Hard to argue with Ted here -- give this a few minutes of your time. The weakness lies in just urging us to reconsider, that's not quite an actionable response and who are the 'we' that should do this? Doubt active streamers will change their views as a result. My son is 20, he sees little reason to own media and has few fears of any music he loves disappearing so a more persuasive argument than 'preservation' is going to be required one suspects.
6 comments:
I don't listen to streams, all music comes from CDs, bought from Discogs or downloaded from Allflac.com. Here are my reasons for this:
1. I can listen to music without an internet connection, just need power.
2. I get (mostly..) the full liner notes of the record, like who played on it, who mastered it etc.
3. Some streamed tracks are truncated the way it was published for radio, so I don't get to listen to the full length (for example: Paul Young's "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down", 4:47 original length).
4. I always get the best sound-quality (and don't fall for bull¬shit like MQA).
5. All the things mentioned in the article.
I used to be on your bandwagon, my friend…. I have North of 25,000 CDs, 5,000+ Blu-Rays, no typos, just a real jazz and classic rock and classical music lover, with 9 or 11 or 12 different High-End Systems that take words away. 115 Headphones (Mostly Planar $ E-Stats); - But here’s the problem…For all of that, and my well-tested hearing, Amazon HD and Such are about 96-97 percent there sonically, if people are being truly ‘honest’ (Which is a real problem with Audiofools, notice I am a Music Lover, not some Nutcase that can hear things no one else can possibly hear). Your Argument is Invalid on a few points, the most egregious being your emotional state like the old men who shake their fists at the clouds of change. Dude, get over it. I am sick of entitled white guys woe-is-meing because your pedestal placement has become irrelevant and the things you were so comfortable with is no longer the desirable norm. I love my media, the sound is still just that bit ‘better’, but I LOVE having access to 85 million albums instantly, no fuss, within a hairs-breath of CD-quality. N case you haven’t noticed, there is WAYY MORE Shit worth worrying about than this. This world is gone to shit, America has been Killed Dead by Fox and Trump, COVID PART 2 THE SEQUEL is infecting VACCINATED people, and your panties are all messy and damp about this silliness. Bro, I just kicked the shit out of TWO Massive Heart Attacks in 4 years, so Man the F* Up andStop Whining about your audio issues. Silly White Men.
Here's another novel way to think on things...you there, yes you sitting in your cozy litlle home, listening to the 37th re-re-re-remaster of "Kind Of Blue", with your nice set-up, and your audio life-style...question (actually TWO questions) - When did you pay off your Mortgage to your lovely home?, Not yet, you say? Your lovely Auto? Then who owns what you keep calling "your" home/car??? Right!!! - Do you see where I'm going here? "But I Live Here"...isn't gonna cut it, because actually, philosophically, we as a species, don't really "own" too much of Shit. We have been conditioned to think that we are owners of things in the material sense of the word, especially as Americans, but when you get to Brass tacks, ownership really is nothing more than a way of looking at something in a surreal light - You "own" Miles Davis" 1959 album "Kind of Blue", do you? Well, I say that you are doing nothing more than renting/leasing/retaining the right to play those songs at your convenience, via that piece of plastic that you (hopefully) purchased. John Doe with a TIDAL account has the very same right of ownership, over the exact same notes of music, and close to 100 million other albums besides, for your purchase of a single disc. - You seem to think (and I don't entirely disagree) that having a form of physical media is superior to being able to carry around access to the world's musical catalog on your phone/laptop/tablet; It is simply nothing more than the evolution of the art of our passion, sir. We, as lovers of this medium, must give it room to grow and to better itself, TRULY, NATURALLY, NOT WITH SHITTY GIMMICKS LIKE MQA, AND OTHER CRAP...*AHEM*...When Digital came along for the unwashed masses in the early 80's (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER - Remember that slogan??) It was such an absolute game-changer, that the industry that makes the money from new products and inventions have not been able to replicate that Lightning-in-a-Bottle since. The only thing that has up-ended the audio world truly is streaming. If we can be honest for a moment here, the whole thing about out-board DAC's is a cash grab, Jitter is the next Marketing joke to try to follow that, and then and now is the entire "Better-than-CD-QUALITY" insanity that is out to fleece the masses...It makes my head hurt to hear these audio Supermen speak of how they can hear things that their dogs are missing...THERE IS NO USABLE INFO AFTER 22.05KHZ - NONE, ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, PROVEN OVER AND OVER BUT...there's a sucker born every minute with Confirmation Bias and Dunning-Kruger Effect Disease - EVERY STREAMING SERVICE, EVERY ONE, NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, ARE USING "CD-QUALITY" LEVEL MAX, IT'S ALL MARKETING, QUBOZ AND TIDAL, TOO, THEY MAX IT OUT AT 44.1KHZ NO MATTER WHAT THE MARKETING SAYS - THEY ARE ALL GETTING THE MASTERS FROM THE SAME SOURCES, PERIOD - NONE WERE RECORDED AT CRAZY HIGHER BITRATES - NONE OF THEM...BUT I DIGRESS. - Don't fret about it, my fellow compadre. Albums and CDs will be around for a very long time, still; Millions still love the tactile feel of liner notes and something to put on the turntable or in the disc tray...100 million CDs at your fingertips is amazing, but Miles Davis in your hands is still unbeatable.
FINALLY, SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, AS IT PERTAINS TO OUR OWN LITTLE AUDIO INTERESTS; BUY THAT PERSON A FEW BREWS FOR LAYING IT ALL OUT THERE - HE DEFINITELY KNOWS HIS SH*T, I AM IN THE BIZ AND CAN VOUCH FOR 99% OF THOSE AS FACTS … GOOD MAN!!!
Okay, Audiophile Guys and Gals - Here’s one to keep you thinking past your beddie-bye time…it took me a bit of time to figure it out and when I got actual confirmation from one of my contacts in the Business, he stared at me like I had just stepped out of a UFO, and said, “You are one of probably five people in this entire country that could figure out that was total B.S.” - The reference was to the fact that some streaming services offer high-res ultra def products, others have very good better-than-CD-Quality products, some offer fine sounding CD-reference (Redbook) quality products, and still others can and will do AAC/320KBPS - Which stands for ADVANCED AUDIO CODEC (mp4), NOT APPLE AUDIO WHATSOEVER, FOR GODSSAKE!!….-I digress; read the above info again, and then think about THIS: HOW DOES TIDAL, AMAZON, SPOTIFY, QUBOZ, PANDORA, APPLE, WHOEVER GIVE YOU, THE CUSTOMER, SUCH A WIDE-RANGING CHOICE OF DIGITAL QUALITY,….WAIT FOR IT,…WHEN EVERY SINGLE STREAMING SERVICE GETS THEIR DIGITAL COLLECTION FROM THE SAME RECORD LABELS, THE VAST, VAST, VAST (99%) AMOUNT RECORDED AND ARCHIVED AT …………HOLD IT…..WAITING………16 BITS/44.1KB REDBOOK STANDARD???? If you select “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis at the top level on QUBOZ, they’re playing the EXACT SAME CD-STANDARD COPY THAT EVERYONE ELSE HAS, BUT SOMEHOW - RUNNING A CHARGE 192K DOWN THE LINE PERHAPS (?) to make it APPEAR AS IF IT’S HIGHER-RES. —— HEAVENS NO!! You say, as you gasp, *clutching pearls *, - THINK THAT IT COULDN’T BE?? - Think back about 2-3 years ago, when the website, I cannot remember the name, was offering all HIGH-RES, BETTER THAN CD downloading for $10-$20 PER SONG, CDs at What…$30 plus??…and after a couple of years, it turned out, the VAST, VAST, VAST MAJORITY WAS JUST CDS - STREAMERS OF THE WORLD, THE NAME OF THE GAME IS “KA-CHING” - When I first started Selling Audio, my Boss said something that sticks with me to this day, it was, “Get the Morons mesmerized about the numbers; after that, they’re too stupid to realize just how far you’re bending them over .” - THIS WAS FROM THE GUY WHO INVENTED “BURN-IN”; HE’S RICHER THAN TRUMP NOW; THINK ABOUT THAT.
DAH, DUM, DA DUM, DADADA!!!! (Think Jaws, ok?) - HEY HEY, IT'S THE CONCLUSION OF THE THRILLING SAGA, "AS THE BITS STREAM", SO - Did anyone finally figure out how its done? How the Streaming Services are doing a "bait/switcheroo" with the High-Res High-Jinx? - Okay, Okay...Some time ago, Back in Boston, a professional Audio Society decided to put all these wild audiophile claims of "golden-Ears", being able to hear what dogs and bats miss and such malarkey, all the stuff that is so par for the course in Audiophile-World; they started testing these 'expert' audiophiles, VERY WELL KNOWN ONES, Mag owners, Company CEOS, reviewers, etc.; and using high-cost STATE-OF-THE-ART GEAR, COST-NO-OBJECT - Found that out of I think all told, 150-200 pro audio Supermen, only 42% could correctly tell a CD from a tape, or an AAC file from a FLAC, or an mp3 file from an ALAC. It turns out that they would have done a better job by BLINDLY GUESSING...These tests have been repeated over and over ad nauseam, in cities all over the world, and the 58% ERROR RATE IS PRETTY CONSISTENT...When you sit a person down at a table wit no brand names to "Ooh" and "Aah" at, when you remove all of his/her visual cues (mostly 'HIS', because psychologically, audiophilia has been shown to be linked to older males trying to assert/regain control/ expertise in an area where said expertise exists mostly as 'pseudo-science', and to possess some part of anything tangible in a very hostile, confusing world....Get a whole bunch of these types together (NOT ALL, BUT A DAMN BUNCH), and here comes $30K cables, $85,000 speakers, amps that sell for upwards of $150-200k, and guys who are trying to convince themselves and each other that they can totally hear these earth-moving differences. BUT, the very SECOND the visual stimulations are removed, you rob that person of the fuel for his CONFIRMATION BIAS - AND THEN HE STARTS TO GUESS - WHAT'S THAT???? - NOT YOU, OH??? - BUT DEAR FRIEND, YOU, ME, AND ALL HUMANS ears start to naturally erode from age 28 on, it's a fact - If you came upon a badly damaged body, did you know that a Coroner can excise the inner ear structure to tell you how old this man was, to within 3 years?? BUT WTHFH HAS ANY OF THIS TO DO WITH STREAMING???, YOU ASK...Elementary, my dear um, reader, quite elementary; For you see, Streaming Services are very much well aware of two ridiculously important things: ONE: Most people think that their hearing is way better than it really is; and TWO: Most People are so deranged about their own smarts/IQ, that you can totally give them pig slop, tell them it's Lobster Crab soup, and they will throw cash at you, begging for refills (SEE:DONALD TRUMP SYNDROME) - *****The way it is done *FINALLY* IS ALL THERE DEEP IN THE CONTRACTS THAT NO ONE READS, IN LEGALESE TALK, PAGE 475, CHAPTER 21, SUBARTICLE 4115B (or close to it): they are NOT in the business of providing you with entertaining music for your life - THEIR BUSINESS MODEL IS TO PROVIDE THE CUSTOMER WITH A CERTAIN STREAM OF CONTENT, SAID STREAM MAY BE AT 192KHZ/24BITS, (WHICH IS WHAT YOUR TOPPING A30 DAC AMP WILL SHOW), BUT THE MUSIC FILE THAT ACCOMPANIES THAT SPECIFIC STREAM, 99.9% OF THE TIME, NOTHING MORE THAN THE REDBOOK STANDARD 16BIT/44.1KHZ FILE THAT EVERY SINGLE OTHER STREAMING SERVICE HAS TO OFFER - AND THAT IS WHAT SUCKS, BECAUSE IT'S PERFECTLY LEGAL...THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMAZON CD-QUALITY, HD, OR HD-ULTRA; SAME FILE....TIDAL TIERS?? - BANDWIDTH LEGALESE FOR CD-QUALITY THAT YOU ARE PAYING MORE FOR...
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