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When did you most enjoy the music?

I think this may be geared towards the over-60 crowd, which seems to make up a good portion of our membership.  I was thinking the other day - There is no doubt that, since I got into high end audio I am getting better, more realistic sound.  With the right recordings, instruments sound real and I think I have my system well tuned to my tastes.  But I was thinking back on when I really enjoyed the actual music the most and I came up with these - When I was in my late teens and sitting in a friend's room with a pair of JBL 100s sitting on the floor and against the wall, driven by a Kenwood or similar receiver listening to Hendrix, the Fudge, the Band and all that stuff.  Maybe in a bar with a Seeburg jukebox blasting Sexual Healing or Give It Up - 1968 driving down to the Newport Jazz Festival in a Rambler with 1 8 track tape and listening to Born on the Bayou 100 times over and digging it every time it came around again.  We all parrot the same crap now - that our systems are transparent and disappear, but do they?  The system disappeared in that Rambler because you paid absolutely no mind to the gear that was playing.  Just digging the music.  Didn't have to sit in the sweet spot or anything.  Maybe it's something that can't be recaptured, as it is with a lot of things of youth.  So be it.  And you may feel the opposite.  And no, I wouldn't want to go back to JBLs on the floor anymore because my priorities have changed.  Then was then and now is now. 
chayro
edgewound
259 posts
 
Fun thread.
I used to learn guitar parts for club playing by lifting the arm on my Philips turntable to figure out "Barracuda" on vinyl by Heart...among a hundred others. The internet has given young musicians a leg up...that I now use. I still have the Philips in storage, along with my Pioneer SX-450 I bought at 16 from University Stereo.

petg60
1,486 posts
 
Now and then, like a great painting, you see it first pictured in a magazine, you like it, but now you get the pleasure of examining it from close and surprised even more by its details.
But the memory of first sight is always there.

aubreybobb
86 posts
 
Yes I enjoyed music in a totally different way then.  Good new music was a revelation, usually on the very first listen. Hendrix, The Doors, CTA, The Band etc....

Today, I am just as obsessed, but new music doesn't grab me the same way.  It is very rare to hear something and just know it's right first time off.  Much of  new music is taken on trust and the love builds up over time.  Radio Paradise MQA is always on, in the background, and I find it very useful in introducing new stuff (and old stuff I missed back then).
clearthinker's avatar
clearthinker
1,582 posts
 
When my hearing was a little sharper.
skyscraper
828 posts
 
Chayro. definitely can relate to your post. I had a red Rambler Classic whose engine seized on the way back from a Band concert the weekend before Woodstock. So I missed that show. Only had a few albums then including the first Hendrix, Cream’s "Wheels of Fire", the first Creedence, and the Stone’s ’Let It Bleed". The music was played loudly on a suitcase style "stereo" my folks had that defined "Lo-Fidelity". The music never sounded better or was more immersive.

Almost forgot, had some JBL L-100’s too, not too long after getting out on my own in 1970. They sounded great, although I honestly can’t remember if those had the orange or blue grills. In music or life, your first loves are always the most intense. The later ones are the most unforgettable though.

Mike
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