Re: OT That 'sizzle sound' of Mp3s

[<thetoyroom@charter.net>]

I think there's additional difference in the way you hear the music, 
compared to 'back in the day' due to remastering (as well as some 
selective memory, i'm sure...which i'm guilty of).

Case in point.  I bought high quality mp3's recently of Elvis' 'Aloha From 
Hawaii' concert.
When i was a kid, my dad had gotten some hi-fi equipment from a buddy who 
owned a stereo store and was upgrading his equipment (this is about 1980). 
 So my dad comes home with the whole rig, which included a Teac reel to 
reel.

And since the guy was 'upgrading', he didn't want the old reels anymore, 
so he gave his library of reels to my dad along with the purchase of the 
hi-fi.  Dozens and Dozens and dozens of reel to reels.  I was spellbound.  
And i loved spooling the tape through the capstans and getting it all 
setup to play.  And the 'thunk' of that PLAY button as it engaged and the 
capstans popped into place and the reels begin turning.....oh my....such 
cool teenage memories...i was about 14?)  Perhaps this was my first foray 
into 'electronics and sound'.

Anyway, one of the reels was the Elvis Aloha concert.  And my dad was a 
very big Elvis fan, so this tape got played quite a bit.....gotta love 
that epic 2001 Space Odyssey intro rolling into CC Rider!

So when i thought of it recently and came across the MP3's, i thought, 
"ooooh....i'd love to hear that concert again!"

And i have to admit it's a disappointment, not so much from the sound 
quality of the files, but the sound quality of the remastering.  I think 
because of the compression, the instrument mix got generally louder, and 
Elvis' voice is pushed back into the mix.  So a good amount of the 
dynamics of the performance are tweaked from my experience, and when you 
turn it up to hear the lyrics and Elvis' voice, it's pretty darn loud.

but then i have to take into account the selective memory of a 14 year 
old, listening to a good hi-fi from 'back in the day' and having the 
wonderful experience of playing with the 'medium' of tape, and furthermore 
it being a specific time where my dad was relatively happy (he suffered 
from lifelong manic depression).

Can all those lucid memories radically effect my listening perspective?

my 2 cents.
Rich




---- scott hansen <evanpeewee@yahoo.com> wrote: 
> this is an interesting debate. i've talked about this w/ a friend of 
>mine who is a professional musician. we sort of laugh about how bad mp3's 
>sound. sure it's a quick way to hear things, and it's easy, and a good 
>way to sample a large amt of things for listening -think of the old days 
>of having to take album out of cover, out of sleeve, put on phono player, 
>cue up, listen, then if you want to hear something different, you reverse 
>order to put away, and start up w/ new album (and be careful not to 
>scratch album-and boy i hated the cracks, pops, scratches!).
> but the other thing i think is we now have a whole generation who this 
>is how they listen to music, so maybe the oldsters who whine and bitch 
>(me!)  just need to shutup and deal (i'm trying to be funny here).
> i think for me the main thing is when i hear music i know, or have long 
>history w/ (fill in classic rock band here), when i hear mp3 of song, it 
>sounds different to my ears than what i remember hearing of the same 
>stuff back in the good old days of college (albums). maybe it's just the 
>tiny computer speakers, i don't know. maybe it's just that i'm old and 
>jaded.
> but the reality is this generation don't have that history w/ different 
>mediums (albums to cds to digital)
> 
> but i'll give an example: i rarely see live music (no time w/ busy 
>life), but i check out different guitarists live on youtube pretty often. 
>i think it gives me a reference for their sound & to see what they are 
>doing, i'm sure it would sound WAY different if i was there, but i 
>probably don't have the money to see everything i'd like to see, so you 
>live w/ it.
> i'm thinking how great it is to see all the different types of music 
>on-line, it would have been amazing to see adrian belew/david torn/henry 
>kaiser/etc live back in the 80's when i first discovered them, but i 
>couldn't. oh well...
> 
> i suppose the day the technology becomes where they beam the sounds 
>directly to our brains, our kids when they are old and cranky will, say, 
>boy it was way better back w/ mp3's on my old computer/ipod, those were 
>the days.....
> s---
> www.myspace.com/scotthansen
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=235503632389016121
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5791548553161416906&hl=en
> 
>