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Thursday, March 15, 2007
A note on audiophilia
I was thinking about it while I was sampling the trial version of this Hi-Fi iTunes plug-in called iWOW that is actually great. I had this incredible experience listening to Björk's Homogenic. This is a plug-in to iTunes that greatly enhances the sound quality, and I was here, listening to my reduced sample rate .mp3's with $20 headphones, and the first five minutes was I was hearing the song for the first time. The bass and treble were much richer, and the mid range was just totally gorgeous.
In short, I'm sliding down a slippery slope.
It all started when I went to go see The Departed with my sister and brother in-law. Matt Damon plays a hot-shit cop (=money; pay attention; that comes in later). Long story short, Leonardo Di Caprio's character sends Matt Damon's girlfriend a CD in the mail that says "Listen to me." Here's the kicker. She puts the disc in this unbelievable stereo system, complete with what I'm sure is a tube amplifier made by McIntosh Labs (not the computer company), and this really nice pair of Sennheiser headphones.
I know. It seems insignificant. But the point is this. When was the last time you were totally blown away by the sound of something? It's an amazing experience, and only comes along once in a while.
If you're anything like me, you probably listen to your iPod, playing .mp3's on regular headphones on the train on the way to work, and never imagine what it would be like for these songs you love to completely transform into these amazing sensory experiences. Unfortunately, the equipment that causes said experiences is quite pricey, as evidenced by the review of a $4,000 pair of "earspeakers" I was looking at today on Stereophile Magazine's website.
The irony of all of this is that I began to wonder if all of these outlandishly expensive devices made any difference unless the music you are listening to is jazz, classical, or produced by Steve Albini. Then I thought, sure. There are a lot of The Selfsame songs that I love that have very intricate and meticulous sampling. There is a lot of hip-hop that I listen to frequently that makes use of incredibly rich bass sounds. And who could forget two of the artists I listen to probably the most frequently: Björk and Radiohead, both of which are inordinately appreciable from an audiophile point of view (including Björk's Vespertine, which was brilliantly engineered to sound great on computer speakers, especially those of the Apple G3 Powerbook [which is technologically laughable by today's standards], which it does).
So I wonder, who do I know for whom music is a larger and consuming passion than it is for me? Pretty much no one. There are a few whose tastes I trust and respect. There are those who love it equally to me, and it different realms. Anyway, the point is that music is really important to me. Yet this whole world of ameliorating that passion for me is completely unattainable. I mean, $4000 headphones? That is totally insane.
In the end, what I'm saying is that it's interesting that this completely primal love I have, that all of use have, for music, has this unbelievably pleasureable niche market that is, in essence, something restricted to douchebags who listen to Steely Dan in their Ferraris while talking on their Blackberries.
In short, I'm sliding down a slippery slope.
It all started when I went to go see The Departed with my sister and brother in-law. Matt Damon plays a hot-shit cop (=money; pay attention; that comes in later). Long story short, Leonardo Di Caprio's character sends Matt Damon's girlfriend a CD in the mail that says "Listen to me." Here's the kicker. She puts the disc in this unbelievable stereo system, complete with what I'm sure is a tube amplifier made by McIntosh Labs (not the computer company), and this really nice pair of Sennheiser headphones.
I know. It seems insignificant. But the point is this. When was the last time you were totally blown away by the sound of something? It's an amazing experience, and only comes along once in a while.
If you're anything like me, you probably listen to your iPod, playing .mp3's on regular headphones on the train on the way to work, and never imagine what it would be like for these songs you love to completely transform into these amazing sensory experiences. Unfortunately, the equipment that causes said experiences is quite pricey, as evidenced by the review of a $4,000 pair of "earspeakers" I was looking at today on Stereophile Magazine's website.
The irony of all of this is that I began to wonder if all of these outlandishly expensive devices made any difference unless the music you are listening to is jazz, classical, or produced by Steve Albini. Then I thought, sure. There are a lot of The Selfsame songs that I love that have very intricate and meticulous sampling. There is a lot of hip-hop that I listen to frequently that makes use of incredibly rich bass sounds. And who could forget two of the artists I listen to probably the most frequently: Björk and Radiohead, both of which are inordinately appreciable from an audiophile point of view (including Björk's Vespertine, which was brilliantly engineered to sound great on computer speakers, especially those of the Apple G3 Powerbook [which is technologically laughable by today's standards], which it does).
So I wonder, who do I know for whom music is a larger and consuming passion than it is for me? Pretty much no one. There are a few whose tastes I trust and respect. There are those who love it equally to me, and it different realms. Anyway, the point is that music is really important to me. Yet this whole world of ameliorating that passion for me is completely unattainable. I mean, $4000 headphones? That is totally insane.
In the end, what I'm saying is that it's interesting that this completely primal love I have, that all of use have, for music, has this unbelievably pleasureable niche market that is, in essence, something restricted to douchebags who listen to Steely Dan in their Ferraris while talking on their Blackberries.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Why didn't I start this earlier?
Okay.
Here I am in Nantes, and just a few short weeks from finishing this year, during which I really should have recorded my thoughts more. This has been one of the more formative experiences of my life, and I've just been soaking it up emotionally, with very little written correspondence or really anything that will allow me to look back on my time here and remember. Except, you know, for the occasional photo snapped at a dinner party.
I am, however, very much a proponent of the never-too-late school of thought, so here we are.
Here I am in Nantes, and just a few short weeks from finishing this year, during which I really should have recorded my thoughts more. This has been one of the more formative experiences of my life, and I've just been soaking it up emotionally, with very little written correspondence or really anything that will allow me to look back on my time here and remember. Except, you know, for the occasional photo snapped at a dinner party.
I am, however, very much a proponent of the never-too-late school of thought, so here we are.
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