How we listen/buy our music

I'm a total marketing oddball and don't ever expect to be taken seriously by Apple as a music customer. I don't want to sound snotty, but I have spent thousands on very good quality home audio and I simply cannot bare listening to an MP3s and/or your average Best Buy audio equipment. I don't think people know how much sound and music they are losing in this format (MP3s) and/or with the average consumer audio equipment. I still buy CDs (though many used) and vinyl which, with the right equipment, is often superior to CD. My latest 2 channel music set up is built around a 45 year old tube integrated amp (H H Scott 222A) I bought for $250 and it simply KILLS any new amps you could purchase for up to $2000. I wish I could have you all over to hear your music on my systems!!!
 
karavite said:
I'm a total marketing oddball and don't ever expect to be taken seriously by Apple as a music customer. I don't want to sound snotty, but I have spent thousands on very good quality home audio and I simply cannot bare listening to an MP3s and/or your average Best Buy audio equipment. I don't think people know how much sound and music they are losing in this format (MP3s) and/or with the average consumer audio equipment. I still buy CDs (though many used) and vinyl which, with the right equipment, is often superior to CD. My latest 2 channel music set up is built around a 45 year old tube integrated amp (H H Scott 222A) I bought for $250 and it simply KILLS any new amps you could purchase for up to $2000. I wish I could have you all over to hear your music on my systems!!!
Click to expand...

Wow.

I assume that you're into classical or jazz -- music which would be well-arranged and nuanced so you would have sonic details to listen to in your set-up. It would be funny if you were that discriminating in your music set-up and listen to Britney Spears or 50 Cent.

But anyway, it's true that real audiophiles are not Apple's target audience. iTMS in the US and Europe focuses on mainstream music offered only in a compressed format. Using the iPod, though it has great sound quality, often implies that you'll be somewhere (jogging, commuting, in your new BMW) where there is enough ambient noise that you'll be in less that ideal listening conditions. For the casual music lover, these issues don't even come into play.

I have eclectic tastes in music genres and favor sound quality over sheer volume, but I do just fine with 160 kb/s mp3's and a mid-range Yamaha home theater system. I'd love to see and hear Karavite's setup and find out if I do hear a difference, though.
 
Hey Nojay - Actually I like all kinds of music too, but I do draw the line at Brittany!!! :) Still, any kind of music sounds better on better equipment.

I read somewhere that you can load an iPod with full bit rate music (like from a CD), but they have some memory buffer type issues that cause gaps here and there with playback of these files if the song is longer than some time limit. Still, I bet it is only a matter of time and technology where you will be able to have higher bit rates on all downloadable music and players like the iPod. It will be just like other audio formats (LPs, tapes, CDs, SACDs) - Apple can sell you all the same music you like again and again as they increase the bit rate or have new formats!

I'm afraid I might send you down the slippery slope of audio insanity, but since I can't have you over (I mean, we don't even know each other!!! :)) take some of your favorite CDs and maybe even your iPod to a high end (hopefully not snobby) audio store and give it all a test run. Then realize the $2000 - 5000+ *2 channel/stereo* systems the guy just showed you are indeed very nice, but you can get the same kinds of sound for less. How? Well, used is one answer (www.audiogon.com) since so many "audiophiles" spend their lives and money continually buying the latest and supposedly greatest (and are never happy) you can benefit from their obsessive issues when they sell their 6 month old gear! Or you can do what I did and find some old stuff that was simply made well (even some of those 70s huge receivers are amazing with massive power supplies and high quality build). I did this all the wrong way - spent way too much on some stuff, was very happy but then became obsessive about it until I found the old simple tube stuff sounds so darn good I am back to just having fun actually listening to music! Of course they make new tube equipment too, and some of it can run into the tens of thousands of $$$, but again, you are entering the realm of either the super rich or the super obsessed! I mean there are people who spend thousands JUST on the cables that connect their CD player to their amp!

So, what do you think the chances are Apple will make a tube-pod? :)
 
karavite said:
Hey Nojay - Actually I like all kinds of music too, but I do draw the line at Brittany!!! :) Still, any kind of music sounds better on better equipment.

I read somewhere that you can load an iPod with full bit rate music (like from a CD), but they have some memory buffer type issues that cause gaps here and there with playback of these files if the song is longer than some time limit. Still, I bet it is only a matter of time and technology where you will be able to have higher bit rates on all downloadable music and players like the iPod. It will be just like other audio formats (LPs, tapes, CDs, SACDs) - Apple can sell you all the same music you like again and again as they increase the bit rate or have new formats!

I'm afraid I might send you down the slippery slope of audio insanity, but since I can't have you over (I mean, we don't even know each other!!! :)) take some of your favorite CDs and maybe even your iPod to a high end (hopefully not snobby) audio store and give it all a test run. Then realize the $2000 - 5000+ *2 channel/stereo* systems the guy just showed you are indeed very nice, but you can get the same kinds of sound for less. How? Well, used is one answer (www.audiogon.com) since so many "audiophiles" spend their lives and money continually buying the latest and supposedly greatest (and are never happy) you can benefit from their obsessive issues when they sell their 6 month old gear! Or you can do what I did and find some old stuff that was simply made well (even some of those 70s huge receivers are amazing with massive power supplies and high quality build). I did this all the wrong way - spent way too much on some stuff, was very happy but then became obsessive about it until I found the old simple tube stuff sounds so darn good I am back to just having fun actually listening to music! Of course they make new tube equipment too, and some of it can run into the tens of thousands of $$$, but again, you are entering the realm of either the super rich or the super obsessed! I mean there are people who spend thousands JUST on the cables that connect their CD player to their amp!

So, what do you think the chances are Apple will make a tube-pod? :)
Click to expand...

Aw shucks. No chance to check your system out? Just as well....I'm probably better off being blissfully ignorant about high-end audio. There is a Tweeter (a high-end home electronics store) right around the corner from my job, but I try to stay away from there.

I assume that you are aware of Apple's new loseless compression format introduced with iTunes 4.5 (http://www.apple.com/itunes/import.html). The issue of iTMS offering songs in Apple Loseless is another topic discussed in other threads. (I personally think that this is impractical right now.) In theory, hard drive players could have skipping issues with AIFF and uncompressed formats because the buffer would not be holding as much music at any given time.

The market for high-fidelity music (DVD-Audio and SACD) is still pretty much limited to the home theater and not the desktop. The '04 Acura TL does have a 5.1 channel system that supports DVD-Audio, and it is REALLY cool. That is just a frontier that there isn't much interest for hardware and software makers to conquer right now.
 
Hey Nojay, Yamaha is no slouch you know! Many good 5.1 systems can play 2 channel music very well, but you can't ask them to do everything! I'm sure you are doing fine! Just enjoy your music like you have been!!! I want that car!!!

This whole thing is neat idea - how we listen to our music. When I was a kid, it was all about your stereo and records, tapes and just a bit of CDs. We would make tapes with our favorite songs/artists and use those in the car.

Now kids use computers and players as their "stereo" and then some, but the basic idea of all this is still the same. I think it is really interesting - we are all doing the same thing (listening to our music at home or away from home), but with different tools and options. I just think technology could do a little more to give contemporary music listeners better bit rates and audio quality. I mean, it should not go backward!

Still, the one thing I really miss the most is the big old album cover with art (some times awful), photos and liner notes that you could sit back and read while listening. CD inserts just don't cut it and if you get music online, there aren't really liner notes (though you can download/access cover art in many cases). Of course there was one other widely adopted creative use for LP album covers, especially double albums mainly in the 60s and 70s, but I won't discuss that here! :)
 
At home iTunes...in the car i use a cassete adapter, i have a FM transmitter but the quality really does just suck. Any other place...if i'm listenign to music i'm listening it from my iPod
 
ive been using a russian purchasing site. pretty nice so far. quite simply, my music tastes are not on iTMS

iTunes at home, iPod at work, iPod in the car, iPod walking around.... get it?
 
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