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Topic: Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years? (Read 12830 times) previous topic - next topic
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Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #25
During the late 50's amplifiers reached 0.1% thd, stereo existed, and playback media supported signal with a noise floor -60db or more. Speaker materials, various other things have changed, surround sound, etc., but has the experience of listening to prerecorded music materially improved in the last 50 years?

Conceding size, cost, and wider selection of media have improved, but has the listening experience and will it get better?


Yes the general SQ of everything with the possible exception of radio and certain popular recordings (over compressed, etc.) is better than it was in the late 1950s or even late 1970s. Much better.

I think we should demand that you abx these improvements!

Cheers,
David.

Wouldn't an ABX test of material where the primary technical difference is noise floor require "special" consideration of the listening environment, either raising the playback level or reducing the ambient noise level?

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #26
Speaking back to prerecorded music, I've been listening to the remastered Nat King Cole, Love is the Thing, recorded in 1957, remastered and released on SACD by Analogue Productions. Stardust is one of my favorite songs, and I have never heard a better version. Nothing meaningful in the remastering was modern, just the final conversion to digital for the SACD master.

Same for a number of early recordings that I like, the equipment may not have been as transparent as what we have today, but it appears to have been adequate to produce excellence.

It seems to me the struggle now isn't how to get good sound, at least not technically, but a struggle of what good sound is, and my personal taste continues to drift back to the music of the 50's and 60's when real engineers ruled the consoles.
+1.

I wish I had the equipment to play that SACD, but some CD releases of late 1950s / early 1960s recordings (especially from Capitol recordings/masters!) are just magic.

Cheers,
David.

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #27
This specific SACD is a Steve Hoffman remaster working from the original 3 track and mono master tapes, with three mixes of the whole album, mono, stereo, and dry no or little added reverb. If you want to hear Nat King Cole's voice, here it is. I currently have no way to play the SACD, but foobar does fine with an ISO rip. Someday maybe I will have the hardware to compare them.

 

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #28
we were sitting *right behind* the FOH mixing desk.


Sitting @ a rock concert? That means you give up on one of the major tweaking options - choosing where to stand

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #29
we were sitting *right behind* the FOH mixing desk.


Sitting @ a rock concert? That means you give up on one of the major tweaking options - choosing where to stand

Hey - I'm nearly 56 years old. I have to take every opportunity to sit down that I can get 

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #30
we were sitting *right behind* the FOH mixing desk.


Sitting @ a rock concert? That means you give up on one of the major tweaking options - choosing where to stand

Hey - I'm nearly 56 years old. I have to take every opportunity to sit down that I can get 


Ten years younger than Meat Loaf! You should at least be mobile enough to http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BXsgGMTJp9Y/TFpD...age_dive-2.jpeg

Has the listening experience materially improved in the last 50 years?

Reply #31
I think the golden age for music was right before the Napster era.

Listening to an album on cd and looking at the jewel case is far more satisfying than selecting digital files on a DAP.