Bad sounds OK, decent sounds good, good sounds great and excellent sounds SUPERB.

I'm at level 5 in my main system and its fun to get back to some of the music that shaped me as a youth/young adult. This was all 15-20 years ago when music was recorded very poorly. They still aren't great, but they are listenable and enjoyable again. These are the stages I've gone through but YMMV.
 
DSkip said:
Stages of a system:

1. Everything sounds good, no changes in selections.
2. Bad sounds BAD, decent sounds bad, and good/excellent sound good.
3. Bad sounds BAD, decent sounds BAD, and good/excellent sound great.
4. Bad sounds bad, decent sounds OK, good sounds great and excellent sounds SUPERB.
5. Bad sounds OK, decent sounds good, good sounds great and excellent sounds SUPERB.

I'm at level 5 in my main system and its fun to get back to some of the music that shaped me as a youth/young adult. This was all 15-20 years ago when music was recorded very poorly. They still aren't great, but they are listenable and enjoyable again. These are the stages I've gone through but YMMV.
Click to expand...


DSkip, I agree with your 5 step description with one addition if I may.

4.5 Bad sounds bad but I will try to listen anyway. Some days I can others, not so much.


I fought a server for a long time. Now that I have everything on file I find I play things I really didn't remember ever purchasing.

The issue with that is I forget what I re-discovered again when I listen the next time.

I guess it's time for paper and pencil again until they stay near the surface of the grey matter.
 
brad225 said:
I find I play things I really didn't remember ever purchasing.

The issue with that is I forget what I re-discovered again when I listen the next time.
Click to expand...

Haha, so true. I've definitely stumbled across stuff I never knew (or more likely recall) I had and thought wow, nice.
Only to sit here now and go hmmm, what was that again? :)
Several Terabytes of music has it's price!

cheers,

AJ
 
jdandy said:
Mike.......I agree, but it isn't something that comes natural for me. I have favorites, and playlists of mixed music from all sorts of artists, and my mood often impacts my music selection. I do have days where my entire listening sessions are purposely selected from music I haven't listened to in years. Other nights I make a point to pull CD's without looking at the title or artist, just pull several from different CD racks and play them. That is always fun because I generally rekindle my original interest in the music after being reintroduced to albums I have been ignoring. More than anything, though, my mood dictates the genre that begins a listening session.
Click to expand...

You hit it for me Dan,
my mood dictates the genre
Click to expand...
. Some days or even weeks its smooth jazz , the next it might be Blues or even the wife and I setting there and spinning every Beatles or Elvis albums we own.. Just the other day when Joe posted on the music area, that Ides of March - Vehicle, I knew I had the album but I also found a oldie, a 1968 LP by Spirit - Family That Plays together, I've Got a Line on You and next to it another Spirit Album 'The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus , with Its Natures Way. All bring back memorizes, so its was play Rock and Roll oldies from the 60's and 70's this week. While playing some of these, I never really cared how they sounded, its the memories I got from spinning plastic that made me smile..
.
 
IMO our battle is not the system, nor the genre, or the selection within the genre, it’s time.

We navigate towards what we want since it fills the perception of need. It’s hard not to break habit on the “go to” selections, then remember it all.

One thing is when the music gives you a positive fix, and the volume knob turns to more power and the foot is tapping, and your singing or even playing air instruments you have reached nirvana cause these systems we have assembled are simply awesome.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
 
UltraFast69 said:
IMO our battle is not the system, nor the genre, or the selection within the genre, it’s time.

We navigate towards what we want since it fills the perception of need. It’s hard not to break habit on the “go to” selections, then remember it all.

One thing is when the music gives you a positive fix, and the volume knob turns to more power and the foot is tapping, and your singing or even playing air instruments you have reached nirvana cause these systems we have assembled are simply awesome.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
Click to expand...

One thing is when the music gives you a positive fix, and the volume knob turns to more power and the foot is tapping, and your singing or even playing air instruments you have reached nirvana cause these systems we have assembled are simply awesome.
Click to expand...
So very true
 
My normal listening habit is to pick random songs from my collection. If I like something I add to playlist, so I can explore similar music using streaming service and find additional music that I might like.
 
I gotta stop hearing stuff & thinking wow, I need that only to catalogue it when it arrives & I have to put it with the other copy.... insert Marge Simpson growl here! :D
 
AJ Soundfield said:
Haha, so true. I've definitely stumbled across stuff I never knew (or more likely recall) I had and thought wow, nice.
Only to sit here now and go hmmm, what was that again? :)
Several Terabytes of music has it's price!

cheers,

AJ
Click to expand...

So true. Or buying something AGAIN you forgot you had. Definitely the problem with having a huge collection. Now I check my database on Roon before I buy anything.

One thing I am definitely stopping is buying all these remasters that so many claim are better than what came before it. As is I have too much and with the Select interestingly enough finding many of my original redbook is better mastered than some of the new crap being released as "remastered".
 
Mike said:
A sign of a great system is one that allows you to listen to your entire collection. The songs you love, but the recording sucks and the ones where the recording and the songs are great!
Click to expand...

Or, if we say it in another way: should a system play all kind of music?
Of course. Any system that doesn´t do that, is not "right".


So, make any sense to have different systems?
Yes, because different approches result in different sounds, and each of them could be enjoyable...
 
An excellent point. I find that when my system is dialed-in I listen to recordings I previously avoided and think "wow, that sounds better than I've heard it before" or "I never heard that before".

I guess just another benefit of investing in the experience of it, the music-listening, toe-tapping end-game, opposed to obsessively min/max'ing the hobby.
 
18 TB of music now, but mostly focusing on analogue at the moment.

Don’t listen to my full catalogue every day.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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