I think that it's wonderful that so many people embrace streaming and the endless catalogue of available music online. I suspect that if that had been the case when I was becoming an audiophile, I might have embraced it myself ---- but it wasn't ! We can argue about the tactile experience of priming, pampering and spinning our choice of audio delights but it isn't necessary to disparage those of us who had no other choice at the time. I'm too embarrassed to say how many LPs, cassettes and CDs I own but I can say with certainty that the required interactions with that library never detracted from the joy that I received in return. I hope that the more recent disciples of our treasured hobby can somehow extract the same sense of joy that comes from the more necessarily involving processes of the past that we older audiophiles experienced.
Do you agree with John Atkinson (and me)?
Point 1: In the recent thread entitled ’How much is too much to spend on a system?’, I contributed this comment: "The hi-fi shouldn’t be worth more than one’s music library." I said that half-jokingly, a wisecrack that I knew might be disagreed with.
Point 2: In the 1990’s I became a regular customer at the Tower Records Classical Music Annex store in Sherman Oaks, California. The store manager knew a LOT about Classical music, but also made no secret of his distain for audiophiles, whom he viewed as caring more about the sound quality of recordings than their musical quality.
Point 3: In the early days of The Absolute Sound magazine, the writers occasionally mocked audiophiles who had a serious high end system, but whose record collections merely consisted of a small number of "demo" discs. Those audiophiles collect records that make their systems sound good, rather than assemble a system that makes their records sound good.
I make the above points as a preamble to the following:
In the past few months I have fallen behind in my reading of the monthly issues of Stereophile that arrive in my mailbox. Yesterday I finally got around to reading the editorial in the January issue, written by John Atkinson (filling in for current editor Jim Austin, who is recuperating from surgery, I believe). The final two paragraphs of the editorial read as follows:
"Back in the day, I did an analysis of Stereophile reviewers’ systems. The common factor was that all the reviewers’ collections of LPs and CDs cost a lot more than their systems. The same is true of me, even in these days of streaming."
"Isn’t that the way it should be for all music-loving audiophiles?"
Well, is it?
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This is another attempt to create division in the Audio community. Why? because it creates more content. Physical media is my music playback choice. Streaming has a few years to go until it hits a level of refinement(SQ/etc.) that meets my standards. My main issue with streaming is 99%+ of music is unwanted why pay a service for a ,05% rented music play list. Many other time saving options exist for "finding" new music regardless of what year it was recorded. Music streaming(IMO) coincides with the cable channel flipper that wastes time sampling and finds nothing! |
@bdp24 A different approach to this question might be to ask, why do you still collect/purchase physical mediums in the age of streaming? I have not yet added streaming to my system. Partly because of the cost of components that would match the rest of my system, and partly because of my enjoyment of owning and being able to handle the product. While that will make zero sense to many, and I'm guessing all of the younger people getting into the audio hobby, it still works for me. A holdover from my youth? A case of OMS (old man syndrome)? |
We moved and not my gobs of records. (I kick myslf now) but the umpteen CD’s that came with are now back in boxes due to kick a** streaming. Now ah days/daze you CAN be an audiophile (better put have a wonderful sounding system ) with no physical media. Despite many well considered astutely written comments my pea brain comes up with remembering this poem The Mad Gardener’s Song
He thought he saw an Elephant, He thought he saw a Buffalo He thought he saw a Rattlesnake He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk He thought he saw a Kangaroo He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four He thought he saw an Albatross He thought he saw a Garden-Door He thought he saw a Argument Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) |
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