lo-fi - Good enough is now better than great...

[scott wurcer]

Originally Posted by boris81

there is definitely a demographic out there that has a taste for heavily distorted bass. legend has it that the bassist of korn poked holes in the guitar amplifier which gave their signature sound.

Kinks did it 40yr. ago.

[c2cthomas]

My desire for good music well reproduced was cultivated over a period of time and exposure. I stared out with a Heathkit AM/FM radio and a pair of Koss headphones. I thought it was a huge step up to my Sony receiver and Yamaha speakers and Akai Reel-to Reel I bought while in the USN. Then later it was different pieces of improvement and education etc. Now that I'm an old fart that can't hear all that well I have some pretty good gear and it might as well be mp3 stuff for all the good it does me. Funny thing though - my hearing is good to 16 - 17 K and my right ear rings from shooting weapons etc. - but I can still hear the difference in good systems and good speakers. I chalk that up to experience and training - combined with a healthy dose of denial!

[chris661]

I hope you're not generalising about every youth - some of us enjoy Paul Weller, Dire Straits, and have a decent stereo, played at reasonable levels.

Chris (the teenager)

[c2cthomas]

Hi Chris
My remarks were not about young people or anyone else for that matter. They were simply about my personal exposure and growth in audio with the point being that my taste, knowledge and expertise grew with time and study.

[Key]

Originally Posted by chris661

I hope you're not generalising about every youth - some of us enjoy Paul Weller, Dire Straits, and have a decent stereo, played at reasonable levels.

Chris (the teenager)

Eh don't listen to these old farts. The lo fi today put up against the crap records put out in the 70s due to an oil shortage and the hissy tapes of the 80s is actually pretty hi fidelity.

Also don't let them tell you that all the music from there generation is better than yours. They seem to white wash over all the annoying bubble gum and pop music from their own era.

[cbdb]

There are good and bad recordings and music from every decade in the last 40 years. You just have to look for it.

[rdf]

People prefer that to which they are accustomed, film at 11. I know (rather large) youngsters who, raised on the magic formula of sugar, salt and fats, grimace at the thought of edibles not wrapped in paper or Styrofoam. And?

[Thunau]

Originally Posted by Key

Eh don't listen to these old farts. The lo fi today put up against the crap records put out in the 70s due to an oil shortage and the hissy tapes of the 80s is actually pretty hi fidelity.

Also don't let them tell you that all the music from there generation is better than yours. They seem to white wash over all the annoying bubble gum and pop music from their own era.

A lot of the music in the 60's, 70's and 80's was captured on inferior equipment, and sounds arguably worse than modern mp3, but the combination of many factors - focus on pure musicianship due to limited editing capabilities, wider dynamic range of recordings, freshness of the pop and rock genre's and associated quick progress of sub genre's, different social and artistic attitudes, it all combined to produce some very exciting music and recordings.

From late 60's to early 80's there was an incredible variety of popular music and some timeless records made seemingly every month.

Starting with Beatles and Beach Boys through Rolling Stones, Dylan, early Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Clapton, Simon and Garfunkel, Eagles, Elton John, CSNY, Jethro Tull, Queen, Supertramp, Van Halen, Steely Dan and many, many others- (and that just Rock) you had dozens of established artists with large catalogs of records simultaneously releasing new music.

Than you had the whole classic R&B and funk- Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Earth Wind and Fire, Chicago, Commodores, Stevie Wonder, the Jacksons I forget more than I can remember now.

And then there were the jazz and fusion acts- Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bruford, Jean Luc Ponty, Weather Report, ECM label.
A music fan had so much to celebrate- there were so many incredibly fresh and exciting albums released in span of 15 years.

We now get many more CD's released, but the ratio of timeless ones to forgettable ones is really low. On top, the modern production puts the same homogenized sheen on everything, that forces music to be more of a steady background noise, because once brought to foreground, it sounds fatiguing.

And this is coming from someone who grew up after that period was over, and discovered it after the fact, so there is little of the typical bias involved.