I prefer to listen to recorded music ...
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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.
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.
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.
Re:Headphones, always headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
I mostly agree, but I think two good speakers make music sound better than 5 shitty ones.
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.
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.
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Your question is already wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
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.