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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
stuartk
2,907 posts
 
My 7 year old self most enjoyed music in '63, listening to "Love Me Do" on WABC under the blankets on a transistor radio on a winter night...

My 16 year old self most enjoyed it, on a rooftop in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, under the stars, listening to Otis Redding on a portable cassette player, drinking from wine from the bottle...

My 17 year old self most enjoyed it in Southern CA, 1973, staying up all night in a high school friend's attic bedroom, listening to Live At Leeds, Allmans at Fillmore, Derek and the Dominos... 

My 20 year old self most enjoyed it living in Santa Barbara in '76, when I could wander a few blocks from my apartment to spontaneously catch artists like Jean Luc Ponty at the nearby Arlington Theater.  Ticket prices were very low and that town was a live music paradise. 

I could go on and on... I don't think the intensity of my love of music has changed, although it's certainly evolved to meet changes in me, as have my tastes. When I was a confused adolescent, music met different needs than it did when I was 30, 40, 50 or now, as a retired, 65 year old. 

Being able to afford a decent system is a relatively recent phenomenon for me, so my memories of life-long listening enjoyment have little or nothing to do with gear... and I wouldn't have it any other way. I enjoy good sound but would never want my enjoyment of music to be dependent upon gear!  

stuartk
2,907 posts
 
...OK-- obviously, some kind of gear is required for listening at home-- what I meant was, I'd never want my enjoyment of music to be conditional upon availablity of "audiophile quality" sound. I've always found music- listening to be a freeing experience. Being unable to enjoy music unless it's delivered by a sophisticated system doesn't sound like "freedom" to me-- quite the opposite. I realize I may be in the minority in this regard, however. 
mammothguy54's avatar
mammothguy54
949 posts
 
Music is first and foremost the driving factor.  It's emotional, for sure.  Also very important to me is quality playback product.  As a child a countertop radio with bass & treble control was exciting compared to the lesser sounding clock radio that was my earliest introduction to music playback.  Then, I saved my allowance and got some additional help from my parents to buy one of those "record players" with the fold out speakers that detach at the hinge and pull away about 6 feet each for stereo separation.  A few years later my parents got a Magnavox console hi-fi and that was a game changer.  At 8 months outside of high school I bought my first high fidelity system that was a Marantz 2270 receiver, Philips turntable with Stanton 681EE cartridge, and some 12" 3-way Altec speakers.  All my friends wanted to party at my house.  Several really good systems since then and my present one is the best SQ I have ever had.  And all along the music has still remained the driving factor.  It's still emotional, for sure.
Including last night😊
dtapo
73 posts
 
I remember several times... sneaking up to the living room and playing LedZep ll on my Dad’s Fisher console system at 1:00 AM. Very low volume, all tube goodness. Later driving home late at night in the dead of winter hearing Bridge over troubled water on my tinny VW am radio. Every time I hear that song, I’m transported back to that night. Years later building my own speakers and loving the sound so much more than any other speakers that I owned.

I started playing guitar and in order to learn, I played Beck, Page, Clapton, Hendrix, ect on a cheap, funky mono tube powered record player and tried to play along. I spent many hours in front of that thing.

More recently, I’ve recaptured some of those emotions with the addition of a 300B tube integrated.

Right now I’m enjoying some mellow jazz on a tiny Bose bluetooth speaker and ipad. We’re in the process of moving and all my audio stuff is either in storage or has been sold. Amazing what you can learn to appreciate.
sgreg1
612 posts
 
I enjoyed the music back in the day and would say i enjoy it more now. All things change some better some worse same with music. What i would say is the music i enjoyed the most back in the day has been replaced with the music I did not enjoy as much. Think the better the system the more the artistry and production starts to come through. A lot of what I really enjoyed long ago sounds like crap on my reference system but does still sound good in the car. So i guess i have always enjoyed the music but my taste has aged like a good whiskey.
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