I prefer to listen to recorded music ...
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Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
How it is intended, which depends on the source.
If it was recorded in stereo, I will listen in stereo.
If it was recorded with 12.2 in mind, I will (try) to listen to it using 12.2
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
I understood that point to mean "I don't listen to recorded music", i.e. find me at a gig, in a concert, in my mum's garage, etc.
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
I hire a band to follow me around and play all my favorite hits.
I need to find a new one, my current singer is getting lippy when I tell him to put on the Lady Gaga costume
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...my current singer is getting lippy when I tell him to put on the Lady Gaga costume
It would probably help if the meat was fresh (no wearing last week's outfit...yuck!) and pre-warmed (to prevent male "shrinkage") before wearing.
Strat
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If you listen to a band playing live, it's not recorded music. This is not what the poll is asking.
What if it's a DJ mixing vinyl, where does that fall in your spectrum of live vs recorded?
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If you listen to a band playing live, it's not recorded music.
This is not what the poll is asking.
What if it's a DJ mixing vinyl, where does that fall in your spectrum of live vs recorded?
Depends. If the DJ is simply playing one record after another then it's recorded. If he's doing anything more than that (scratching, sampling, chopping, etc.) then arguably he's creating/performing his/her own composition, so it's live.
Anyway, that's my distinction. Yours may be different.
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Even playing songs in a particular order can be considered creating a performance. Think full-length albums designed to be experienced as a whole. DJ can do the same by arranging a specific selection to set a mood or convey a message. I think we can all understand the difference between a DJ being a human jukebox and a performance artist.
Conceded. You do have a point. It's kind of thin as performances go, but it is arguably a performance. Even if it's on radio.
The DJ also can respond to the mood of the crowd and alter the sequence of music accordingly.
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Most DJ's will blend songs in, use samples and wind the crowd up with mixer effects, volume changes (eg, make the crowd sing the riff lines etc) which is much more than a jukebox does. I wouldn't call someone standing playing a bunch of tracks one after the other with gaps between them a performing artist. I would however call DJ's performing artists.
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For me, it would likely depend on what room I am entering. I think if I had them follow me around at work, walking into meetings with business users would be prefaced with the Benny Hill Theme song just to remind me what I am walking into.
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I just thought of another option: in a nightclub. [Possible language/cultural difference: some Americans I met recently said there was no such thing as a "metal nightclub" (or rock, etc), i.e. a nightclub that played metal music. That's certainly not the case here, clubs don't just play electronic dance music -- but it is most common.]
I discover stuff fairly regularly in my favourite place, which has a pretty clear idea of what music they like, and often a band on stage at 2:00 or so.
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I find music (with words) to be a distraction when doing anything that isn't on autopilot. I'm surprised that so few nerds/geeks feel the same.
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's the same for me.
I use Last.fm, and my most-listened-to music is what I listen to at work when I really want to concentrate. About half of it is instrumental, but that's not really relevant. A voice is just another instrument. About a quarter of this music has non-English lyrics, which I barely understand.
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Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine trying to work while someone is constantly bumping into you.
Sounds like work in the porn business.
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Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
When I am working, I generally listen to melodic trance, it is a great way to drown out the mindless yapper and people talking to themselves around my desk - not to mention the added boon that if a business user (and often incompetent team members) pop to our area looking for help with something, the guys with the headphones are normally last to be bothered.
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I wonder why you get distracted with words. I listen to a wide range of music indie rock, pop, rap, etc. The sound can't really distract me cause I'm in the "zone" when I really work. Hell if the music is rhythmic enough I will even dance on my chair, moving my head up and down. When I'm in the zone, my work is so much more efficient and I will most of the time, sing along the song while creating a web application. It helps me to ignore my surrounding.
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
I find music (with words) to be a distraction when doing anything that isn't on autopilot. I'm surprised that so few nerds/geeks feel the same.
You might try listening to music in a language you don't understand. I've found that I enjoy that a lot. For all I know, the lyrics of Spanish or Japanese pop are just as insipid as the American version, but since I don't understand the words, I can remain blissfully ignorant and just appreciate the sound of the singer's voice.
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Depends what I am listening on. I mostly use headphones and early stereo recordings have so much separation (basically instruments are on one channel or the other) that they need some cross-fade to be enjoyable. Generally I'm a purist and go for as little alteration of the sound as possible, but for early stereo I make an exception.
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How it is intended, which depends on the source.
Exactly. Depending on the source, I may prefer to listen to it lipsynched by the original singer while sharing a shower.
It's such a good multimedia system it could make you enjoy many songs you really wouldn't expect to care about.
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It plays directly into your brain.
A small praise for mono (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was in high school (many years ago) my friend and I were poking around in his garage and we happened upon an old Magnavox mono sound system. There was an amp and one big speaker. We hooked his turn table up to the thing, got the tubes warmed up and wham! That thing had incredible sound! It was then that I realized that not everything that was old was inferior.
Re:A small praise for mono (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, memories... as teenagers we used to stay up all night and all day starting new years eve, listening to Casey Kasem present the yearly top 100 countdown. When he'd announce a song we really liked was coming up, we'd prop the cassette recorder right next to one of the speakers of my parent's coffee table radio & record player. We'd fill up one side of the tape, then turn it over. Occasionally our calculation of how much tape remained would be off, and we'd have to scramble and get the cassette flipped and recording again during one of the songs.
Those recordings were pretty bad (what's the next step down from mono?), but we had a lot of fun listening to them during the next few weeks...
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Taping off the radio and high-speed dubbing: Two things I don't miss from the 70s and 80s.
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Certainly inferior to a 128 kbps mp3 file ripped from the original CD. First, the radio isn't nearly CD quality, and then an mp3 or ogg file can easily be far better than any cassette tape.
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That thing had incredible sound! It was then that I realized that not everything that was old was inferior.
Reminds me of my RCA console stereo. When it was in fully functional condition it had a nice rich sound. Not overpowering, just nice.
But then the turntable started to act up, and now the amp will randomly make a full volume "click" after its been running for a few minutes.
Someday I'll fix it but for right now it just serves a nice place to put my keys and wallet.
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Around eighteen years ago, the store where I worked after school was closing down, as I had some money saved up, I decided to buy a really nice sound system. I got a fantastic deal on a set of Jamo speakers and a Harman Kardon amp to run them - theyretailed around $7k at the time. I am still using them today, and while I have the money to go out an buy pretty much whatever I would want, there is simply no need at all to upgrade.
If you get good quality whatever, it will stay good quality assuming it is looke
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Huh? The light that came from a properly functioning vacuum tube, came from the filament, which was essentially an incandescent lamp run at a lower current. Sometimes a vacuum tube would become defective by having gas inside the envelope (defective seal, or outgassing of internal components), and these could show a gas discharge glow. Neither of these relate in any especially meaningful way to the light emitting process in a light emitting diode.
There were also a few mercury vapor rectifier tubes and
Depends, as always... (Score:5, Interesting)
I voted 7.1 though.
Re:Depends, as always... (Score:5, Funny)
I know, right? I love it when the sound smoothly "rotates" in space from my left ear to my left dorsal ear!
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see, you digital kids only hear things as all left or all right. The analog junkies understand that there can be mixing throughout an enormous range of leftish and rightish.
Re:My career in 3D audio was a complete waste! (Score:5, Interesting)
The entire purpose of an X.1 (for any X>2) system comes from the degrees of freedom in positioning the listener within the room. Given good headphones or a precisely known listener location, you can impart exactly the same auditory experience on someone with 2.1 that you can with 8.1
The outer ear changes the frequency response based on the direction the sound is coming from, so you can tell where it comes from. However, this effect is not the same in every person, so you can only do this for a specific location in a specific person. Not entirely useful, hence the usefulness for surround sound. Plus, people move their heads around all the time.
Anything but (Score:2, Interesting)
Anything but lossy compressed MP3's! An MP3 just sucks the life out of the sound. Even on an average stereo system in my car, while driving, the loss of fidelity is noticeable, and just becomes more and more annoying over time. If anyone thinks and MP3 is in any way a substitute for 40Khz dynamic range, then they just have no soul.
Re:Anything but (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, fuck science and facts of human biology [xiph.org]!
Re:Anything but (Score:4, Interesting)
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Nice jab! Would be better if it were relevant though: we're discussing 40KHz dynamic range and MP3 sounding shittier than uncompressed, which simply isn't true (unless you're using a very old encoder or very low quality settings).
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I haven't tried that. Is it really much better with other codecs or uncompressed music though? Seems like if you don't have the vocals in a separate track, you're going to have to try to remove them algorithmically, which is going to be tricky but shouldn't be worse with Mp3 than any other format. If all the tracks are flattened into one, they're flattened into one regardless of the encoding.
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Great article! Bookmarked and will definitely pass on to other people. Thank you!
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yes. it says this in the article he linked to. It's long, but please read it.
Re:Anything but (Score:5, Insightful)
Frequency is measured in Hertz. Dynamic Range is measured in dB.
Just in case you weren't trolling: if you can notice a "loss of fidelity" in an mp3 you listen to in the car there is something wrong with your encoder. LAME -v2 (~192kbps) is almost impossible for even those with Golden Ears to ABX under ideal circumstances. In a car with 70dB of background noise you'd struggle to identify a 64kbps encode.
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It's perfectly possible to distinguish, if only you know what to listen for, even in a running car.
The sad thing is, once your heard it, you'll hear it more often. Maybe not all of the time, but occasionaly. Drums will sound shittier, anything with a hissing sound will miss detail, The sound color of guitars and vocals might be slightly off. And on and on the list goes.
But nooo, of course we can't hear it. Because your science proven we can't hear it right? You are the first to post partly correct - at 192k
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I've got LAME 256kbit and I can clearly hear 'underwater' artifacting of cymbals and harmonics from a distorted electric guitar. It's too easy to pick out for me since I've listened to crap like that since MP3 popped out, and I also can hear my much clearer guitar over it, even at lower UNCOMPRESSED levels.
My mixer board, pedal, everything runs middle position. Volume at max coming from the computer to the mixer, max volume on the software player. Sony MDR-V150 on my head.
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VBR > CBR
Re:Anything but (Score:5, Insightful)
VBR > CBR
The opinions on that are divided. Some people claim to be irritated or feel tired by the rapid shifts between bitrates which subtly changes the sound, and would prefer, say, 192 kbps CBR to 128-320 kbps VBR averaging at 192 kbps.
I tend to agree; as long as the bit rate is high enough, CBR seems to sound better to me.
And, of course, 320 kbps CBR is undoubtedly the best you can get in MP3 layer I.
But with storage being what it is these days, I see few reasons to use MP3 at all, except for car stereos, DLNA streaming devices and similar that can't handle FLAC. Even MP3 players and phones take cards (or you bought the wrong one), and carrying around a small handful of cards isn't much of a hassle.
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Sir, could I interest you in some cable risers?
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Really? Modded as flamebait? Are you all deaf? I am not an audiophile by any means, as you can probably tell from my use of terminology. But surely everyone agrees an MP3 sounds crap compared to a CD or an LP?
Headphones, always headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
If the recording is done with a binaural recording method (Dark Side of the Moon), or even just with headphones in mind, there's no reason for more channels. You've only got two ears, after all.
If I'm listening with speakers, then at least 5.1 to provide that "surrounded by sound" feeling.
Re:Headphones, always headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
I mostly agree, but I think two good speakers make music sound better than 5 shitty ones.
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. I've been building and upgrading my audio system little by little over the years, and I finally got a pair of these about a decade ago...and have enjoyed them so much. They are so efficient...I run them off a couple of little SET amps, from Decware...about 5 watts per channel of pure goodness.
And yes, that 5W can get plenty loud...just ask the cops that h
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Nice. I have the RF-62 II's. I love Klipsch too.
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Yep....makes you glad you glad you have ears....!!!
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Speakers have different efficiency levels. Better speakers are more efficient and need less amperage to create the same volume of sound.
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What if you have 2 good speakers vs 5 good ones?
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Bad car analogy follows: A Mitsubishi Chariot with 95-octane fuel drives better than a Ferrari with sugar in the fuel tank.
The above statement, like yours, is true, but not particularly useful. Of course good speakers sound better than shitty ones in any situation.
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To each his own. I fatigue more rapidly with the headphones than with the stereo.
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Yes, I find it somewhat disconcerting with headphones the feeling that the music is originating from inside my head.
I understand there are processing tricks (pan echo delay, etc) that can help pull the source "outside" the head, to give the impression of one standing among the musicians, but admit I haven't looked into that for a number of years now.
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when it was recorded with more points, then you can play it with more speakers, and notice a change, when you move inside the room. When playing using headphones you would need some sort of headtracking for this to work.
5.1 vs stereo. (Score:5, Insightful)
The 5.1 "up-mixed" sources I hear now allow me a contextual basis to better understand the initial complaints over bad stereo upmixes of mono sources from the 1960s.
I listened to a classic album (The Doors - Waiting for the Sun) from a 5.1 source. It sounded like you were in the middle of a large studio, with each performer about 30 feet away from you, each coming out on one single channel, for the most part. It was horribly, horribly gimmicky and awful sounding. But, much like the initial move from mono to stereo, I'm sure albums or performances originally recorded with 5.1 in mind are going to be better than these gimmicky up-mixes which are a lot like the after-the-fact 3D processing a lot of movies are getting today.
Generally, though, if I had a choice between stereo and 5.1 and neither was just a gimmicky version of the other, I'd take the stereo version. It's more convenient, you're not always in front of a 5.1 system.
Obligatory Cowboy Neal.... (Score:2)
Or, better yet, I enjoy Cowboy Neal singing live, in his shower. He has such a wonderful voice!
So hologramic (Score:2)
He's quadraphonic he's ah.. he's got more channels
I prefer to listen to recorded music... no I don't (Score:2)
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Iron maiden's Live after death too.
Two Point One (Score:5, Informative)
Is 2.1 a thing? stereo plus a sub. That's what I typically use.
I never asked for more options (Score:2, Informative)
Unless you've got some augments we don't know about everyone is using bone conduction (malleus, incus and stapes).
On my bike, with a front and a back channel (Score:2)
It's rather big and loud, too. [youtube.com]
I don't care about directional ... (Score:3)
I care about clarity and bass (love the feels) since I am mostly deaf and wear a bone conduction hearing aid (mono only). :)
Use most, or prefer? (Score:2)
I many would prefer to hear it as realistically as possible, but uses stereo instead for practical reasons.
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(I've certainly been to a number of performances that did involve a few people appearing in the back of the hall, but they're still a small minority.)
Why bother ?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that this [wikipedia.org] is the piece of music used for the listening test.
Your question is already wrong... (Score:2)
...because I do not prefer to listen to recorded music at all. I prefer my music live and in person. The audio processing system doesn't matter. They all sound crappy on earbuds.
With my Ears (Score:2)
Oh the sweet sounds...
From a seat in the back row of the stage (Score:2)
Re:From a seat in the back row of the stage (Score:5, Funny)
And for those who want to be in the back of the ensemble but not have to play much, there's always percussion. The parts go something like this: .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. 45 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4) .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. 47 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 )
(counting rests 44
(pick up triangle)
(46
DING!
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Q: What's the difference between an orchestra and a bull?
A: A bull has his horns in the front and asshole in back.
Surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
What a useless question... the speaker quality is what matters, not the channels.
I'm not a fool; I know that spending more than a fairly modest sum on speakers is pointless. But I couldn't give a damn about 18 versus 1 channels or even speakers, what I do care about is that they aren't dollar store speakers.
Missing option (Score:2)
.
(That's a period.)
It's funny.... (Score:2)
Through bone conduction
Most people my age seem to favor this.
Back in school, I swear I was the only one who would keep my volume low enough so that only I could hear it.
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Back in school, I swear I was the only one who would keep my volume low enough so that only I could hear it.
I'm concerned for all the people damaging their hearing. You get the same effect in cars and planes, but I notice it most on underground trains, and I think they're noisiest of the three. I set my volume somewhere quiet, and don't change it to compensate for announcements or clattery track, but many people do -- then, when they get off and the train leaves, I can hear their music from halfway along the platform.
Incidentally, someone made music [tunnelsounds.com] from sounds on the London Underground. I like the idea (I lik
Meh. Recorded music. (Score:2)
I actually prefer my music live. That's why I've hired this mariachi band to follow me around everywhere.
Cowboy Neal and the Slashdots (Score:2)
Live, of course.
I use an iPod Shuffle for my workout tunes.
...laura
As Dolby Laboratories discovered decades ago... (Score:2)
electric phoenix? (Score:3)
Besides Electric Phoenix and the painful irony of The Flaming Lips, has anyone actually recorded & mastered in >stereo in the last 30 years?
Monster cables. (Score:5, Funny)
Sparks (Score:3)
odd timing... (Score:5, Insightful)
odd timing for this poll... while I'm able to answer it, a friend of mine is celebrating his last week of stereo hearing before getting a brain tumor removed that will destroy hearing in his right ear. I have to wonder if "I can only hear in mono, you insensitive clod" is a missing option for people like him...
I don't care how many channels... (Score:2)
Stereo, but... (Score:4, Informative)
+1 Informative (Score:2)
Full-on high order Ambisonics.
Bonus: It's patent-free!
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I also have a pipe organ made out of human ribs.
No tibia ranks?
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According to http://www.einfopedia.com/human-bones-longest-or-largest-human-body-bones.php [einfopedia.com], the longest human rib has an average length of 24 cm, so your lowest note would be somewhere around g at the top of the treble clef (or an octave lower if the end is closed). You would need a bigger animal, say an elephant if you have a decent range, and a whale if you were to include a pedal division worth mentioning.
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Whadayamean, could-have-been? They're quite good. (Score:2)
The current-generation, powered-amplification ones, that is. My 2-year-old unpowered bone conduction headphones sound downright awful in comparison with more recently introduced sets.
In neither event are they equivalent to a good pair of headphones or earbuds, but having one's ears uncovered is a Good Thing when cycling (yes, music is distraction in and of itself, but being able to accurately determine location and direction on things that get notice is still a good thing), an easy-to-waterproof system is a