A bit of a random nomination, as per usual from me. But I was just watching some old YT music videos, including one from Foreigner (the band not some immicunt), which took me back.
But what caught my eye in that vid was the old-school turntable, and it reminded me of the late 70s early 80s and the advent of music centres (consolidated cassette decks, radio and turntable in one unit) and good old hi-fi seperates (tuner, amp, deck, cassette deck, graphic equaliser and a pair of bins)
I used to buy “What HiFi” magazine back then, and checking out the best seperates, cartridges, cabling for my particular hi-fi. And even though it meant having to physically walk to the hi-fi in my bedroom to change tapes/LPs (no remote controls back then!), the overall sound quality was truly worth it.
Compare and contrast to today’s latest sound units. Yes, I know you can still get hi-fi seperates at premium prices, but by and large everything is MP3 and dumped on wank Smartphones and tablets. Yes, they have great portability but OMG the sound quality is utter shite!
Moreover, phones and tablets are souless at the best of times, and it doesn’t matter if you buy the most expensive earphones for these things, the sound is still shit!
I still have my old Hi-Fi, records, and cassette tapes, and more often than not I’ll listen to them than anything from my phone. Moerover, it was always a pleasure to take an LP out of its record sleeve (especially double-albums with gatefolds – aka Thin Lizzy, UFO, Asia, Rush), wipe any fingermarks and dust off with a lint-free cloth, place it on the turntable and watch the arm move across and the needle slowly lower itself onto the vinyl. And then I would tweak the amp and equaliser accordingly, and sit back and listen to those rich sounds bounce around the room.
Happy days, but the kids of today would find that too much like hard work. Better to listen to an MP3 on a pair of cheap plugs via a tacky phone from the likes of Spotify at some shite bit-rate.
Nominated by: Technocunt
I agree. The traditional hi fi with CD’s or vinyl have more glamour and produce better sound quality. There was the ritual as well of choosing an album, putting it on or in the device, fiddling with settings, etc.
I dislike listening to music on iPhones. That’s barbaric. There’s nothing special about it and one’s listening is disturbed by emails, reminders, phone calls, etc.
But I love my classic iPods. These were great little devices, the best Apple produced, and I have a little collection of them. Paired with a decent set of headphones, not the crappy Apple in ear ones, these can still produce pretty powerful and impressive sound output.
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I upgraded my classic. Took out the hdd, added in this little board which holds micro ssds and is thin enough to allow a bigger battery too.
It now weighs nothing, battery lasts for fookin ages, and it can hold a stupid amount of music.
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I bought one of those upgraded iPods on eBay as well. Finished like new. It’s brilliant.
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Hoping mine keeps chugging, given the alternatives are crap. Had it for 10 years now too.
How much did you pay? Last time I looked they were selling for crazy money!
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I had my beloved classic stolen from my luggage last year, I got one of those SSD classics for £220 off eBay. It’s still the only platform for digital audio.
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Paid about £200 for an upgraded, refurbished classic, Chunky. It has an absurd amount of memory, more than is reasonable really. Still have a couple of my old classics, with the old drives that make a nice noise when they jump into life. They still work perfectly. I also still have my first iPod, one of the old white ones, and that’s going strong as well. I love iPods.
0
Ah yes ….. the days when you saved for a Sherwood X465NM amplifier or a pair of Mission 900 speakers in Richer Sounds black & white flyer …. you could get a bus in B’ham city centre & walk to their store – plain, like a warehouse, with brown boxes stacked high, and drool over their dream mixed systems, which cost more that a ford escort. (For those who remember, Nostalgia & Comics were next door..greeted by a life size cardboard Arnie pointing his uzi at you – then you marvelled at the cinema posters for ‘Forbidden Planet’ & ‘Alien’
Anything after 1990 is shit 🙁
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Probably some manufactured shite by DJ Who, featuring Missy WhattheWhatNow!
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Apparently the sound is condensed on CDs and downloads, why it sounds a bit tinny.
The simple joy of opening a gatefold album was unbeatable!
Houses of the Holy Led Zeppelin springs to mind,
My first flat after leaving home,
Zeppelin blaring out the speakers, looking forward to going the pub.
Wish id kept all my vinyl but it was scratched to fuck anyway.
Only listen to music through the tv now at home, and CDs in the van.
6
Clean your vinyl with WD40. Its great for getting the deep gime out and the crackle.
3
I was always scratching mine.
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I dont have any left anymore Lord F.
Sold it all, gave it away,etc.
Remember it fondly.
1
I loved the beige tones of poodle rockers REO_Chicago_Speedwagon_Foreigner_Airplane_Starship back in the day.
However, today`s `music` is created by computer algorithms for cretins and the multitude of `playback devices` are also absolute bottom-cack. So nothing really spoiling for the discerning snowflakes of today. Innit.
5
It’s the same with floor coverings.
Vinyl flooring has a warmth that CD flooring just can’t match….
16
I am in the home tech business so I can appreciate this. Everything is cast or Airplay to a device now being fed by subscription like Apple Music, Spotify etc. I guess nostalgia is the biggest reason for missing the old tech.
Back in the day I had to call the radio station DJ, request a song, then wait 4 hours for it to play and be ready to press Record. Yes more work and time but I had no money to buy the cassette.
I would love to sit down with my old box of mix tapes and a deck.
Anyone remember Cassingles? One song and a B side song for a lot less money than a full album.
Good days.
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Indeed,although I’m no audiophile.
I must admit I do like the convenience of digital.
Some Black Sabbath in Flac format with some decent earphones gives me great muscular power.
Never Say Die!
6
I treat myself to a new turntable last year. Love it, I’m working through my old collection and I now have a reason to ask for Christmas and birthday gifts after years of ‘I don’t know’ I can now ask for 12 inches of black. I’d forgotten just how fucking good New Boots and Panties by Ian Dury and the Blockheads is!
7
Er indoors loves her music ( as do I).
She has vintage set up, Mission Cyrus amp and power pack, through vintage 1962 massive Acromats.
A mate who is a total technophile was visiting several years ago. He is a Pink Floyd fanatic, so I sat him in a chair equidistant to both speakers and played “Wish you were here” at a decent volume.
Watching his face was a picture-a look of total astonishment 😀
“It’s like Dave Gilmour is sitting opposite me with his guitar!”
He had his own similar set up within weeks👍
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I still buy CDs where I can get an older one that hasn’t been brickwalled and it all gets ripped to flac and lives on my NAS. Otherwise, I download legally from qobuz. All gets played through my amp and speakers via a digital media box. Wouldn’t go back to physical music, much prefer it on demand, search the menu with art work etc on screen.
The sad thing is that as I’m older I can afford decent speakers and amp but my ears are no longer good enough to notice. Kids are missing out, they dont listen to albums anymore.
3
Me and the Mrs love our records. We got the recent reissue of the Plastic Ono Band and it sounds great on the Technics turntable. Probably Lennon’s best album and there is no Yoko Fucking Ono on it whatsoever.
Some albums are made for LP records and sound better than they do on CD. Sgt Pepper in mono, Zeppelin’s Fourth and The Stone Roses debut are three of them. The original 89 pressing of the Roses LP is still the best version.
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I love my CDs.
Choose one, and ready to go.
Can’t be arsed with computerised music, unless it’s something I am DESPERATE for.
Music is relaxation for me, which means no fucking about with the desktop.
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Also cover art involving Anne-Sophie Mutter or Cecilia Bartoli.
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And black vinyl is great.
Especially for trench coats…
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I was reminiscing with someone of similar age at work earlier. The smell of newly pressed vinyl, the waiting for Monday for the new release, then the pop charts. TOTP on a thursday with whatever peadophile’s turn it was to present it. Happy days 🙂
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…and no more Ltd edition ‘picture discs’… Ace of Spades, Crimbo release on blue vinyl etc… ‘In Ear’ buds/phones are good for nothing other than keeping up with the Test matches on a noisy building site! They have no place in music! Good studio reference headphones are worth every penny, anything under a £100 s/hand will be a disappointment.
Never really got the Hyper-Fi geekery, Back in the 70’s-80’s I saw people spending thousands on electrostatic speakers, (even e/stat heaphones the size of a pair o’ 600page paperbacks with a socking great pre-amp f.f.s.!) and thought this is just madness with yer oxygen free copper, arguing about biasing voltages on vacuum tubes, cantilever/stylus inertia yada ya… Jeebus they’ll be running cryogenically cooled, solid gold busbars across their living rooms next! The irony being that those in a position to actually afford this gear where of an age range where ‘owt over 10kHz is probably inaudible anyway! Laugh? I nearly bought one!
I just run a 200W per side stage PA in the front room, full range speakers on elevating stands, silent as the grave Soundcraft mixer into which I can feed a Tascam 24trk, the output from the l/top, a riff on a mate’s phone, a shedload of floor FX all MIDI’d together with a Roly guit synth, coupla keyboards, mics, whatever I want all in noise free 24bit clarity. Fucking brilliant. 20 years ago you’d be shelling out £5,000 per hour for that kind of studio tech but now it’ll fit in a briefcase!
Modern studio tech and can spit out pitch corrected, time aligned millisecond pervect mediocrity on demand but my god where’s the soul? F’risntance, I miss the demo cassette I acquired of a Coventry ‘garage’ band 20 odd yrs before The Lightening Seeds called 21 Days, (front man looked like a ginger Elvis Costello) it was only four tracks, sounded like they just turned up, plugged in and hit record, no overdubbing, no post production, great harmony, a bit hissy but just the songs belted out like they meant it that cassette bristled live energy. That’s what matters… a bit like this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGd–QsJrxQ
That said, and as a punky/rockery/proggy muso, the advent of 20kHz digital/streamable/editable and emailable audio is a fucking godsend coz It’s taken me 30yrs to drag our unreconstructed hippy, Luddite leadman into the 20th century who was quite happy to plug his monstrous hissy pedal board into his 50quid Argos ‘music centre’ and never even cuntemplating why the beautious stuff he played always sounded like hammered shit?
I Slowly cajoled him, instructed him on how audio works, hauled my gear round to his yard, walked him through my rig “oh it’s all too much man…” Now he’ll phone me at one in the morning asking me about how to assign his fucking Scarlett audio/midi interface’s ASIO drivers to Reaper and “can I split dry guitar up the USB”!!! Now he’s spending hundreds at a time on “boutique” units from California, his board’s doubled in floor area, quadrupled in value and he’ll need a pallet truck to shift the cunt!
So I’ve got all this tech, racks of guitars and associated wizardry but given the ‘Desert Island Discs’ ultimate, bite the bullet choice of one my luxury item, what would I choose to have transported…? Well it’s one of two things, a cricket net and bowling machine or my Vicente Sanchis (symphony of CITES banned timbers) classical guitar.. s’gonna be the guitar every time. I need nothing more.
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You are Dave Grohl and I claim my $5.
*all you actually need is talent to begin with😉
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The trouble is these days all sound reprodution systems are manufactured in Chinky sweat shops and just badged with different brands. Two of the biggest falls from grace with this practice are Grundig and Bush. Grundig were noted for top quality tape reorders and Bush for radios – now the latter has fallen to it’s final position in the sewer by being cheap tat for Argos. A bit like soap powder – the same rubbish regardless of brand.
Makes you long for the days of valve amplifiers, tone controls etc, to sit back and savour classic LPs, with titles like “Lammy Sings Jolson”, , “Emily Thornberry Plays Mrs. Mills” and, of course, Jess Phillips and Keir Starmer’s wonderful tribute to Ivor Novello “The Dancing Q ueers”. All available on the budget priced Music For Pleasure & Torture label
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👍
Luvvly stuff😂
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I have a very nice valve amplifier, and it sounds really good and a warm sound, and it’s great to look at too, the VU meter is a magic eye valve.
I really wished I’d kept all my vinyl, can’t beat the sound.
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One of the things I liked about buying physical music was all the album notes inside. I used to love seeing who played what.
Listening to an album and you’d think a guitar solo was amazing and you’d want to find out who it was playing on it so you could look them up.
The unsung heroes – Michael Landau, Steve Lukather, Michael Thompson, Dan Huff, Carl Verheyen, Geoff Whitehorn to name a few.
Nuno Bettencourt playing on Janet Jackson’s song Black Cat
Eric Johnson playing on Christopher Cross songs.
You don’t get that with streaming music. Yes you can look them up but it isn’t the same somehow.
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Nuno, what a musician! Seen him live, and it was a real treat.
Talking of playing on other people’s stuff, the legendary Larry Carlton, what a guitar player. Saw him in a club so small, his guitar amp didn’t need to go through the PA, so you could hear every note straight from his own cab. Awesome.
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I’m a bit jealous GJ. I’d love to see Nuno and Larry Carlton live.
I saw Gary Moore about 20 years ago. I’ve seen Walter Trout, Preston Reed and a few others since then.
I wanted to see Joe Bonamassa a few years ago but tickets were a stupid price.
Preston Reed was excellent. Just him on his own playing guitar in a small club:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymgsRU6MbNE
I’d like to see Ed Sheeran try that.
1
The audiophile war continues I see… I sort of get what you are saying technocunt as I use to have quite a collection of vinyl cassettes and cds (still do but I rarely bust them out). For vinyls the main draw is the full size album covers the replayability however is a deep fried slice of cunt maybe get 3 years max before songs start skipping on you.
A good set of headphones makes all the difference I live with old people so I have to use my headset. I prefer this way actually because the walls in my shithouse are fucking paper thin so I’ll listen to them or even watch a film. They have theater like sound and sound absolutely1 amazing watching action/scifi/horror flicks. It has noise canceling so I couldn’t hear bloody murder unless it was 10 ft away from me
I’m listening to a lowbitrate squarepusher song from a dodgy russian free mp3 site and despite it not being FLACC overcompressed 32 mb filesize it still sounds fucking amazing so I dunno
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