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Question on hearing

Apologies in advance for rambling, but this is something that has been in the back of my mind for years.

When I was a teen growing up in the 70's, I listened with a basic Kenwood receiver, a Thorens turntable, and either Advent or Bozak speakers, all inherited from relatives. Speaker cables and cables were basic Radioshack. What I remember is having intense, hair-raising moments of connection to music, especially in response to fine textural and harmonic details.

Nowadays, I have what I consider to be a reference-level system with a mixture of tube and solid-state electronics, digital and analog sources, and a treated listening room.  I've achieved what I consider to be reference-level sound. Listening is truly enjoyable for me these days, but those special moments of physical and emotional connection to musical moments are much rarer than in the old, old days. Part of this is no doubt a result of mildly diminished high frequency hearing, but I suspect that other factors are at play. I was just wondering if others have anything to say about this? 
psag
erik_squires
16,126 posts
 
I find the matching of music to the system is very different. There are a number of recordings I can enjoy in the car I can’t listen to at home. :)

Especially music from the 80’s and 90’s.

Notable exceptions are Pink Floyd.

I think this has a lot to do with the consumer equipment engineers were mixing to. This has changed quite a bit.

Best,


E
jetter
3,033 posts
 

psag,

I think I understand what you are saying regarding enjoyment from your old system which is not as high tech as your system today.  I have had and heard a few systems, that even compared to your old one, would be considered totally basic, that just produced music beyond all expectations.  Of course memory can play games, and they are long gone and replaced by much more expensive gear.

For example, when I was living in Huntington Bch, CA I answered an ad from someone wanting to sell his stereo equipment. The system ended up being a non descript Sansui receiver, Cerwin Vega speakers with 12" woofers and a Denon CD player.  Truly the sound was enchanting and everyone who heard it would just out of nowhere comment on it.  Gave it away to a friend.

Another system had a set of Quadraflex speakrs.  However this particular model of Quadraflexs was voiced, it just sounded great.

Just reminiscing, thanks for this thread.


randy-11
1,913 posts
 
Besides declines in hearing ability with age, your mind also has a large store of memories now that it didn't have when you were young, and that likely affects emotional response to music, not to mention the hormone issue.
gdnrbob
4,447 posts
 
I sympathize with you psag.
As others have posted, it may be that we experienced that excitement because it was new to us.
I was beginning to feel like you did, but streaming music allowed me to find lots of genres that I never explored before.
I love late classical/early romantic music. Now I have access to composers I never heard of, and music from composers I knew but never thought wrote music other than what I heard on the radio- Like Hummel, Vanhal and Dussek.
Bob 
dbtom2
382 posts
 
@psag I think there's still plenty of emotions to be mined from music even after suffering aging and hearing loss. 

While I don't experience the marijuana induced epiphanies of my youth any longer, there is still music that engages me. Maybe it sets a melancholy mood or gets my feet jumping or evokes a time passed. 

Thnking about it, much of my recent music emotion have come from the soundtracks of motion pictures. Whether it was a score written for the movie or a song - or group of songs - hearing them later always sets my emotion to the scene it accompanied. 

Then there's opera. And Youtube and those Flashmob videos.  In the last year Sturgill Simpson made my heart soar, Margo Price made me laugh out loud, Radiohead made me wonder what the heck, and Ramin Djawadi did these wonderful piano covers of some old and classic rock songs for the Westworld soundtrack.

Back in the day I couldn't imagine enjoying music without a little mind alteration. But no more. So change things up a bit. If you're imbibing while listening, try stopping. If you're not imbibing or doing anything mind-altering, well, I am certainly not going to be the one to recommend it but I understand it has worked for others. 

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