Those simpler times.....

I remember listening to all of this music with friends back then and we picked it apart mercilessly. Picked it clean to the bones like vultures. Are the lyrics any good? Are there any new sounds? Are the sonics any good? Is this LP as good as their last one? No matter what we decided we still listened to the songs over and over with a few exceptions. This is still the music I listen to mostly and I still have a tendency to pick it apart. Except that now I can afford much, much better equipment so I am constantly re-discovering LPs I've known for years. Most sound even better now than I remember at that is due to the quality of my system components. However, there are a few that don't get spun as much because I can now hear the pigs in the background.

I guess I'm saying that I'm still living the simpler times, but with a much better system to listen with. It has always been about the music and how to get the components to get closer to the music. Some days I just want to hear the music so I'll pull out whatever strikes my fancy. Other days I want to hear what my system does with a particular LP. I don't really think I've changed at all. But my system sure has! ;-)

Dan_Ed said:

"I am constantly re-discovering LPs I've known for years. Most sound even better now than I remember at that is due to the quality of my system components."

Agree!

Simpler times in audio ended when I was about 15, heard a reel to reel deck in a nice system, wasn't going back to no damn clock or transistor radio! This was the 70's.

In about 1973 I encountered my first audiophile, he had a pretty much all Dynaco system with Thorens tt (later a Linn LP12). Wow, now I could really hear my favorite rock recordings, almost like live to me. It wasn't long before I had pretty much the exact same system.

My audiophile bud and I were also very much into the concert scene at that time, at least one concert a week on the Ann Arbor/Detroit circuit. Live music was simply awesome, especially in the smaller venues. Hard rockin' bands were the scene around here, Rationals, MC5, Stooges, Iguanas, Up, SRC. Being audiophiles, and seeing so many of these bands (and the nationally touring bands) live, certainly helped to create an obsession with higher quality audio at home.

Anyway, I can't remember a time where audio quality and love of music didn't go together. Yeah, I listened to clock radios, our big Magnavox console and transitor radios, but I never got close to the music until I started attending concerts and/or hearing my friend's Dynaco system.

A recent return to vinyl has required me to listen analytically once again. I just don't know another way of listening that allows me to ascertain sonic deficiencies, and make changes needed for musical enjoyment. Yeah, I wish I could just put any old equipment in my system and enjoy it, audio life would certainly be easier. I just don't think there's any bringing simpler times back once you've been bitten by the audiophile bug. I would like to meet just one reformed audioholic!

I also think that some of our thinking about simpler times is fond reminiscing, we are romanticizing the past. I recall the zeitgeist of those times, there was a feeling in the air that was totally exhilarating! I wish I could reproduce those feelings today, unfortunately, those times are gone, no bringing em back, no matter how hard I try. I suspect many of us are trying to evoke those old feelings when we play these records.

I remember lying on my bed and listening to a suitcase system, the ones where you had to disconnect the speakers and place them on either side of the room and the main body of the case was where the amp and turntable was. This was about 1967, and the main thing I remember was that the lyrics were the most important thing, it was the message that the Doors and Jefferson Airplane and Country Joe and the Fish were sending to us, that we were a special generation and we were going to change the world! Well that lasted for about 10 min. and then we were boogying on the dance floor to the sounds of Disco snorting mass quantities of white stuff and all of a sudden Bass mattered and subwoofers were born. But the sound of that suitcase system was all I needed in 65'

Reminiscing about simpler times is of course not a phenomena limited to audio systems. I think more and more people are starting to become overwhelmed by technology and how it often intrudes or is forcefully injected into their lives in unwanted ways.

Still, everyone has some technology out there that serves them so well that they could never give it up. That need is what fuels the continuous evolution of technology and the services (or disservices) that it delivers.

The technology that goes into our sound systems is surely the one technology that true music lovers could not live without. In some cases, the technology itself can easily become an obsession as well.

So what's wrong with that? It's an honest hobby. Between music and the technology that goes into capturing and reproducing it, there is much to learn and think about. And it is a constructive, positive thing in most cases I would think.

There are surely many things we could spend our time otherwise that is far worse.

Plus, we may all be obsessive nut cases at heart, but that's besides the point. Nobody forces us to spend our time with the hobbies we chose.