Electronic Music Credability?

[ShinOBIWAN]

I'm a big fan of electronic, break beat, trance, chillout actually I'll listen to anything that I like despite whether its jazz, classical or country. But most of the time its a more distinctly 'dance' or club type sound that I'm playing.

I was wondering if these types of music can really reveal what a good type of hifi system is capable of. I suspect that most aren't well mastered and some even done by the hobbyist in his/her bedroom. From personal experience I'd say that it can show the weakness and strengths of very good equipment but generally 'dance' is looked down upon by those who are perhaps of an older vintage and disregarded as a way to test system because the music is electronic by nature rather than acoustic so no baseline can be drawn for measuring realism in the playback system.

Prime examples of well recorded 'dance', by dance I mean many, many genres all of which are predominatly electronic, are:

Massive Attack
Kick Bong
Groove Armada
Vangelis
Hybrid
Prodigy (the later albums, Experience was quite bad actually)
Chicane (virtually all Nicks stuff is very well made)

Are all these merly only good for parties in your opinion I know I'd say absolutely not to that but I'd love to hear from audiophiles and classical fans with, and I hope, not too one sided a story.

[homer09]

I also enjoy listening to house/trance and such types of electronic or heavily synthesized music (i love prodigy )

As far as a test for your sound system, i dont think there are many classical/jazz/wtv albums out there that could stress a sound system more than prodigy's "the fat of the land". This is heavy fast clean base, huge dynamic extension as well as lots of deferent frequency sounds rising and falling all at once.

I think you could never use this type of music to test the accuracy of reproduction of your sound system, because there is no denying it, you don't know what frequency that certain electronic note was recorded at and have no way of knowing if your system is reproducing it accurately. for this test a live acoustic album is the best.

BUT, if you want to push the limits or your system, and listen to what it sounds when its drawing tons of current to keep up with that smashing base, pop in your trance music, no classical album could match it

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Originally posted by homer09

I think you could never use this type of music to test the accuracy of reproduction of your sound system, because there is no denying it, you don't know what frequency that certain electronic note was recorded at and have no way of knowing if your system is reproducing it accurately. for this test a live acoustic album is the best.

One of the things I do is never go to live acoustic, classic or jazz venues. As a result, I never worry whether my system is accurate.

[homer09]

Originally posted by Bill Fitzpatrick


One of the things I do is never go to live acoustic, classic or jazz venues. As a result, I never worry whether my system is accurate.

hey if it sounds good to you at home, why spoil things right?

[MyNameIsJake]

there is a lot of electronic music that can be used for bringing out the capabilitys of your sound system. for instance im a big fan of skinnypuppy, the "a'nt it dead yet" cd is a live recording that has a lot of detail in it. e.g: at the beggining for the disc you here the crowd and opening of the show the sounds and noises on a boom box have no uniform or distinction at all and sounds like siht, but on a really well pieced together system, one could depict all the sounds, they have mass, volume, detail. when you listen to it, one thinks, "wtf... you can make that sound" and every time you listen to it you here new sounds all the time becouse of sensory overload from the last listening session. another electronic artist i listen to is DJ brian (moonshine records), moonshines studios from what ive heard are rather state of the art. there is detail in those recordings that you would have to here to beleave. another is aphex twin, iirc he makes his own electronic insterments. his music not only sounds great, but is excellent for stress testing amps and speakers ( tweets and woofers) his use of oscillators is renowned and insane. the "album selected ambient works '85-'92" is a perfect example of great electronic music that sings on a hifi sound system. the first track on the cd "Xtal" not only could tell you how well your tweeters can handle, the moment you crank the volume up your tweets will distort and show there defects. the lows of this recording could also tell you if your low frequency driver(s) are up to being able to take a pounding or if there poop (poly cones need not apply) this song will show how good of a quality of not only your drivers but also the design of the x-over as well. if the speaker design is good no artifacts in the sound should show themselves, if there bad you will here it immediately. well thats my opinion...

if any one would like me to list some of the music i like to test systems with let me know and ill post eather here or start a new thread.

[motherone]

Man.. Thanks for starting this thread. I was starting to think I was like maybe one of two audionuts who listens to this stuff. Almost my entire collection consists of electronic genres:

Synthpop (Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc.), Industrial/EBM/Goth/Futurepop (Apoptygma Berzerk, Front 242, and so on), Acid Jazz/Triphop (Portishead, Hooverphonic, Morcheeba, Lamb, etc.) and Synthtron (Ladytron, Fischerspooner, The Faint, etc.).

Okay, sorry for throwing out more snobby music categories for electronic music than anyone should know With the exception of stuff like The Cure and some Britpop/Rock/Metal, the rest of my collection is all electronic.

If you can't tell, I love this stuff! I agree that a lot of it can test your system, particularly in the bass department. However, the major problem I find with electronic albums is that anything made in the mid-nineties or later is pretty damn compressed. Listening to an old Cure or Depeche Mode album versus a newer one makes it pretty apparent.

But, I still want a killer system so that I can enjoy this music to the fullest. I want hear the nuances and textures that I'venever noticed before on lesser systems.

Not sure if any of you guys are after the same goals, but my philosophy is to listen to what you enjoy, and the rest of the folks can kiss your you-know-what if they don't like your music After all, you're DIY around your musical tastes, not theirs.

Mike

[cinemafia]

'ello all, new here and also happy to find this thread...although I've always been one to listen to everything, though usually the more 'underground' offerings from all genres, I have for at least the last 10 years been listening to electronic music the most. I'm also a producer of electronic music, mostly experimental down-tempo, ambient and just plain weird stuff, I also do some danceable trance, drum 'n bass or house type tracks. Being both a listener to and maker of this type of music, I'm naturally attracted to the finer things in the audio lifestyle, even if I can't afford them. I'm piecing together a budget system for listening to and producing music, and all the while wondering whether other people like me exist...that is people who listen to what is blanket-labelled as 'dance' music but want to hear it through the best possible equipment, not just loud and ear-shattering.

So, it's cool to find others similarly geared, who drool over high-end gear but don't just listen to classical and opera!

[federico moreno]

Hi all.
Nice thread!
About electronica, I remember an old Brian Eno interview in audio magazine, circa 1993. There, he talked about the different approaches to the recording process, the adding of distorted sounds to some of the records that he produced, the studio trickery so common in electronic music, and so on. A nice piece of journalism, it can be viewed in www.enoweb.com -articles, march 1997, ¨music for listeners¨-.
When he was asked about if having hi end or hi fi equipment was making some sense in a world of sinthetized music, -sometimes with distortions added a propos in some of his work-, he replayed something like ¨...yes of course, so you can hear the distortion better¨.
Besides that, a lot of the current electronica is very well recorded this days, and sometimes I get surprised because of the rich palette of sounds displayed in some works.
I think is fine to have high resolution equipment, because the listener can explore more in deep the artist ´aural´ intentions. So, one gets the whole picture, and gets closer to the spirit of the music as well, whatever it was. Concerning electronica, there is something quasi surreal in the way some sounds are created practically from the nothing: sometimes these are sounds that were never heard before. They deserve to be fully appreciated, because someone crafted that stuff for our delight. Hi Fi is an excellent way to dig deeper in that music.
Thanks to the nice people in this forums I became aware of some principles and techniques that lend me to the construction of very fine audio gear -you know, amps, preamps and speakers that perform really well-; but I´m a music lover first. I use that equipment as instruments to an end. And those instruments make wonders with the music I like - by the way, I like a lot of musical styles- ; something like a good telescope for a serious sky watcher.
Sorry for the messy english and for the verbous post, but this matter is some sort of passion to me.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by federico moreno
Hi all.
Nice thread!
About electronica, I remember an old Brian Eno interview in audio magazine, circa 1993. There, he talked about the different approaches to the recording process, the adding of distorted sounds to some of the records that he produced, the studio trickery so common in electronic music, and so on. A nice piece of journalism, it can be viewed in www.enoweb.com -articles, march 1997, ¨music for listeners¨-.
When he was asked about if having hi end or hi fi equipment was making some sense in a world of sinthetized music, -sometimes with distortions added a propos in some of his work-, he replayed something like ¨...yes of course, so you can hear the distortion better¨.
Besides that, a lot of the current electronica is very well recorded this days, and sometimes I get surprised because of the rich palette of sounds displayed in some works.
I think is fine to have high resolution equipment, because the listener can explore more in deep the artist ´aural´ intentions. So, one gets the whole picture, and gets closer to the spirit of the music as well, whatever it was. Concerning electronica, there is something quasi surreal in the way some sounds are created practically from the nothing: sometimes these are sounds that were never heard before. They deserve to be fully appreciated, because someone crafted that stuff for our delight. Hi Fi is an excellent way to dig deeper in that music.
Thanks to the nice people in this forums I became aware of some principles and techniques that lend me to the construction of very fine audio gear -you know, amps, preamps and speakers that perform really well-; but I´m a music lover first. I use that equipment as instruments to an end. And those instruments make wonders with the music I like - by the way, I like a lot of musical styles- ; something like a good telescope for a serious sky watcher.
Sorry for the messy english and for the verbous post, but this matter is some sort of passion to me.

Truly excellent post Federico.

All of what you've said here is true and again, is what I believe to be the case and that is: No matter what the music, the better your system the more you hear the original intentions of the artist. More layers appear and greater envelopement occurs, tiny and almost inaudible details come to the fore, greater coherency in complex passages and many more points are improved with ANY music on a good system.

I think its a shame that electronic is given a back seat in all this. Like you said Federico, they are unique sounds which simply do not exist in nature, cannot be generated with any acoustic instrument and is a totally unique event singularly confined to one music track.
I liken it to art, there's only so many unique examples which cannot be experienced elsewhere.
Electronica takes you on a different kind of journey that acoustic music simply cannot. The reverse is true also, so why aren't there two sides to the coin?

[motherone]

I totally agree Shin. The likening to art is a great description of it. The other incredible thing about electronic is how many genres it's spwaned, and the limits of what can be done are only restricted by the artist's imagination.