In the good old days, your favourites list was on your shelves: it was your CD and/or vinyl and/or tape collection. Some of it, anyway. It isn't a real record collection if you don't have a couple of drunk-purchase clunkers in it.
I've been experimenting with streaming. I didn't get it with Tidal, because, well, you know, Tidal's preferred genre. I didn't get it with Spotify because I couldn't break free of the playlists. With Qobuz, I've found a way of working.
Browse in the record store, choose one CD by a composer or artist, if it's good, stream the rest. And I'd like to add those composers or artists to a list.
I browse in the record store because the online sites have not managed to reproduce that experience and functionality.
Why don't I take a photo of what takes my attention and stream it later?
First, that's a grift.
Second, the fact I have some money in the CD means I will spend more time and attention listening to it.
I wrote off Lars Graugaard's Engage and Share CD as a bad choice after a first listen. I gave it another whirl when I had moved my Marantz system around, and it sounded a little better. I gave it another whirl on the Hegel / 6000CDT, and it was much more interesting. I may well stream some more of his work.
I don't need to build up a favourites list of everyone I have CD's by: that's what the CDs are for.
There's another way of discovering new music that I'd forgotten until I bought a copy of Gramaphone and DJ Mag recently. Old-fashioned print. By people whose job it is to seek out new bands and listen to new releases.
That's what I want to put on my Favourites list - assuming Qobuz have them. I want to be reminded that Coil is a band well worth listening to more often.
As ever, I have to massively over-think this first, before doing what some teenager would do by instinct, and I'm sure I would do by instinct if I was a teenager now. But I'm not.
Friday, 11 June 2021
Tuesday, 8 June 2021
Choices, Options and Information
What’s the best recording of Mahler's First Symphony? If you are not familiar with recorded classical music, it feels like a sensible question. If you have listened to more than a couple of episode’s of Radio Three’s Building A Library you will know the question is fraught with difficulty. Not the least of which is explaining why it is fraught with difficulty.
If a performance of Mahler’s First has been released on CD, we can be sure of a number of things. The orchestra was playing in tune. It was playing the notes Mahler wrote in the order he wrote them. It was playing in tune and in time. The players were proficient, and the conductor at least competent. Historical recordings do expose the listener to the lower standards of performance and recording of earlier times, but as long as the recording was made in or after the 1970’s, it will not leave the listener wanting to wince.
Given those givens, most big-name conductors have been able to make a Mahler cycle recording: Solti, Rattle, Von Karajan, Salonen, and a dozen others. All of them are accomplished, thoughtful interpreters of music. Rattle can be a little on the clean side, Solti is famously lush, Salonen is precise and engaging... and so on. It depends on what you like to listen to. And your tastes may change over time.
You understand I’m talking about hi-if components?
The fact that the amplifier, DAC, CD transport, speakers and whatever else, as made it into a hi-if store tells you that the equipment will not have audible levels of distortion, has almost zero cross-talk between left and right channels, and will have separation and dynamics that the 1970’s manufacturers dreamed about but had no way of realising.
Which of the too many choices is “best”? All of them are “good”: the difference is in the details, but your ear is very sensitive to those details. It has to be able to tell the difference between a fox and a tiger walking over the leaves (or some other evolutionary example). What strikes some people as clean and pleasing strikes others as harsh and over-analytical, what is laid-back to some is too smooth and lacking dynamics to others. How do you choose?
Audiophiles call it auditioning the equipment, which is about as pretentious as can be. Regular people would say “listen to it, preferably at home”. Because your room will not sound like a dealer’s listening room.
In the end, a number of external constraints make the decision. Floor-standing speakers are only an option for people who live in detached houses with larger rooms. Play those above a whisper, and the neighbours will be complaining. The speakers put an upper limit to the power of the amplifier: you don’t want to blow out your bookshelf speakers with an accidental turn of the volume control. Then there’s the budget. And do you want a built-in DAC? An all-in-one streamer / amp? Add in the constraints of your budget, and you will have a much smaller choice.
You understand we’re talking about cars?
There are a lot of cars, but most of them are out of my budget. The best ones are new and come from German manufacturers: Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Audi. Those have re-sale prices to prove it. But all modern cars made in Europe or Japan are pretty much marvels of construction, compared to 1970. High-end, from Jaguar upwards, is impeccable, but I can't afford any of them.
Used cars offer the same range of choice, but amongst last year’s or earlier models. The time and the mileage will have allowed some weaknesses to appear. Some dealers will inspect the vehicle on purchase and maybe fix the obvious faults: they will deduct the cost of repair from what they pay its seller. Some will give it a wash and clean, and put it on the lot to be bought as is. Private sellers all sell as is. Let the buyer beware, or at least let the buyer get the AA / RAC round to look at it. Because I don't know what a manky suspension sounds like, or what a rotted sump looks like. Buy second-hand and you takes your chances. But at least I could take my car into a manufacturer-approved garage and get a service.
You understand this is about partners?
There is no manufacturer-approved service for people. Just like people make a living from knowing enough about cars so they can spot a duff one, so there are people who make livings from knowing enough about people to be able to spot a duff one. At least that's what mechanics and therapists / psychiatrists claim.
People are all second-hand. Even when they are still single. You and your age-appropriate partner have had plenty of time to develop off-putting habits, phobias, neuroses, personality disorders, drinking problems, dodgy choices of food, slack muscles from lack of exercise, a body-fat percentage caused by too many muffins, eccentric beliefs from veganism to flat-earth-ism. You have both had enough time to have acquired too much experience and become slightly jaded, or perhaps not enough experience and not quite able to negotiate the adult world.
There’s no “best” here, and what is “worst” is an academic exercise. There is a lot of "avoid". The bi-polar. The narcissist. The drunk. The addict. The career girl who always splits the bill, the girls who expects everyone else to pay. The hidden genes for early-onset Alzheimer’s. The people who have already made poor life-choices. The people who have few social skills, and the people who have too many. No wonder a lot of people just don't bother anymore.
Choices are almost never about "the best". Choices are about: do I have the budget to get something that does the job well? If I don't, can I live with what I can get? If I can't, can I do without? And finally, of course, if I make a bad decision, how expensive will it be to get out of it?
There are many, many reviewers of music. Many reviewers of hi-fi gear. And of cars. Lots of information and opinion, also lots of marketing and snake-oil. Not too expensive to get out of, which makes getting into it less scary.
Not so much about people. In fact, some people would say that we shouldn't judge someone by the mistakes they made in the past, but by the wonderful person they could become with us. So, still snake-oil then. Low information up front, high exit costs after purchase. That combination is not a co-incidence.
If a performance of Mahler’s First has been released on CD, we can be sure of a number of things. The orchestra was playing in tune. It was playing the notes Mahler wrote in the order he wrote them. It was playing in tune and in time. The players were proficient, and the conductor at least competent. Historical recordings do expose the listener to the lower standards of performance and recording of earlier times, but as long as the recording was made in or after the 1970’s, it will not leave the listener wanting to wince.
Given those givens, most big-name conductors have been able to make a Mahler cycle recording: Solti, Rattle, Von Karajan, Salonen, and a dozen others. All of them are accomplished, thoughtful interpreters of music. Rattle can be a little on the clean side, Solti is famously lush, Salonen is precise and engaging... and so on. It depends on what you like to listen to. And your tastes may change over time.
You understand I’m talking about hi-if components?
The fact that the amplifier, DAC, CD transport, speakers and whatever else, as made it into a hi-if store tells you that the equipment will not have audible levels of distortion, has almost zero cross-talk between left and right channels, and will have separation and dynamics that the 1970’s manufacturers dreamed about but had no way of realising.
Which of the too many choices is “best”? All of them are “good”: the difference is in the details, but your ear is very sensitive to those details. It has to be able to tell the difference between a fox and a tiger walking over the leaves (or some other evolutionary example). What strikes some people as clean and pleasing strikes others as harsh and over-analytical, what is laid-back to some is too smooth and lacking dynamics to others. How do you choose?
Audiophiles call it auditioning the equipment, which is about as pretentious as can be. Regular people would say “listen to it, preferably at home”. Because your room will not sound like a dealer’s listening room.
In the end, a number of external constraints make the decision. Floor-standing speakers are only an option for people who live in detached houses with larger rooms. Play those above a whisper, and the neighbours will be complaining. The speakers put an upper limit to the power of the amplifier: you don’t want to blow out your bookshelf speakers with an accidental turn of the volume control. Then there’s the budget. And do you want a built-in DAC? An all-in-one streamer / amp? Add in the constraints of your budget, and you will have a much smaller choice.
You understand we’re talking about cars?
There are a lot of cars, but most of them are out of my budget. The best ones are new and come from German manufacturers: Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Audi. Those have re-sale prices to prove it. But all modern cars made in Europe or Japan are pretty much marvels of construction, compared to 1970. High-end, from Jaguar upwards, is impeccable, but I can't afford any of them.
Used cars offer the same range of choice, but amongst last year’s or earlier models. The time and the mileage will have allowed some weaknesses to appear. Some dealers will inspect the vehicle on purchase and maybe fix the obvious faults: they will deduct the cost of repair from what they pay its seller. Some will give it a wash and clean, and put it on the lot to be bought as is. Private sellers all sell as is. Let the buyer beware, or at least let the buyer get the AA / RAC round to look at it. Because I don't know what a manky suspension sounds like, or what a rotted sump looks like. Buy second-hand and you takes your chances. But at least I could take my car into a manufacturer-approved garage and get a service.
You understand this is about partners?
There is no manufacturer-approved service for people. Just like people make a living from knowing enough about cars so they can spot a duff one, so there are people who make livings from knowing enough about people to be able to spot a duff one. At least that's what mechanics and therapists / psychiatrists claim.
People are all second-hand. Even when they are still single. You and your age-appropriate partner have had plenty of time to develop off-putting habits, phobias, neuroses, personality disorders, drinking problems, dodgy choices of food, slack muscles from lack of exercise, a body-fat percentage caused by too many muffins, eccentric beliefs from veganism to flat-earth-ism. You have both had enough time to have acquired too much experience and become slightly jaded, or perhaps not enough experience and not quite able to negotiate the adult world.
There’s no “best” here, and what is “worst” is an academic exercise. There is a lot of "avoid". The bi-polar. The narcissist. The drunk. The addict. The career girl who always splits the bill, the girls who expects everyone else to pay. The hidden genes for early-onset Alzheimer’s. The people who have already made poor life-choices. The people who have few social skills, and the people who have too many. No wonder a lot of people just don't bother anymore.
Choices are almost never about "the best". Choices are about: do I have the budget to get something that does the job well? If I don't, can I live with what I can get? If I can't, can I do without? And finally, of course, if I make a bad decision, how expensive will it be to get out of it?
There are many, many reviewers of music. Many reviewers of hi-fi gear. And of cars. Lots of information and opinion, also lots of marketing and snake-oil. Not too expensive to get out of, which makes getting into it less scary.
Not so much about people. In fact, some people would say that we shouldn't judge someone by the mistakes they made in the past, but by the wonderful person they could become with us. So, still snake-oil then. Low information up front, high exit costs after purchase. That combination is not a co-incidence.
Monday, 31 May 2021
Woke As A Symptom of Irrelevance
You know why they say Get woke, go broke? Because real people don't want woke shoved down their throats, and woke people are broke people, and even if the Wokies did have any money, there aren't enough of them to form a viable market segment.
A company or institution that goes woke is run by a clueless twerp. The clueless twerp thinks that attacking much-loved cultural institutions will gain good publicity and make them money, or worse, they may not care what effect it has on the business.
Have you noticed that nobody has targeted Thames Water for a woke attack? Or Scottish Power? Or Virgin Trains? Or Vodafone? Utilities. Supermarkets. Food manufacturers. That's because those things matter.
If a company or institution goes woke (Oxford's dons struck back against their clueless twerp), that means it no longer matters to the culture or the economy. It matters to the people who work there, but it has probably become marginal to the rest of us. Hollywood is marginal: it's been replaced by Amazon, Netflicks, and whoever else is making stuff for their streaming service. The British Library? How much more marginal than that could anything be? The National Trust is pretty marginal now, but its customer base seems to be striking back.
As for the Tate Galleries? Here is what Wokipedia notes:
Woke is a sign of rot. Intellectual, spiritual and moral rot. Anyone who despises themselves or the fruits of their labour because of something their great-grandfather may not even have done, is weak. If I didn't do it, I'm clear. About half the relevant quotes from the Bible (should you care) support me. The other half have God visiting the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation. But then, last time I looked, though the Wokerati have psychiatric problems, none of them think they are God. So they don't get to visit the sins of the fathers on anyone except the fathers.
I have no idea why the Wokerati do it. If something looks crazy, it probably is, and never try to understand crazy. I do know why people pay attention to the Wokerati. 'Cause they dumb.
Faced with Woke, don't despair. It's a sign that something has been rotten for a while now, and it's starting to smell. Clear it out of your life, and more importantly, your investment portfolio.
You will miss the good old days of whatever it was. But all parties come to an end. And we have to find others.
A company or institution that goes woke is run by a clueless twerp. The clueless twerp thinks that attacking much-loved cultural institutions will gain good publicity and make them money, or worse, they may not care what effect it has on the business.
Have you noticed that nobody has targeted Thames Water for a woke attack? Or Scottish Power? Or Virgin Trains? Or Vodafone? Utilities. Supermarkets. Food manufacturers. That's because those things matter.
If a company or institution goes woke (Oxford's dons struck back against their clueless twerp), that means it no longer matters to the culture or the economy. It matters to the people who work there, but it has probably become marginal to the rest of us. Hollywood is marginal: it's been replaced by Amazon, Netflicks, and whoever else is making stuff for their streaming service. The British Library? How much more marginal than that could anything be? The National Trust is pretty marginal now, but its customer base seems to be striking back.
As for the Tate Galleries? Here is what Wokipedia notes:
The British slave-trade was abolished in 1807, before Henry Tate and Abram Lyle were born. However, the Tate Gallery states that while neither Henry Tate nor Abram Lyle 'was a slave-owner'; they state that 'we believe the firms founded by the two men, which later combined as Tate & Lyle, do connect to slavery in less direct but fundamental ways'. The Tate Gallery concludes it is 'not possible to separate the Tate galleries from the history of colonial slavery from which in part they derive their existence'The Tate is run by twerps. It may have been relevant once, but clearly no more.
Woke is a sign of rot. Intellectual, spiritual and moral rot. Anyone who despises themselves or the fruits of their labour because of something their great-grandfather may not even have done, is weak. If I didn't do it, I'm clear. About half the relevant quotes from the Bible (should you care) support me. The other half have God visiting the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation. But then, last time I looked, though the Wokerati have psychiatric problems, none of them think they are God. So they don't get to visit the sins of the fathers on anyone except the fathers.
I have no idea why the Wokerati do it. If something looks crazy, it probably is, and never try to understand crazy. I do know why people pay attention to the Wokerati. 'Cause they dumb.
Faced with Woke, don't despair. It's a sign that something has been rotten for a while now, and it's starting to smell. Clear it out of your life, and more importantly, your investment portfolio.
You will miss the good old days of whatever it was. But all parties come to an end. And we have to find others.
Find something new.
Monday, 24 May 2021
Retirement is not about optimisation. It's about avoiding the downward slopes
You know my standard phrase: Work hard, exercise, eat right, don't drink too much, pay your damn taxes, and only spend money on things you need and can afford.
That's for people with jobs. (Employment Privilege?)
What about those of us who no longer go to work?
What replaces the "work hard" bit?
Some people find a different job, or volunteer, but that doesn't replace "working hard". That replaces "go to the office".
I'm sure some people who have grandchildren would tell me that "see more of your grandkids" is an answer, and I'd agree it's part of the answer. For them.
I think there are two questions here:
What replaces "leaving home every day for the workplace / waking up and pulling the laptop onto your lap"?
and
What replaces "meetings / e-mails / Powerpoints / spreadsheets / client lunches / (enter other work dross here)"?
To the first question: there is a benefit to leaving the house for a few hours a few days each week. When the weather is acceptable. That does not mean turning into Diamond Geezer, and riding the buses and trains all day.
To the second question: my (first) thought is that nothing needs to - unless you will go crazy if you're not busy.
I read. I will get back to watching movies and box sets, but only when what I see on the screen is something like what I see outside. (Ever notice that nobody wears masks in those old movies. What was that about?) I have intentions of learning to read music on the piano, but every time I try to play both lines of a simple piece, something goes in my head, like my brain is trying to use connections that aren't there. There's always maths and a higher standard of housework. Also gardening. It's too damn cold and rainy right now, but I do need to do some maintenance gardening.
None of that counts as 'busy'.
'Busy' would be making random trips round London, under the guise of 'doing photography'. Or joining yoga classes. Or volunteering. Or going round every art gallery in the country. Or some other random project. 'Busy' means doing stuff you wouldn't do if you had anything better to do. (I still want to take photographs, and I'm starting to figure out what the blocker is. It's not what you might think, but that's for another day.)
Sometimes it helps to look at an alternative. I could stay in bed all day, order in pizza, move the TV into my bedroom, watch The Sopranos from start to finish and not take a shower for month. As long as I avoid that kind of non-activity (allowed only for a really bad cold) anything else is okay.
Retirement is not about optimisation. It's about avoiding the downward slopes.
That's for people with jobs. (Employment Privilege?)
What about those of us who no longer go to work?
What replaces the "work hard" bit?
Some people find a different job, or volunteer, but that doesn't replace "working hard". That replaces "go to the office".
I'm sure some people who have grandchildren would tell me that "see more of your grandkids" is an answer, and I'd agree it's part of the answer. For them.
I think there are two questions here:
What replaces "leaving home every day for the workplace / waking up and pulling the laptop onto your lap"?
and
What replaces "meetings / e-mails / Powerpoints / spreadsheets / client lunches / (enter other work dross here)"?
To the first question: there is a benefit to leaving the house for a few hours a few days each week. When the weather is acceptable. That does not mean turning into Diamond Geezer, and riding the buses and trains all day.
To the second question: my (first) thought is that nothing needs to - unless you will go crazy if you're not busy.
I read. I will get back to watching movies and box sets, but only when what I see on the screen is something like what I see outside. (Ever notice that nobody wears masks in those old movies. What was that about?) I have intentions of learning to read music on the piano, but every time I try to play both lines of a simple piece, something goes in my head, like my brain is trying to use connections that aren't there. There's always maths and a higher standard of housework. Also gardening. It's too damn cold and rainy right now, but I do need to do some maintenance gardening.
None of that counts as 'busy'.
'Busy' would be making random trips round London, under the guise of 'doing photography'. Or joining yoga classes. Or volunteering. Or going round every art gallery in the country. Or some other random project. 'Busy' means doing stuff you wouldn't do if you had anything better to do. (I still want to take photographs, and I'm starting to figure out what the blocker is. It's not what you might think, but that's for another day.)
Sometimes it helps to look at an alternative. I could stay in bed all day, order in pizza, move the TV into my bedroom, watch The Sopranos from start to finish and not take a shower for month. As long as I avoid that kind of non-activity (allowed only for a really bad cold) anything else is okay.
Retirement is not about optimisation. It's about avoiding the downward slopes.
Friday, 21 May 2021
Week Three of Retirement
Started badly with a real pain in my right hip that distracted the heck out of me and required expensive servicing by my magic osteopath.
Also a visit to my dentist to collect a new gum shield for my lower teeth. After what I spent and went through getting my teeth straightened out, I am not giving up the maintenance.
I read Michel Houellebecq's latest, Serotonin, in one pass. It's very good, but not edifying.
I noticed that I'm able to hear orchestral music more easily now. Sound quality is one thing, but it's almost like I now have the brain-space to process it.
I've just cancelled Spotify Premium. Because I haven't even wanted to have one of their playlists on in the background.
It feels like work filled my head with a lot of clutter and noise, and left me feeling tired and only able to deal with stuff needing short spans of attention.
Now my head is a less clamorous place.
But this weather is dispiriting. The pollen doesn't agree with me. I wake up with a stuffed-up nose and feeling like someone slipped some drugs into my sleep. I haven't been out much. Right now, I never want to walk in my local park again.
Everyone has duff weeks now and again.
Also a visit to my dentist to collect a new gum shield for my lower teeth. After what I spent and went through getting my teeth straightened out, I am not giving up the maintenance.
I read Michel Houellebecq's latest, Serotonin, in one pass. It's very good, but not edifying.
I noticed that I'm able to hear orchestral music more easily now. Sound quality is one thing, but it's almost like I now have the brain-space to process it.
I've just cancelled Spotify Premium. Because I haven't even wanted to have one of their playlists on in the background.
It feels like work filled my head with a lot of clutter and noise, and left me feeling tired and only able to deal with stuff needing short spans of attention.
Now my head is a less clamorous place.
But this weather is dispiriting. The pollen doesn't agree with me. I wake up with a stuffed-up nose and feeling like someone slipped some drugs into my sleep. I haven't been out much. Right now, I never want to walk in my local park again.
Everyone has duff weeks now and again.
Tuesday, 18 May 2021
The Next-Level System: Audiolab Transport to Hegel Heaven
Entry-level: an analogue-only Marantz PM6003 amp with a Marantz CD6005 CD player (and hence a DAC), a Sonos Connect (and hence another DAC), and streaming through an iPad+Audioquest Jitterbug+Audioquest Black Dragonfly (another DAC), through B&W 6008's or Sennheiser HD650's. For some music, this is a neat set-up and perfectly good. It loved modern electronic dance music, but wasn't so keen on Romantic orchestral music.
First upgrade was getting the speaker and listening positioning right. This makes the single largest difference. Accepting that you will sacrifice everything in one room in the pursuit of disappearing speakers and a deep and wide soundstage.
Second upgrade was the speakers, to KEF LS50's - advice from Steve Gutenberg and John Darko videos, plus a deal from Sevenoaks Hi-Fi. I wrote about that here.
Next upgrade was a sub-woofer, the REL T Zero - advice from a Steve Gutenberg video, I wrote about that here.
In both cases I noticed that all the pros had these things - though usually heftier sub-woofers.
I spent a long time on the next upgrade. I'd long had my eyes on the Naim Uniti Atom, because everyone raved about it. My local Kent-based hi-fi telephone sales line, however, did not sound enthusiastic. They preferred the NAD M10, which was out of consideration because no headphone socket means an external headphone amp, or a CD player with a headphone amp. (And who the heck makes an amp without a 6.35mm headphone socket? Oh, the Uniti Atom has a 3.5mm socket. Come on guys: 6.3mm is good enough for the stage and studio, it's good enough on next-level gear.)
So I followed my instinct struck the Atom from my list.
The CD player had to be improved. That's £1,000 and some more. Or I could get a CD transport, and an external DAC, or an amplifier with a built-in DAC. This took me into combination hell. The CD Transport became a fixed point, which meant an integrated amplifier / DAC or an external DAC + analogue integrated amplifier.
Yep, external DACs. Another box. The names start sounding like an audiophile review: Denafrips, NAD, Chord. I had a reluctance about that.
Not getting anywhere. Looking up too many details I don't really know how to interpret.
Time for a thought-experiment. Just go half-bonkers. What about actual high-end? A McIntosh? The MA5300 is only £6,500 or so and has built-in DACs. Surely a vanity purchase, but would it ever look good on my Kallax units.
Okay, not that then. But it got me looking at the more boutique-y suppliers. And there I saw Hegels.
The reviewers all like Hegel amps. They refer to Hegel when they want a reference. The name is pronounced with a certain deference. Plus, look, there's the H120 with a built-in high-quality DAC, power just where I want it, and a reassuringly heavy toroidal transformer. On the downside, it has no wi-fi and rudimentary streaming, but that's all going to be controlled by the iPad.
Oh! Look! Premium Sound do a home trial service!
Hi, is that Premium Sound? Can you send me an Audiolab 6000CDT (silver) and a Hegel H120 (white) to try out please? Yep, here are my credit card details. The two parcels arrived on two different days, which was probably a courier thing. I was busy for a couple of days, and then opened the boxes. Caaaaaarefully, because if I didn't like it, it has to be spotless on return. (Since I took the demo units they sent, they gave me a discount. That makes me a real audiophile.)
Unplug the wires from the existing kit. Set up the new stuff. Take a photograph of the subwoofer connections so I don't forget. iPad into the USB-B socket; CD transport into an optical input; Sonos into an analogue until another QCD optical cable arrives from Amazon.
Put on Barenboim's Mahler 4 - my test for all improvements.
Oh Holy Moly! So that's what they heard when the orchestra was playing! It sounded like an orchestra, not like a good recording of an orchestra. It sounded like it must have sounded to the record company, or they would never have released it.
I have gone on with that feeling with almost everything I've played.
Let's be realistic. There is some music that the original set-up handled almost as well. Close-mic'ed quartets, jazz, electronic dance music, contemporary composed music, solo recitals, not to mention 320kps Spotify. For the price, excellent, just like the What Hi-Fi reviews of Marantz gear say. Some recordings are just a mess, and nothing will ever change that.
The big jump is from the space- and budget- friendly all-in-one units from Denon and the like, to entry-level hi-fi. It's a jump in cost and a matching jump in quality. The jump from entry-level to next-level is only worth making if you have accepted the Discipline of the Sweet Spot, or if you're going to spend serious money on headphones (Sennheiser HD 660S type money and above). For most people it's a jump that won't be worth making, and there's nothing wrong with that. It depends on how much you listen to music.
Anyway, that's me ascended to 'next-level gear'. And happy with it.
First upgrade was getting the speaker and listening positioning right. This makes the single largest difference. Accepting that you will sacrifice everything in one room in the pursuit of disappearing speakers and a deep and wide soundstage.
Second upgrade was the speakers, to KEF LS50's - advice from Steve Gutenberg and John Darko videos, plus a deal from Sevenoaks Hi-Fi. I wrote about that here.
Next upgrade was a sub-woofer, the REL T Zero - advice from a Steve Gutenberg video, I wrote about that here.
In both cases I noticed that all the pros had these things - though usually heftier sub-woofers.
I spent a long time on the next upgrade. I'd long had my eyes on the Naim Uniti Atom, because everyone raved about it. My local Kent-based hi-fi telephone sales line, however, did not sound enthusiastic. They preferred the NAD M10, which was out of consideration because no headphone socket means an external headphone amp, or a CD player with a headphone amp. (And who the heck makes an amp without a 6.35mm headphone socket? Oh, the Uniti Atom has a 3.5mm socket. Come on guys: 6.3mm is good enough for the stage and studio, it's good enough on next-level gear.)
So I followed my instinct struck the Atom from my list.
The CD player had to be improved. That's £1,000 and some more. Or I could get a CD transport, and an external DAC, or an amplifier with a built-in DAC. This took me into combination hell. The CD Transport became a fixed point, which meant an integrated amplifier / DAC or an external DAC + analogue integrated amplifier.
Yep, external DACs. Another box. The names start sounding like an audiophile review: Denafrips, NAD, Chord. I had a reluctance about that.
Not getting anywhere. Looking up too many details I don't really know how to interpret.
Time for a thought-experiment. Just go half-bonkers. What about actual high-end? A McIntosh? The MA5300 is only £6,500 or so and has built-in DACs. Surely a vanity purchase, but would it ever look good on my Kallax units.
Okay, not that then. But it got me looking at the more boutique-y suppliers. And there I saw Hegels.
The reviewers all like Hegel amps. They refer to Hegel when they want a reference. The name is pronounced with a certain deference. Plus, look, there's the H120 with a built-in high-quality DAC, power just where I want it, and a reassuringly heavy toroidal transformer. On the downside, it has no wi-fi and rudimentary streaming, but that's all going to be controlled by the iPad.
Oh! Look! Premium Sound do a home trial service!
Hi, is that Premium Sound? Can you send me an Audiolab 6000CDT (silver) and a Hegel H120 (white) to try out please? Yep, here are my credit card details. The two parcels arrived on two different days, which was probably a courier thing. I was busy for a couple of days, and then opened the boxes. Caaaaaarefully, because if I didn't like it, it has to be spotless on return. (Since I took the demo units they sent, they gave me a discount. That makes me a real audiophile.)
Unplug the wires from the existing kit. Set up the new stuff. Take a photograph of the subwoofer connections so I don't forget. iPad into the USB-B socket; CD transport into an optical input; Sonos into an analogue until another QCD optical cable arrives from Amazon.
Put on Barenboim's Mahler 4 - my test for all improvements.
Oh Holy Moly! So that's what they heard when the orchestra was playing! It sounded like an orchestra, not like a good recording of an orchestra. It sounded like it must have sounded to the record company, or they would never have released it.
I have gone on with that feeling with almost everything I've played.
Let's be realistic. There is some music that the original set-up handled almost as well. Close-mic'ed quartets, jazz, electronic dance music, contemporary composed music, solo recitals, not to mention 320kps Spotify. For the price, excellent, just like the What Hi-Fi reviews of Marantz gear say. Some recordings are just a mess, and nothing will ever change that.
The big jump is from the space- and budget- friendly all-in-one units from Denon and the like, to entry-level hi-fi. It's a jump in cost and a matching jump in quality. The jump from entry-level to next-level is only worth making if you have accepted the Discipline of the Sweet Spot, or if you're going to spend serious money on headphones (Sennheiser HD 660S type money and above). For most people it's a jump that won't be worth making, and there's nothing wrong with that. It depends on how much you listen to music.
Anyway, that's me ascended to 'next-level gear'. And happy with it.
Thursday, 13 May 2021
Why Boys Played Guitars (or DJ Now)
A while ago, someone was kind enough to leave me this comment on my Streaming Economics post...
I think I picked up the guitar again when I was a teenage boy, and I did that because that's what I thought I should do to be whoever I had no idea I was at the time. My first goal was to play as fast as John McLaughin. I think for a single moment I might have managed it. I wasn't thinking of performing. I knew I wasn't good enough and I was way too self-conscious. And whatever it was I wanted to play, wasn't something many people would want to listen to.
A lot of my generation played music because school and parents pushed them that way. They dropped it pretty much on leaving for university or work.
Music is hard work. You cannot learn to play-in-a-day because it takes a month for the blisters to heal (stringed instruments), or to form your embouchure (wind), and it take months to learn where the damn notes are and how to play scales and chords and arpeggios. When you see players in full flight with their eyes closed, it's not them showing off, it's because playing with your eyes closed is an actual technical exercise. You should know where you are on the piano, guitar or any other instrument, from the position of your body. It's a kinaesthetic sense. You can't play confidently unless you do.
Yes, that applies to guys saying they only knew three chords. Malcolm McLaren was hyping when he said about the Sex Pistols that the band couldn't play. That was part of the punk culture: nothing complicated, anyone could do it. Don't spoil the illusion.
I play music now for myself. Playing helps me listen and understand what I'm hearing better.
So much for teenage boys.
Girls? Groupies don't care about the music. They care that it's a famous / hot band with hot / sexy boys in it. Whether those guys could play is irrelevant. It's not being in a band that gets the girls, it's being a hot guy and being in a band. Those Sixties pop stars were hot / pretty by the standards of the day. A young man who picks up, these days it would be a mixing deck, a laptop and a Korg (or whatever), in the hope that a hot dance floor track will get him girls is in for a disappointment. Unless he's hot, when he needs to be a DJ up front and centre.
Making and performing music is for nerds, with exceptions from time to time. Rock 'n Roll, Rap. Do DJ's get laid? It's a nerdy occupation, but I've no doubt the hot ones who know how to work the scene do.
So. Money.
Nobody but a fool, to paraphrase Dr Johnson, ever played an instrument, except for money. Johnson said that about writing. He meant that the process was so painful and so demanding, that nobody would choose to do it over, say, hanging out with their bros, or watching football, or whatever they did back then. It's almost the same with music, though there is some satisfaction in playing for your own pleasure, which there isn't in writing.
I used to go to the Bulls Head in Barnes when it was, unbelievably, one of the foremost jazz venues in the country. The back room was generally half-full, you could make eye-contact with the musicians, and nobody sold CDs afterwards. That was jazz then and possibly still now. They were doing it for the practice, and to play with other people on the scene, as a form of networking. But they didn't do it for free. Even if it amounted to petrol money.
Why? Because getting paid is what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur. It's a confirmation that a complete stranger values what they do enough to part with money for it. As soon as musicians could make a CD without silly costs, they were selling the things at their gigs. For the same reason. And in the hope they might be able to make a living playing music.
The complaint about streaming revenues is that they are so low for most artists that it doesn't count as "making money". Pennies a month are insulting, and that's all many acts are making.
Streaming is the ultimate in deflation: the marginal cost of music falls from the price of a ticket or a drink or a disc, to zero. Streaming lets everyone hear an artist's music for free. So did the radio, but radio didn't have 70,000,000 tracks to play on demand. Radio validated because the gate-keepers had chosen you (payola aside). Spotify has minimal gatekeeping: there's no validation. It looks like an opportunity to be heard, but so is the back room of a pub and a small ad in a music paper. It wouldn't be so bad if streaming lead to people showing up at live gigs, but, wait, live what?
So I'm going back to "What's the point of providing music to people if the artists don't make money from it?". Money is proof that what you are doing is valued by someone (*). Girls are proof that you are hot or meet some other mysterious and changeable girl criterion that has nothing to do with your ability to construct a guitar solo. Don't let either of those comments stop you making music for your own enjoyment. If you can upload it to Soundcloud at minimal cost, sure, why not? But marketing is expensive and can be time-consuming. To paraphrase Dr Johnson again, nobody but a fool marketed anything, except for money.
Which is perhaps what I really meant to say.
(*) OK. Not all the time. Quota hires, for instance.
"What's the point of providing music to people if the artists don't make money from it?" You are assuming the main reason people make music is money. It isn't. At least it isn't for men. Every teenage boy who ever picked up a guitar did it because he wanted to be cool and get all the girls. What would Mick Jagger's notch count be today if he'd continued studying accountancy as a young man? Of course, he enjoys his vast fortune now but that was never the original motivation.Well, I picked up a guitar as a teenage boy, and it wasn't so I could be cool and get all the girls. I have no idea why I did it. I had played the descant and treble recorders at Junior School, and started on the guitar with lessons. Junior School. Boys aren't doing things to impress girls in Junior School. Well, not back then anyway. Why? Because 'Music' was a subject in Junior Schools at the time. We learned to sight-read, and we played the recorder. Perhaps at posher schools they had a wider range of instruments. 'Art' was a subject as well. I was terrible at it, but it was a subject. Music didn't happen in Secondary School, but Art did.
I think I picked up the guitar again when I was a teenage boy, and I did that because that's what I thought I should do to be whoever I had no idea I was at the time. My first goal was to play as fast as John McLaughin. I think for a single moment I might have managed it. I wasn't thinking of performing. I knew I wasn't good enough and I was way too self-conscious. And whatever it was I wanted to play, wasn't something many people would want to listen to.
A lot of my generation played music because school and parents pushed them that way. They dropped it pretty much on leaving for university or work.
Music is hard work. You cannot learn to play-in-a-day because it takes a month for the blisters to heal (stringed instruments), or to form your embouchure (wind), and it take months to learn where the damn notes are and how to play scales and chords and arpeggios. When you see players in full flight with their eyes closed, it's not them showing off, it's because playing with your eyes closed is an actual technical exercise. You should know where you are on the piano, guitar or any other instrument, from the position of your body. It's a kinaesthetic sense. You can't play confidently unless you do.
Yes, that applies to guys saying they only knew three chords. Malcolm McLaren was hyping when he said about the Sex Pistols that the band couldn't play. That was part of the punk culture: nothing complicated, anyone could do it. Don't spoil the illusion.
I play music now for myself. Playing helps me listen and understand what I'm hearing better.
So much for teenage boys.
Girls? Groupies don't care about the music. They care that it's a famous / hot band with hot / sexy boys in it. Whether those guys could play is irrelevant. It's not being in a band that gets the girls, it's being a hot guy and being in a band. Those Sixties pop stars were hot / pretty by the standards of the day. A young man who picks up, these days it would be a mixing deck, a laptop and a Korg (or whatever), in the hope that a hot dance floor track will get him girls is in for a disappointment. Unless he's hot, when he needs to be a DJ up front and centre.
Making and performing music is for nerds, with exceptions from time to time. Rock 'n Roll, Rap. Do DJ's get laid? It's a nerdy occupation, but I've no doubt the hot ones who know how to work the scene do.
So. Money.
Nobody but a fool, to paraphrase Dr Johnson, ever played an instrument, except for money. Johnson said that about writing. He meant that the process was so painful and so demanding, that nobody would choose to do it over, say, hanging out with their bros, or watching football, or whatever they did back then. It's almost the same with music, though there is some satisfaction in playing for your own pleasure, which there isn't in writing.
I used to go to the Bulls Head in Barnes when it was, unbelievably, one of the foremost jazz venues in the country. The back room was generally half-full, you could make eye-contact with the musicians, and nobody sold CDs afterwards. That was jazz then and possibly still now. They were doing it for the practice, and to play with other people on the scene, as a form of networking. But they didn't do it for free. Even if it amounted to petrol money.
Why? Because getting paid is what makes the difference between a professional and an amateur. It's a confirmation that a complete stranger values what they do enough to part with money for it. As soon as musicians could make a CD without silly costs, they were selling the things at their gigs. For the same reason. And in the hope they might be able to make a living playing music.
The complaint about streaming revenues is that they are so low for most artists that it doesn't count as "making money". Pennies a month are insulting, and that's all many acts are making.
Streaming is the ultimate in deflation: the marginal cost of music falls from the price of a ticket or a drink or a disc, to zero. Streaming lets everyone hear an artist's music for free. So did the radio, but radio didn't have 70,000,000 tracks to play on demand. Radio validated because the gate-keepers had chosen you (payola aside). Spotify has minimal gatekeeping: there's no validation. It looks like an opportunity to be heard, but so is the back room of a pub and a small ad in a music paper. It wouldn't be so bad if streaming lead to people showing up at live gigs, but, wait, live what?
So I'm going back to "What's the point of providing music to people if the artists don't make money from it?". Money is proof that what you are doing is valued by someone (*). Girls are proof that you are hot or meet some other mysterious and changeable girl criterion that has nothing to do with your ability to construct a guitar solo. Don't let either of those comments stop you making music for your own enjoyment. If you can upload it to Soundcloud at minimal cost, sure, why not? But marketing is expensive and can be time-consuming. To paraphrase Dr Johnson again, nobody but a fool marketed anything, except for money.
Which is perhaps what I really meant to say.
(*) OK. Not all the time. Quota hires, for instance.
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