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Three months ago my speakers blew up: the inevitable consequence of a decade of abuse. Sadly, this reduced me to using the cacky 10 watt speakers I bought for £39.99 to use with my computer. As any sane person would, i just stopped listening to music - better to go without than to hear the formerly majestic masterworks have their glory choked out of them by the cheapest loudspeakers in the index catalogue.
Anyway - at the weekend I took delivery of a new pair of speakers and I've spent the last few evenings sitting down with a bottle of beer listening to albums all the way through. It seemed like years since I'd engaged with music in that way: not as background, or as an idle distraction on the train, but sitting and listening to it - enjoying the sound, the beautifully realised, hefty crunch of a guitar or the rounded punch of a bass drum almost as much as the tune itself. Arriving at the end of an album, and feeling as though a journey had been completed, having weaved through highs, lows, depression, anger. It struck me that this was a totally different experience to hearing the album on a walkman, or in a club, for example.
So I wondered. How do you hear yours? Do you kick back with a beer and curl up with an album like a book? Do you like to hear your choons while you're hammering down the motorway? Does music only make sense to you when you're rocking out in a club? And how does that affect the type of thing you listen to and what you make of it?
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I listen either on my shuffle or behind my PC normally, I have my PC hooked directly into a stereo amp with a decent set of warm fuzzy speakers and a good set of presets, couple that with itunes and a reasonable soundcard making listening to music quite a treat.
My listening habits have changed of late though, I used to listen to radio stations like 6Music and Radio Etienne or Kink (Dutch) but I got a little fed up with the constant banter and their habit of praising anything and playing things I really don't want to hear (Like Anthony and his Johnson).
These days I get bits and bobs from a lot of independent websites who share music for discovery rather than just simple 'file sharing' - I've listened to some awful dirges and some real rubbish of late but there are the odd gem in there and I quite enjoy the discovery process, its like being a kid again.
Being here in NL I would have never found the likes of Little Barrie (Currently playing), We Are Scientists, Holopaw, Wolf Parade, The Ponys or possibly even something as mainstream as Idlewild were it not for sites dedicated to expanding the reach of new music.
Sometimes on a Friday night I like to put on my headphones, slump into my music chair (I'll take a photo of the music chair later, you need a music chair) and thumb back through the music I've loved in the past with a cold beer and a smile on my face.
As Plato said:
“ Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything. „
-------------------- my own brother a god dam shit sucking vampire!!! you wait till mum finds out buddy!
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Can we be as geeky as we want on this thread?
Yeah go for it. I was actually going to post a picture
of the speakers that died, but I thought that might be a bit too far.
But, what the fuck. I think geekiness should be encouraged in these endeavours. After all, your relationship with music - like any worthwhile intimate relationship is going to be populated with slightly embarrassing idiosyncracies. We shouldn't be ashamed.
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posted
I was never into music. Really. I never had time to sit down and listen. The first single I ever bought was the Pet Shop Boys version of 'Always On My Mind' Depending on who you are, this was either a classic, or pressed shit. But it goes somewhere this story because only playing the same song enraged my brother into beating me up and putting on '99 red balloons' or if he was feeling particularly torturous - The entire Bad album. How I longed for Leave me Alone to fade out. This praetorian guarding of the wheel of steel just put me off bothering to listen. I was into ninja turtles before I realised what I was missing.
I received my first mix tape when I was 13 and it had a lot of lo-fi recordings of Timbuck3, The Cure, Killing Joke and Westworld. I played them over a single speakered tape deck and never really noticed what I was missing. I sought out a decent stereo so I bought an amp and CD deck in a closing down sale. The amp was an Arcam, which needs warming up because of the valves inside. I still have it, so I'l get onto that in a mo. Because I never had any speakers I use two 100 watt Peavey PA speakers which would tweak and rattle at low volumes so I started a long session of falling asleep with a set of headphones on. I was desperatley into mix tapes and so would compile myself a selection of tapes for the bus ride into school. The strange thing I noticed was that when you played something on the seperates system and then listened to it on a walkman, other elements of the song previously lost to you would jump out. As I was listening to Jesus Jones - Liquidiser, I noticed other pieces of the tracks would come closer in the mix over the headphones. I got obsseive about bands. I would trawl the record shop for the latest releases and record them to tape. Although I didn't know this, if I'd have had access to better equipment, I would have made up for my mistake - moving over to CDs. I moved away from vinyl as CDs seemed to provide a 'cleaner' sound through my system. Looking back, I was listening to music through what was essentially a mid to high range set of speakers. If this was a party, then bass was having trouble getting past the bouncers. Let's face it. I didn't even know who to invite. it was probably a dinner party anyway.
So when I first got my Mordaunt Short bookshelf speakers I was in heaven. I hadn't heard clarity like this before and not realising that the speakers were gems in themselves would later realise that shy of a few hundred pounds I wouldn't get to see clarity like this again for a long time. I was using a pair of in ear headphones (but obviously the older model of those linked) By this point I was becoming a bit of an audiophile and decided I could take the abuse for having stupid oversized headphones, just for the levels of clarity across the board. No tinny bufftee bufftee bufftee noises could be heard pouring out of my headphones. Nope. This music was mine. All mine. I would go on long walks because headphones would offer me the opportunity to listen to the music with a greater closeness. It became more personal to me.
The Mordaunts went phut but I had moved over to a pair of pretty standard Mission speakers from Richer Sounds. I was expecting below par sounds but was genuinely impressed at how they relayed back sounds. I was starting to realise that I was pretty much a bargain basement speaker buyer, but I had heard music on systems worth thousands and the only time I ever noticed a drastic change in the mix was when I heard studio monitors playing back sounds.
faxxache I have to go and I've barely even scratched the surface.
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I love having different ways of listening to music - car stereo, cd walkman, ghetto blaster in the kitchen, pc at work and proper stereo in my office at home.
They usually suit different types of music, but some albums sound good on all of them, with the added bonus that they sound different, like you've got five albums for the price of one.
I usually pick something loud for the car stereo (so I can hear it over the engine, being a Land Rover), something I can move to or shout along to for the kitchen, proper all-frequencies production stuff for the stereo and something I can immerse myself in for the headphones on the walkman. Work music can be any of the above but tends to end up as background anyway and not being actually listened to at all.
When we lived in the middle of nowhere in the Isle of Man we had a ginormous living room with two chairs and the stereo. I first got properly into Radiohead's Kid A there, maximum volume on the speakers, bass rumbling, all the little hidden extras on that album bursting forth. Man, that is good shit. It never seems to come across the same on headphones or the car stereo, or anywhere except a living room in the Isle of Man actually.
Machine/genre optimum compatiblity chart:
Ghetto blaster: The Clash, Nirvana, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and the like.
The big stereo: Kid A, DJ Shadow and that sort of shit... Thievery Corporation, the Blade Runner soundtrack... you get the idea.
CD Walkman while stretched out on sofa in total darkness, eyes closed, late at night: Any Transglobal Underground album, Paul's Boutique or Ill Communication by the Beastie Boys, Here Come The Warm Jets by Brian Eno... albums which have a sort of cinematic flow to them, lots going on, tracks running together, mysterious lyrics and music to send you off to another world.
Some of that stuff crosses well between the machines, but maximum pleasuring of the aural interfaces is only guaranteed through the careful and precise matching of original recording with reproduction device.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
These days I mainly listen to music on my car stereo, which isn't too bad (Bose). A few years ago when I got a new album I would play it repeatedly and obsessively, lying on my living room floor, stationed equidistant to both speakers, with the album sleeve/CD insert, learning the lyrics, discovering the songs. I miss that part, the familiarity with the lyrics which nowadays I have to bluff, to mouth something which makes a similar noise rather than being sure. It's not helped by bands going all arthouse and not bothering to print their lyrics on their albums any more.
I like the thing that you get with repeated listenings, when instead of singing along with the main melody, suddenly you find yourself understanding the depth of the vocals and that you've wandered into a harmony.
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
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At home: I listen to music, which I still buy mostly on vinyl, on my stereo seperates system (Arcam amp etc).
This tends to take several forms: Standing at my decks with headphones over a single ear, either attempting to learn how to beat-match properly, or just playing choons and seeing what works.
In the bath.
While chilling out in my room.
I also listen to CDs/XFM on the Denon integrated amp/tuner in the kitchen while cooking.
In the car: CDs/XFM on the Kenwood CD player with six CD changer. Very loud.
At work: Portable CD player/XFM.
Round mates: I'm still computerless at home at the moment, but many of my friends are not and now rock the i-tune playlists+random jukebox thing to great effect. Drunkeness and shouting frequently accompany this.
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I've had a long and interesting love affair with music, for pretty much as long as I remember. When I was a kid my parents bought me one of those record players that everyone had in the 80s with the speakers with the flashing lights in them. In fact I might still have it somewhere. I used to spend hours lovingly changing the records, working out how they worked and how I could skip from track to track..
Then (slightly) later in life I witched to tape, and discovered the joys of recording mix tapes and dubbing. Me and a friend used to sit huddled around my crusty old tape deck pretending we were radio DJs and making recordings of ourselves. Those were good days. We used to make up our own songs sometimes too. If I had ever been arsed to learn an instrument other than the recorder, we might even have developed some kind of musical talent. I couldn't, and so we didn't.
Then it was probably around ten years ago I started to realise the joys of listening to music loudly. It was around the time when the Prodigy were becoming big and I would steal my sister's acid house tapes and play them as loud as my second hand Kenwood speakers would go. Which was pretty loud.
The next big turning point came when i walked out of my first job. They gave me a cheque for £550 which I spent almost entirely on the loudest stereo I could find, which atthe time was the Sony RXD9 'Mini' system. Which I still have today and still, I believe holds the record for the bassiest mini system ever created. Crank the dial all the way until the volume reads MAX and the sound reaches such an intensity as to induce lasting night club hearing, and dislodge ornaments from their shelves in neighbouring rooms.
When I got my first car it was only natural that my love of all things loud and bassy would cause me to investigate the in-car audio scene, the pinnacle of which was spending the better part of a thousand pounds of a pair of subwoofers rated at 1500wrms each and sufficient amplification to make even breathing a physically demanding activity. Truly this was a system too far and since then, I've moved more towards sound quality, having more or less given my Sony stereo a back shelf and almost totally using my Creative 2.1 system for music on my computer.
Every now and then though, I still like to put on some drum and bass, crank the dial to MAX and enjoy those frequencies rattling my fillings. Bass - there's nothing quite like it.
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My music is played on a Technics CD player, tape deck, record deck, Sky Digibox (for radio & MTV2), or a dedicated Media Centre PC (for MP3s and FLACs), and is amplified by a Techincs Class AA amp which feeds a pair of obeliskesque Boston Acoustics TA-830s.
In my attic, I have a PC dedicated to recording music. It's rigged up to an ickle 150W Peavey PA system, and also a chunky '80s Sansui amp which itself can be switched between a pair of near field monitors, some nasty old Aiwa speakers or headphones - handy for testing out my tunes on totally different speakers.
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At the moment (and pretty much 90% of the time I'm at work) I'm listening to my music on my old Sony CD Walkman, I keep a pouch of about 30 of my favourite CDs on my desk and it's what gets me through the week to be honest.
At home I have a separates system, Denon amp and CD Player (+ a tape deck whoch hasn't been used in years) and my lovely Kef Coda 7's, all bought the best part of a decade ago, I love my separates system, rich smooth sound, strong bass, good clarity, listening to music on headphones does indeed bring the smallest detail to the fore more effectively, but nothing beats turning up the volume on a good system and feeling the music you're listening to rather than just hearing it. I'd be lost without my music..
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I'm lost in music Caught in a trap No turning back I'm lost in music
Physic, 2005
-------------------- i'm expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song Posts: 4243
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I was just thinking about this the other day. I've never really been a music junkie, having it on in the background, if at all. Since I moved out of my flat six weeks ago, I haven't set up the stereo, and can't say I've missed it. If I want some background noise, I just put the radio on. Or talk to myself.
I don't listen to it at work, and don't use a walkman or ipod. I haven't even bought a CD for about six months.
Maybe it's time I reintroduced it to my no doubt barren existence.
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Is this about how you enjoy music, or a list of technical specifications?
My musical equipment history:
Alba Personal Stero: age 10 Ghettoblaster inc CD player: age 13-25 Sony Walkman: age 13-21 Sony Walkman inc radio: age 21-present day Sony thing with speakers described by Thorn as "allright for a girl's stereo": age 26-present One of them little 3pm things what Thorn got me: age 27
The Sony thing is my first grown up stereo (ie not a ghettoblaster) and I chose one with a tape deck because I love my old tapes. I have a series of cassettes from age 13 until I left uni of Stuff Taped Off The Radio. It's a wonderful autobiography of my changing tastes, as well as an invaluable history of Radio 1 jingles. I also have my USA 98 tape, Uni Anthems tape etc which deliberately document an era.
I know they're shit quality, but that's not the point. My walkman's been a beloved companion on many a bus/train journey around the world. I discovered early on that music through headphones actually makes time go faster; if you walk to the supermarket to do the boring weekly shops with your headphones on, it definitely takes less time.
I simply don't have enough time to just sit and listen to records at the moment. I have to content myself with playing the Gwen Stefani album really loudly every single morning to annoy Thorn.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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Actually, it's the first 3 tracks, which all rock ass.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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i was under the impression that asses were required to be kicked for something to be good, but veep here refers to a rocked ass. have i missed a memo here? is this a new superlative?
-------------------- i shot a man in reno just to watch him die Posts: 2064
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Funny, I have been known to use this phrase. I think it just kind of forms itself in one's mind, as an amalgam of "Rocks my world" and "Kicks ass".
quote:Originally posted by Boy Racer: Round mates: I'm still computerless at home at the moment, but many of my friends are not and now rock the i-tune playlists+random jukebox thing to great effect. Drunkeness and shouting frequently accompany this.
eyyyy!!!!
since i left london, the above has been one of the things i have missed most.
i am listening to my cds through my television at the moment. i have six cds in my bedroom- the roisin murphy album gail burned me, the interpol/ beta band album the man with the head like michael eavis who we got drunk with on cider margaritas burnt me, my dolly parton box set, the whalebone polly album, screamadelica and a serge gainsbourg collevtion. this is quite patently not enough music for any sane person to live with, and it is quite patently technospazzish and pauperistic to be listening to them through my telly. its not much of a telly. i did get a free stereo off freecycle but it is immensoid and has no speakers. what is the very least you would say a povvo could spend on a pair of new speakers in order to be able to hear all the nice clicky details on a cd? i have lo- fi alt folk with breathy bits at either end of the tunes and i want to hear each exhalation like the banjo player was in the room with me, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a fag. i used to have that. i used to listen to music properly. i used to have a semi- decent entertainment system. wha' happen?
quote:Originally posted by discodamage: i did get a free stereo off freecycle but it is immensoid and has no speakers. what is the very least you would say a povvo could spend on a pair of new speakers in order to be able to hear all the nice clicky details on a cd?
What's the stereo with the no-speakers? Does it have all the output ratings on the back? If you write all them down, and take them to richer sounds, and explain you haven't got any money, then they should be able to supply you with something in the region of 30-50 quid that will work with the stereo. Richer Sounds is often a good bet if you need something but are totally strapped.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
disco - the Richer Sounds in Bristol is on Whiteladies Road, half way up on the right.
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Discodamage's predicament sounds familiar. I camp out during the week in a different city to my real home, my CD collection, my bookshelves, my pictures and all the other familiar consumable culture I might want.
So in a bit of a reversal of the usual iPod, take your entire music collection to the pub and shuffle it fashion, I compile a capsule collection on a 256mb mp3 player every Sunday night.
It's probably not a dissimilar principle to those fashion magazine articles which tell you how to survive a fortnight in the Med in 6 items of clothing. This method always fails to account for the fact that you wouldn't be seen dead in the airport wearing a bikini top, or that you might be overtaken by a sudden urge to hear Dick Gaughan being gravelly to The snows they melt the soonest.
Here's this week's selection, in alphabetical order for the gadget knows no other:
Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp - mostly for dozing to in transit. Adds romance to damp, autumal mornings and the dribbling of rain on train windows. Also makes me think of my French sister in law who giggled uncontrollably at the "squeaky voice" on it. Sweet.
I am bird now by Antony and the Johnsons - because gay HQ told me I had to. It's a conspiracy.
Leftism by Leftfield - fantastic for running, walking to work and mowing down fellow pedestrians. Just they wait until I get Rhythm and Stealth on there next week.
The Decline of British Sea Power by BSP -a hybrid walking, sitting, wandering vaguely about album. It's becoming less and less functional and may be replaced, but still I'm quite attached to it.
The Magic Numbers by The Magic Numbers - mainly disappointing me and droning on. A recent entry to the player which is going to be dropped after only a week. I take back anything I might previously have said in support of them.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: What's the stereo with the no-speakers? Does it have all the output ratings on the back? If you write all them down, and take them to richer sounds, and explain you haven't got any money, then they should be able to supply you with something in the region of 30-50 quid that will work with the stereo. Richer Sounds is often a good bet if you need something but are totally strapped.
cheers bre'r, thats good thinking, and thats about the sort of ballpark figure i was looking at spendind too. and you hippy. (do you know, i havent ever been to whiteladies road and i have lived here three months now. im like, clifton? who needs clifton? i bet they dont have smackhead ballet like you get on stokes croft, nor saggy titted pollards in playboy logo boobtubes! all the entertainment a body needs on stokes croft! count the abcesses on the legs of the the heroin lady in the denim miniskirt, four pentz a go!) the stereo is a fucking goodmans. . but it was free innit. and it has a turntable which doesnt currently work bt might do if i let a boy at it with a tool and a furrowed brow.
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It feels like cross-dressing. It feels like opening a Chanel Christmas gift meant for your ex or the sister whose clobber you nick. A box of crafty cardboard origami, matt white and too fiddly for fingers without manicured nails. Too pretty for a geezer to buy himself: you're used to ripping off wrapping, breaking polystyrene, yanking the flexes out like guts. Ordered off Amazon, you didn't expect this art-package, this beauty box.
I bought a pink mini-Ipod. It matches my phone. What is it about pink... whenever I wear it I feel like a bentboy or worse, a surburban straight. (What happened to pink? When did it toughen up, front it out, take on the boy-named-Sue syndrome, become the short-sleeve uniform of lads so hard they could dress in babygirl colours and dare you to look twice?) Yeah, what is it about me and pink. I won't wear it, but I'll accessorise it. A real man wouldn't even know that word.
I walked into the phone joint and that dinky pink number winked at me, screen jiggling. That was going to be my phone, that petite pastel job, that throwaround hideaway model. I took it home and every magazine was promoting it as a Valentine's gift for your girlfriend. As for the Ipod, last time I saw the pink mini -- Christ it even sounds like a pussy -- it was Molly Ringwald's cousin showing me hers, scribed on the back by her galpals with the nickname "To Gidget". I might as well carry a 1950s retro handbag in the elbow-crook, wiggle around wearing a jacket with "Sandra Dee" stitch-signatured in cerise. I might as well tattoo "poof" on my head in rosy dayglo. Anyway...
This West-Coast queen of a gidget-gadget, this wiggleman waltzman...it's mine now, matchbox-sized and ready to be stuffed with shrunk-down music. I chuck out the gimmick headphones, wire up the dentist-white wires. It might look like a gaydar-pinger but it's going to be filled up with man music. First song you load onto your fresh machine is like the first number you play in your echoing empty new flat. It's a statement of intent and identity, your gig opener, your big hello, your handshake and calling-card.
First fucking song I get on these is Britney Spears. The little pink bitch has jacked into my existing soundfiles and loaded up the most embarrassing cringetracks it could find. "Boys". "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet A Woman". The computer starts singing. Outrageous... my shopping spree... got these fellas chasing me. I grab the volume nipple and twist it hard. Fucking dare humiliate me. Show the box who's boss. Its screen shimmies icon-expressions... undaunted, it loads up shame-songs from my underwear drawer like it's hanging panties in my front window. Rachel Stevens, "Some Girls". Gwen Stefani, "Hollaback Girl." It's looking for lyrics that cut to the chase and say it simply, broadcast it proudly, This Man is A Queer.
Taking control of this routine: pop the machine's mouth open and slam in a CD. Load that up, you little slapper, and then we'll have my signature song. Now you're going to take the music I give you and give me a playlist I can be proud of. You got to force your own identity on these things. It sucks and swallows, then jukes back to the first track. Pause to twist the volume up, flip the lid off a beer and relax, window open, broadcasting what kind of guy you are to the back gardens.
Fuzzrock guitar weaving bass shapes; jumpy neurosis of honkytonk piano tapdancing the tinny high notes. That familiar strained voice, a mate welcoming you back. Yeah this is more like it! Watch! that! man! oh honey, watch that ma-a-aan...
posted
I'm in the process of moving appartments, and one of the first things to get a proper reintroduction to the living room is my Hifi - Marazntz CD, Cambridge Audio Amp, Pair of Kef Cresta Floor standing speakers, Sony Minidisc recorder (mainly redundant) and a Yamaha tape deck - I'm after a Rega Planar 3 deck as well to round it all off. The wooden floor and fairly spartan (currently) living space begs lovely sound.
Plus my obviously homosexual neighbour I have discover likes to play show tunes all hours of the day and sing to them - badly - so the need to drown that out is somewhat necessary.
I have been for the most listening to stuff through my iPod (Dead) and through the computer (I have a 5.1 kit through a creative Audigy so it sounds ok. I also listen at work through the computer to drown out the dreary waffle of my imbecilic colleagues (Today I am mostly enjoying the X-Ray Specs).
The Hifi is the only method of really enjoying music - the clarity of truly hearing all of the album, especially one of quality. The idea of chilling with a book by candelight and a beer is one I shall look forward to (I am so excited at my new gaff!) - however the sort of music I tend to listen to is very attentive and diverting, and I think worthy of 100% of my attention, so stuff the book.
As for access to the new stuff,it tends to be mainly word of mouth or gigs I go to. My CD purchasing has diminished massively in the last couple of years with my coffers being reserved for only the must-haves by my already established favourites. Perhaps that will change when I start enjoying the HiFi properly again.
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i did get a free stereo off freecycle but it is immensoid and has no speakers. what is the very least you would say a povvo could spend on a pair of new speakers in order to be able to hear all the nice clicky details on a cd? i have lo- fi alt folk with breathy bits at either end of the tunes and i want to hear each exhalation like the banjo player was in the room with me, sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a fag. i used to have that. i used to listen to music properly. i used to have a semi- decent entertainment system. wha' happen?![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
. but it was free innit. and it has a turntable which doesnt currently work bt might do if i let a boy at it with a tool and a furrowed brow.![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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