Computer Audio Asylum

Posted by Abstraction (A) on December 17, 2014 at 12:55:46

In Reply to: RE: Here's an alternative to "controlled", which I'll probably do, when get around to it: posted by Tony Lauck on December 11, 2014 at 20:24:19

Tony, what you say about mood from one listening to another is, I think, overlooked. Music will not sound the same if you listen to it twice. On the second listening, you might might find the music boring, or, on the second listening, you might hear something that you didn't hear first time through. I do not mean that you hear a flute or something that was otherwise obscured; I mean you might suddenly understand the musical idea in a more interesting way. Or you might start thinking that such an experiment is a nerve-wracking and unpleasant idea, and you can't hear the music at all.

Some days my system sounds great; some days it doesn't. It has to do with me and my mood. It's wildly subjective, and the double-blind testing doesn't control for the subjectivity. I think the way to get around the problem is to talk about the music and not the sound.

Living in NYC and listening mostly on recordings to musicians whom I frequently hear live, I find that the thing that recordings cannot reproduce is the sense, when you listen to live music, that you will never hear it again.