@sns , I think you missed the point. Streaming is a total non-issue for me. My opinion is, for a healthy person it is the lazy way out. Just turn it on and forget about it. You do not have to create playlists of songs you actually like, or flip records not to mention clean them. Just turn it on and forget about it. It is what I do in my office for background music. But, for serious listening? I think you need to go out and get yourself a juke box, a Wurlitzer with all the colored lights. You can get stoned and watch the lights flash while you listen to scratchy old 45s.
The problem with streaming
As I sit here listening to America Includes: "A Horse With No Name", I realized the problem with streaming. Who knows what source material you're getting with streaming? The album I'm listening to is a Warners Brothers green label. Sonics are absolutely incredible! The band sounds like they're in the room!
Navigating the pressings to find the best one can be challenging but that's part of the fun of the hobby. I doubt the same care is taken when generating streaming recordings. You're stuck with what they use, thus missing the incredible texture of the best recordings.
Of course, great care must be taken to set up the turntable and match all components downstream. I find the effort to be well worth it! There's just no substitute for great analog!
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MC is on...'hiatus'......(but not far away, I suspect...) ;) Streaming, streamcasting, web noodling, instant audio.... I run into this sort of .....and use it for my own version of 'Muzak'....
...has its' own ' subtleties', although not immediately apparent....😏 |
In thinking more about perception of streaming being for lazy people I can see how that thought may occur.
For some playing vinyl is a ritual. Handling vinyl with care, placing it on cleaning machine, handling with care again to place on tt, carefully dropping arm onto record, adjusting VTA, VTF, cleaning cartridge. This all repeated over and over ad infinitum is ritual, just as so many of our rather reflexive or automatonic actions. This may be perceived as one's comfort zone and/or we can apply meaning to it. Rituals evoke many kinds of emotions, playing vinyl can be a precious activity when we apply meaning and invest emotions into it.
I also understand how the physical aspects of vinyl evoke various emotions. Values above and beyond the music contained on the grooves become meaningful. The art work on the cover, the long held possession of a physical object may be both inherently valuable in a monetary and memory sense. I still have some vinyl purchased well over thirty years ago, they certainly have subjective value way beyond their monetary value for me.
For others all the rituals stated above is simply work, little or no value placed upon it, and the value of the vinyl physical object is only monetary. I can understand how the vinyl aficionado could feel disdain for one who so undervalues vinyl and the ritual of playing vinyl.
But then, the vinyl aficianado may misunderstand the streaming enthusiast. They see we have very little cost in order to play our music, the perception being how can anything worthwhile cost so little. This seems rather like the Christian work ethic principle to my mind. I ask myself does pleasure require pain, work, suffering, I think not. I believe one can very much value music with very little cost, I know I do!
Perhaps I'm unique in that I live in both these worlds, playing vinyl and steaming are both unique listening activities I enjoy. I don't need them to be in conflict, got enough of that in this world!
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