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8 Posts
I listen mainly to hip-hop, electronic, experimental, alternative, classic soul, and rock music.
Lemme say I love audio and I like it to sound good but it seems so subjective when I attempt to do research on the subject. I am not very knowledgeable as of yet on audio and I am definitely not an audiophile, but I do hold my audio to a high standard.
But with so many different layers and aspects to music and the playback of it, it's hard to decipher what sounds bad and what sounds good.
I've heard some people say it should sound like as if they are playing right in front of you, perfect audio reproduction, but how can this truly apply to all forms of music? Hip-hop in particular is grounded in sampling and reconstruction of musical pieces as a backdrop for vocals. How can spacious sound reproduction apply to electronic music when synths are the "instrument"?
I can understand if you're listening to a live album why wanting that perfect reproduction of the sound is important, but that can't possibly apply to every type of music.
And then there is the element of the playback of music. Some people swear by the fact that uncompressed files are superior and the only way to listen to music, yet from what I can tell, I can hear no discernible difference between an uncompressed audio file vs 256 Kbps AAC iTunes Plus file for example.
And then there is the whole element of getting high quality headphones. I have Harmon Kardon CLs which for me excellent because they seem to be very neutral sounding so I could go from listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to Jay-Z's The Blueprint and enjoy the experience.
OH and then this whole DAC talk because in addition to having to play high quality files with high quality headphones you'll need a high quality DAC to convert that analog headphone signal to a digital signal otherwise it won't suffice for an audiophile!
And of course we can't forget the source material's mastering, it's gotta be well-mastered too otherwise no matter what you do it'll sound like crap!
My God audio is so abstract..
Lemme say I love audio and I like it to sound good but it seems so subjective when I attempt to do research on the subject. I am not very knowledgeable as of yet on audio and I am definitely not an audiophile, but I do hold my audio to a high standard.
But with so many different layers and aspects to music and the playback of it, it's hard to decipher what sounds bad and what sounds good.
I've heard some people say it should sound like as if they are playing right in front of you, perfect audio reproduction, but how can this truly apply to all forms of music? Hip-hop in particular is grounded in sampling and reconstruction of musical pieces as a backdrop for vocals. How can spacious sound reproduction apply to electronic music when synths are the "instrument"?
I can understand if you're listening to a live album why wanting that perfect reproduction of the sound is important, but that can't possibly apply to every type of music.
And then there is the element of the playback of music. Some people swear by the fact that uncompressed files are superior and the only way to listen to music, yet from what I can tell, I can hear no discernible difference between an uncompressed audio file vs 256 Kbps AAC iTunes Plus file for example.
And then there is the whole element of getting high quality headphones. I have Harmon Kardon CLs which for me excellent because they seem to be very neutral sounding so I could go from listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to Jay-Z's The Blueprint and enjoy the experience.
OH and then this whole DAC talk because in addition to having to play high quality files with high quality headphones you'll need a high quality DAC to convert that analog headphone signal to a digital signal otherwise it won't suffice for an audiophile!
And of course we can't forget the source material's mastering, it's gotta be well-mastered too otherwise no matter what you do it'll sound like crap!
My God audio is so abstract..