what do you look for in your day to dayt listening ?

[rdf]

I want the sense of the recording conveyed to me as accurately as possible, because that's when I feel most engaged by the music. The system I have now does that wonderfully. I never really think about the electronics any more.

[ob1]

I think the musical message should speak for itself, I don't want any discernible artificiality added.

Yes, but looking from another angle, don't you think that hifi lover are the type that not sensitive enough to the musical message? that's why we need to spend to understand that message better. My stepfather very often cry when he listen to his classical music on a budget system (and I mean £600 max hifi system) and I would sit next to him pulling everything to pieces! Yes, he also love listen to music on my rig but he doesn't need an expensive stuff to reach that same emotional connection.

[moggy58]

I have a pair of KEF transmission line speakers that can shake the walls.
But, they are nothing compared to listening to YES blasting out bass notes from a twelve foot high stack of speakers,
I could feel the screws rattling lose in my seat.
When I’m at home I prefer something more subtle and detailed.

[Toe rag]

This will sound very but the best hi-fi related thing that has happened to me was stumbling onto The Wam.

It's a mine of information and full of gobshites but I now have equipment (oooh matron) courtesy of fellow wammers that I would never have dreamed that I could have owned and every time I listen to anything I'm a very happy bunny. Then again maybe I'm just easily pleased.

Do what Jimmy who you calling a GOBSHITE?

[barneys dad]

Exactly. I want to really feel what the composer/artist intended me to feel.

The emotionally stunted/unaware will have to make do with fidelity/accuracy/measurements.

Exactamundo.
I bet Stradivarius didn't use a micrometer.

[khapahk]

For me, music is about the emotion, how it makes me feel and how it can change how I feel. My listening choice depends very much on how I feel when I head for the LP/CD shelves. Tense after a crap day at work ? I need something loud/aggresive/fast to match and that relieves the tension. Feeling relaxed ? Something chilled or more complex. The genre isn't necessarily important, it's all music whether a string quartet, jazz trio, orchestra, choir , soul, metal or prog, it's how I feel when listening.



k

[notaclue]

For me, it's all about having the best hi-fi. I would be unable to enjoy listening if I didn't have the very best hi-fi.

Thankfully, I can say (and it has been officially acknowledged) that I do actually have the best hi-fi!

[The Engine]

Nobody tap their feet anymore ?
I want it to make my body move in a strange nonsensical fashion.
(not my description of my dancing but it seems a popular verdict )
and snappy transients help........

[rmsshipbroker]

I want it to make my body move in a strange nonsensical fashion.

I had an old Amstrad music centre that could do that.
Mind you, it was badly earthed....

[khapahk]

Nobody tap their feet anymore ?
I want it to make my body move in a strange nonsensical fashion.
(not my description of my dancing but it seems a popular verdict )
and snappy transients help........

Not since it became a hifi journalism cliche !


k

[The Engine]

So you stopped...........bahhh

[SergeAuckland]

Apart from the occasional use for background music over dinner, when a ghettoblaster would do just as well, my daily use doesn't differ much. I use my HiFi for the pleasure of the music. Jazz should relax and get me laid back, classical for intellectual stimulus, rock for passion.

The nice thing about my HiFi is that once I got over all the measurements, set-up and stuff, I use it as a tool, not really caring about it at all, not letting it get in the way of the emotional satisfaction of the music.


Lovely stuff.

S.

[JBCobra]

I am always looking for music I have not heard before. I love it when I get lucky and find something is Right On.
You always know immediately when you like a particular song, riff, etc...it just sounds Great, straight away.
I have found a lot of great music from all you characters too

[dantheman91]

Hello,

I like to feel like i am sitting in front of the drummer. as a musician i feel this is importent for the music. i am a very happy with my system it gives me pleasure from the music. Although i feel the human voice is procise in my system i like to sit back and relax like having a small session band in front of my from a small hall etc. I like my music from early prog rock to electronica to early 50's jazz also including various other genres theres nothing i wont try.

Dan

[DAVE WEIR]

Always look for looking at the old c.d collection for ways to follow things up so could be a mixture of blues,bluegrass,classicall ,rock . just to keep it intersting

[rich]

Apart from the obvious necessary stuff like the tune, the musical drive and interplay .... a 3d holographic world, infinitely layered around you and full of dense floating notes replete with form and shape, endlessly pleasurable in their texture and tone, like they are actually caressing your body. The kit I have now does this in a way that i've never heard before with other electronics.

[mmar]

get a room man , 50 shades of hifi :-)

[Nagraboy]

Yes, but looking from another angle, don't you think that hifi lover are the type that not sensitive enough to the musical message? that's why we need to spend to understand that message better. My stepfather very often cry when he listen to his classical music on a budget system (and I mean £600 max hifi system) and I would sit next to him pulling everything to pieces! Yes, he also love listen to music on my rig but he doesn't need an expensive stuff to reach that same emotional connection.

No, I don't agree with that at all. Some kind of obsessiveness about equipment and sound makes people spend so much money usually, although not always. It's male autistic spectrum behaviour, that's why everyone listens to music but only men buy HiFi equipment.

It's not difficult to enjoy music on a 'budget' system if you can stop thinking about the quality of reproduction and dissecting it - which is a seperate activity really (see above). Doing that can even make a great £50,000 system unenjoyable. A good £600 stereo can easily resolve the melody and all the most important bits in the music and most of the less important stuff too, as your stepfather has found. If you can avoid obsessing over sound too much, a top-quality system will be the icing on the cake of musical enjoyment by giving a heightened sense of reality over a lesser system.

I rarely listen in critical mode much anymore, it's just too boring! I've got out of the habit thankfully and try to just get on with listening and enjoying music these days. Yesterday I was listening to the Very Best of The Fine Young Cannibals and dancing around the room! Couldn't do that listening critically, it had plenty of shortcomings but I didn't dwell on them and had a great time!

[The Strat]

I think we analyse this stuff too much. Get the right equipment that suits you and explore that musical landscape.

[Pelagic]

I like to listen to music for pleasure.

Notions or accuracy and what the artist intended are pure subjective fantasy. It either sounds good to you or not. Unless of course you were at the studios when recording and more importantly mixing took place.

I have been reading the ken Scott autobiography, which takes you through some of the process of capturing the creative muses of the beatles at abbey road; David Bowie through hunky,ziggy,alladin, pin ups, elton John Honky chateau, don't shoot, Supertramp crime of the century, etc. On reading the technical process of recording, producing and mixing, one realises that one knows nothing about accuracy in the terms of what the recording team Actually had in mind. The use of compression in laying down tracks for specific and good effect, is enlightening.

A good read btw.

Listener pleasure Is where it's at.