The Weak Links of Today's Audio

Yes, it's just that most of the music I enjoy is not audiophile quality recordings and it doesn't bother me.
I remember a guy way back when in the 60's when everything was new. He had all the music. I mean hundreds of albums he would play and entertain with. Hordes of people always around him. All he had was an all in one suitcase style record player. A man to be envied.🙂
 
“It’s an ancient technology. With music you want to feel something, like with a Saturday night or Sunday morning record. They make me feel ‘Saturday night’ or ‘Sunday morning’. That feeling has been lost with stereo now, and it’s not stereo’s fault, but with Dolby Atmos that feeling is there. It’s bigger, more exciting and wants to make you move, be more intimate, more relaxed or whatever. Everything it does it does it on a richer level.”

This is absolute gibberish.

Listen, my interest in audio stems from years of working at record stores and developing a working vocabulary of the *artistic* developments that have led music evolution. Let’s not put the cart before the horse; technological evolution requires meaningful artistic contribution if it is to have any chance being meaningful to the listener. Simply approaching the matter from a purely technical perspective is to oversimplify the paradigm and any such efforts will suffer the fate of quadraphonic.
 
Boy, I’m really confused now with this latest revelation.

First we were told that the 2 channel stereo we have been listening to for all these years is really no good. It has serious flaws and weaknesses. So all the many hour of using them and thoroughly enjoying the music from them was a just a waste of time. We couldn’t have possibly been enjoying it. Too many flaws.

So then we were told the answer to achieve our musical nirvana is multichannel. It’s here now with streaming. Or at least sort of here. And anyone who reads Chapter 14 of Floyd Toole’s book that has been so widely cited here will know for sure exactly what to do. Specifically you just need to implement 5.1 sound (page 419).

“Two elaborate studies, one subjective, one objective, concluded that the existing popular 5.1 channel arrangement of L, C, R loudspeakers spanning a 60 degree arc across the front, combined with two surround loudspeakers at +/- 120 degrees performed superbly.”

But wait. Toole is now so passé. He didn’t get it right either. No, sir. What we all need now is Dolby Atmos. Nothing less will do.

“Sorry, honey. You’re just going to have to put up with these nine speakers all over the living room. Whether you like the way they look or not I just have to have them. Nothing else is satisfactory anymore.

What’s that you’re saying? You’re going to your mother’s house and I’ll hear from your attorney next.

Alright if that’s the way you want it. But 9 speakers with some of them hanging from the ceiling is the best I’ll settle for. Actually I’d like to have 13 speakers, but I’ll compromise for 9 if you will stay.”
 
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