The Sound or Music


I listen to all genres of music but really enjoy it with good sound. I know of people who just love one particular type of music but don't care at all about audio. My late relative just loved classical music and had hundreds of good records but his system was like bad transistor radio. He had means but was not interested in better system at all. Music, for him was 99.9% and sound 0.1% of the pleasure. He was most likely missing half of instruments of orchestral music, he listened to - either by limited frequency response or very poor resolution. He was a music lover. Am I a music lover or just only an audio freak?
What about you?
128x128kijanki
Kijanki, I don't think you are an audio freak. I think you are a music lover who is trying to get his audio up to a very high level. Once you have accomplished this you will enjoy your music a lot more. Audio freaks are on a never ending quest.
Orpheus10 - It is never ending quest for me too (to a point) but I don't have GAS (Gear Acquire Syndrom).
some great songs sound better on a car stereo or boombox ,than a highend system ,i would take boombox with unlimited music any day
Im well balanced in that aspect, Sound is very important to enjoy music. Thats why i upgrade every year my hifi setup.
I like to hear what is going on - you can't always here everything on bad recordings or bad systems - a walking bass line can be buried. I want to know what tom is being hit and that squeaky foot pedal on Led Zeppelin. The recordings I enjoy most are like a microscope and highly dynamic. Audio compression makes it very hard to hear detail but it is all too popular in modern music.

This is a great mix

Here is another nice mix

This is has great clarity between drums and bass

Then listen to this awful sound of deliberately distorted double platinum best selling album

and then listen to what the drums might have sounded like without audio compression and distortion the same groove - now what sounds better?

Are we nuts? Somehow I don't think so.

Everyone agree that Cindy is awesome?