 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
75.25.149.110
Former XLO owner Roger Skoff (see link below) argues that we talk about audio products, but not the music. Apparently, he has not discovered Audio Asylum's three music fora. Apparently, he hasn't stumbled upon our blogs. I've done mine [which is listed here as my "homepage"] since 2005. It nails down the unholy trinity of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Well, in our case, "drugs" = "audio."
Despite my myriad reviews of XLO products [my blog has over a hundred XLO posts, all with musical references], Roger Skoff apparently is unaware of all the music I used to evaluate his old company's wares.
Once again. I started my audio journey in the mid-80s. Back then, we customers weren't allowed or encouraged to bring our own music. We were force-fed the same ol' "politically correct" audiophile stuff. That same culture and mentally persist today. And that answers why Skoff doesn't observe anyone discussing music; we're not "allowed" to.
But not if you've been following me. Starting in 1989, I said, "Fuck that," and brought my own music to stores, shows, and gatherings. It's the same music I was deeply into. I knew/know it well. I wrote/write about it in detail. It's why you guys treat me as the resident pop music expert. It's why several of you bestowed the title of "The Audiophiles' DJ" on me.
Roger Skoff forgets that audiophiles who call themselves "music lovers" are the first to denigrate others' musical tastes. So unless you are in the minority who likes the "politically correct" audiophile stuff, why would you volunteer your own music? Why would you subject yourself to the audiophiles' judgements, wrath, ire, and condescension?
I can't vouch for other markets, but here in the Bay Area, as of this writing, Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" and Echosmith's "Cool Kids" are immensely popular. But if you mention these songs (which I like, BTW) to the self-titled "music lovers," you'll get ridiculed, denigrated, name-called, and slut-shamed.
Roger Skoff wants us to talk about the music. Okay, I will. If he goes over to AA's Hip Pop Stop, he'll see that I've nominated Erasure's "Elevation" as the 2014 Song Of The Year. My other favorite is Foxes' "Let Go For Tonight"
The Audiophiles' DJ,
-Lummy The Loch Monster
Follow Ups:
After reading the article, it seems to me that the author is confused. If the particular forum is devoted to discussions about some types of equipment or different technologies, one would not expect a great deal of discussion about music, per se.
If the forum is devoted to music or some type of music, then naturally one would expect the merits of various compositions, performers, styles, and recordings to be the main subjects of discussion.
N.B. I do wonder about someone who boasts about having 16 different recordings of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
-----
"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
I wonder more about the boast than about having the multiple recordings.
> Former XLO owner Roger Skoff (see link below) argues that we talk about
> audio products, but not the music.
Something that not many are aware of is that with Stereophile reviewers,
the value of their recorded music collections exceeds that of their audio
systems.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
"Something that not many are aware of is that with Stereophile reviewers, the value of their recorded music collections exceeds that of their audio systems."
Good call! The ratio between cost of library vs. cost of system is a good metric for distinguishing between music lovers and audiophiles.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
There was a time where I had a Bell tape deck, a PAS-2, a Citation II and a pair of KLH-6's. This exhausted all my funds, just enough left to purchase a single 4 track prerecorded tape by Ernest Ansermet and the London Philharmonic. When I didn't feel like listening to Petrushka I could listen to The Rite of Spring, ... Fortunately, this situation only lasted a few months.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
No tuner?
I had two tuners, actually. An EICO and a Citation III. This was before stereo broadcasts. I recorded some stereo broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra live over the air, made off of WGBH and WCRB. Mono FM reception worked pretty well, even 50 miles out. FM stereo never did work so well, even later when I had a Marantz 10B and was only 8 miles direct line of sight from the WGBH tower. The basic problem with FM stereo is that noise immunity was traded for bandwidth. But even mono FM was not transparent to live microphone feeds and even when the monitoring antenna was in close proximity to the transmitter.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Interesting. Well my dad bought 7.5 ips tapes but also recorded a ton of AM and FM. New York had some amazing stations in the 60s. I actually don't remember what tuner he had. He was not big into LPs and had only a small collection. He hated the surface noise and warping.
I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, about half-way between Phila and New York. Only OK FM reception, but I never had the benefit of an outside antenna. I went to high school in southern New Hampshire, about 50 miles from Boston. This is when I recorded some BSO broadcast stereo off of two FM stations.Stereo LPs were hopeless in the 1960's with any equipment that I could afford. It wasn't until laser cut styli came out that I considered the distortion acceptable. Vacuum hold down on my SOTA turntable solved the warp problem and a VPI record cleaning machine solved the surface noise problem.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Edits: 12/17/14
So true Tony!
Excellent point JA!
I had just burned to DVD-A and DVD-V some wav files, using Cirlinca Solo, I had collected form Linn and BlueCoast Music and even listening to them in my lowly Yamaha S1800 for my DVD-As and my Sony DVP-NS 755, both of which are SACD players as well, those files sounded so wonderful that I feel sorry for people who are satisfied with MP3s, even 320s. The sound of Fiona Joy's piano is so wonderful it is hard to listen to something less.By the time we all listen to our commercial recordings that started out at 2448 in ProTools, they are nothing like what I am hearing. Now I have to search out great recordings that started out at least at 2496 or some great vinyl reissues with improved mastering. With the cost of those I wait for a review before jumping in. It is now not only about the music, but about the quality of it.
Jim Tavegia
Edits: 12/03/14
Thanks! for sharing Jim.
The great myth is the notion that "audiophiles" and "music lovers" are two distinct, separate groups..... I contend that the vast majority of audiophiles, at least 90 percent of them, are *also* music lovers.....
Some comments on the article.....
I've just spent a little time reading posts—both the originals and the comments on them—in some of the more than fifty audiophile groups that I know of on the internet. I'm sure there must actually be many more than just half a hundred of such groups, but from what I've seen, fifty is more than enough for me to comment on.
The biggest one is right here on AA.... The cross section here is as representative of the audiophile community as any out there.
The posts I've been reading have, frankly, been amazing to me and, had I not read them, my understanding of the people who share my hobby would be greatly less. Some of the people posting or commenting have a depth and breadth of technical knowledge and experience that I can't help but admire, be impressed by, and frankly be, at least in some areas, a little bit jealous of. Others seem to be human encyclopedias; brimming over with a phenomenal amount of organized data on a number of subjects that can only remind me of those remarkable people who have not just memorized the Bible, but can also tell you the chapter and verse of everything in it. Regardless of what anyone might think of the subject matter, I can't imagine anyone at all who would not be purely blown away by the sheer brute accomplishment involved in not just memorizing the words, but then going back and memorizing where each of them is in the book. What's next, the page numbers?
If there is a "walking encyclopedia" type here, I haven't noticed any.... Except for some I've encountered in regard to music, rather than audio..... (I guess I don't pay that much attention to the "audio encyclopedia" types.) Some here have forgotten more about music than I will ever know.......
Among the things that I've read is a whole lot of opinion about what's better (or worse) than what; about how to do just about anything any audiophile might want to do with his system; about tubes vs. solid state; about analog vs. digital; about 24/96 vs. 16/44, and on and on and on.
That's a normal part of audio discussion....
I've also seen a whole lot of tomfoolery on a vast range of subjects, with people-of-questionable- knowledge-attacking-other-people-of-questionable-intelligence-who-are-in-turn-attacking-still-other-people-of–questionable-experience, and around and around and back again, in every possible configuration.
I generally ignore those threads. And feel sorry for participating in the ones I didn't ignore.
If it's within the range of human discourse and it's there, I've seen it.
What I HAVEN'T seen, though, is a discussion of "Are the Blues Greats really worth saving?" or a comparison of what Mark Levinson did along those lines, as compared to Chad Kassem.
Does he visit Audio Asylum?? .... These discussions are all over the place here..... Not to mention a plethora of opinions personally on those matters.
I haven't seen discussions of why it is that folk music—the biggest of big deals of the '60s and early '70s – doesn't even seem to be a curiosity any more.
I haven't seen that particular subject, but I've seen it on various forms of rock, classical, pop, jazz.... You name it.
Why Rock and Hip-Hop make millions, while classical music needs government subsidies to stay alive.
Hasn't been here.... I've discussed this issue personally, maybe more than any other issue on AA, in the past five years.
Or even why it is that the music business, in general, but as purchased physical recordings in particular, seems to be at real risk of following the dinosaurs into extinction.
Once again, discussed at length here...........
Can it be that we are so used to having instant access to just about any music, of any kind, in any version, by any performer, at any time, that, like the news of the day, it has simply become a part of our environment and we feel that it will always be there for us, whether we pay any attention to it or not? Or can it be that, as with ballroom dancing, which required actually learning the steps and variations of a particular dance (a foxtrot, a waltz, a Polka, a rhumba, a Cha-Cha, or even a Country & Western Line Dance), we have abandoned the comfort of rules and pre-learned steps in favor of the freedom of simply gyrating as we see fit and as the music moves us, and are content to simply hope that our "partner" can anticipate what we are going to do well enough to keep up?
Agreed.... But I think the media's hiding exposure to anything except the current Top 40 being mostly to blame.... People who are conditioned to learn alternative music will never stop doing so.... The key is creating an environment that will motivate the masses. (I think this situation has improved, in the past couple years.)
I don't expect the average audiophile or music-lover to spend the time, money, and effort to learn to be a great dancer, or to be able (or even willing) to design and build his own electronics, but think how rewarding either of those would be if he actually were to do so.
I always wanted to be a musician.... But the lack of talent and inability to sight read made such endeavor prohibitive. (When I played piano, I thought I played something well, until I played it back on recording.)
Neither do I expect that anyone should, just for riffing with his friends, become a musicologist or a sociologist, but again, think how rewarding it would be; not only to the person doing it, but to everyone he spends time with talking of such things.
It's a bonus, but not a requisite. Most audiophiles I know occasionally hack on a cheap guitar or harmonica, but nothing beyond that.
At one time, many years ago, when I still owned XLO, I was invited by one of XLO's better dealers to fly to a nearby State and speak to a group of (obviously committed and obviously affluent) audiophiles who had initially just hung-out at his store, and then actually formalized their weekly meetings into a club . When I got to the store, the things that most caught and held my attention were that 1.) The store was obviously well set-up and carried some great lines; 2.) the club members were obviously well-to-do, and had, on the average, a GREAT deal of money invested in their hobby; and 3.) the majority of the attendees had not the slightest clue about how a system or any of its components worked, but were content, instead, to buy whatever the magazines declared to be "this week's hot setup"; to throw money at any problem; and to believe the "experts" instead of their own knowledge or their own ears on any issue where judgment was required.
I know those types.... And they were open to suggestions to make better decisions on their own. (Lack of stubbornness is maybe the reason why the affluent are affluent.)
Although that was SO not me as to be actually shocking, (whenever I get involved in some new thing, I make it a point to learn as much as I can about it, and, because I'm the one who must ultimately live with it, I tend to regard my own opinion at least as highly as any other), I could at least understand it: These were, after all, privileged people who were probably used to a high level of service from others in whatever they do. (Who, for example, carries his own golf bag?) The thing that really got to me was that they didn't know anything about the music, either.
I think he's underestimating audiophiles' knowledge of the music. (It's a stereotype that many seem to still believe. Even in the audiophile community.) The key is to just play music somewhat outside their comfort zone.... You don't teach audiophiles music, you enable them to expand their experiences with it.
Isn't the whole point of having a system to be able to listen to music on it in some reasonable approximation of a live performance?
I don't know anyone who has owned a system for a different reason...... (I might be naive here. Maybe someone can explain.)
And if you like the music, and if different people play the same thing in different ways, isn't it reasonable to think that you might want to have more than just a single performance?
Yes, but I research the performances before I purchase or download them.... I think people should develop a sense of why they like one performance over another.
I personally have sixteen different recordings of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and more than a dozen of the Shostakovich Symphony #15, and it isn't just classical music that that applies to: Think of all of the various "cover" versions you've heard of different pop, rock, and even Country and Western music: Isn't it possible that one might be better than the others?
I guess it would be more efficient to sample performances and choose what you think would be ideal. Or most interesting from different interpretive views.... But sheer quantity doesn't really gain much, unless one has a unique appreciation for each of those performances, to where listening to any of them would be a worthwhile experience.
Wasn't the Ed Bruce version of Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys better than the one by Willie Nelson? And if one IS better, don't you want to know about it? And if they're all wonderful, don't you want to know them all? And if you know about them, and either some are better or they're all good (or even if they're all bad) don't you want to talk about them? And write about them on the internet?
Once again, people here on AA do this all the time...... I don't think this author has paid attention to audiophile discussion as much as he claims.
Heck, I think the NHK Symphony Orchestra is best symphony orchestra in the world. Someone else might think the Vienna Philharmonic is the best. Vive la difference.
And yes, I prefer Manfred Mann's version of "Blinded By the Light" over Springsteen's original.
There's plenty on the internet about the toys and goodies that make our hobby possible, but why is there so little about the music that makes it necessary? And what about real and substantive discussion of, and news about, the people who make the music?
He needs to visit Audio Asylum.... But why should I believe it's different on other sites..... They just have fewer people in the discussions.
Aren't all of those things important, too?
I think it's *most* important of all.... And I think a lot of others here would say the same thing.
Those forums seldom talk of recording quality and we can write reviews on gear here but not recordings. I think we should be able to write music reviews. In the reviews we would talk of both the music itself and the recording technique/quality. I am more interested in what people here think of the recordings, not the performance as music is so subjective and personal like choosing mates and meals.
ET
I love music dearly have a good sized collection on multiple formats but if you asked me detailed questions regarding some of the music I listen to I can give some info but not all. I do have friends who are music collectors not audiophiles they use basic gear. But ask them any question regarding a musical selection they can go on and on about minutiae that I could never recall on demand. Many folks DIY gear today. They may not be so vocal about it in audiophile forums and meetings thus one who attends such might not get exposed to it. I also feel its just fine if one wants to just buy gear. Don't see that as a negative at all. I love cars don't feel like DIYing one.
Lummy-
I did not think that XLO was still in business?
What happened to this cable maker?
With all the fake Chinese clone XLO out there--sad
Des
Agreed-
china is cloning many cable designs out there.
Are you sure about the word "cloning" in your post?
"Passing-off" is more appropriate.
Look it up!
Look up this...
Cloning is the correct reference here.
As much as it pains me to do so, I gotta agree with middleground on this one. A cheap knockoff is not a clone. A clone would imply it is exactly the same as the original. Not so in this case.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
A clone would be an exact copy, so why would you object to it as an audiophile?
Passing-off is the proper term, but why would a self-referential person like you care?
Ultralink used to manufacture XLO's products. Ultralink supposedly purchased the corporate rights from Roger Skoff.
But now we do not know what has happened to Ultralink themselves. But apparently, XLO, headquartered in Canada, are still going.
Do you still use XLO cables in your system?
Post a Followup:
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
