Audiophile journey
- Thread starter Garner Harrison
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I got tinnitus from other excessively loud things .. but it gets/feels worse with some headphones and some tracks. I found open-back headphones really don't bother me at pretty much any volume. Closed-back, however, does make things worse even at quite low volumes ... especially certain pitch of voices.
Experiment with getting out of IEMs and see if that helps, borrow someones HD 6xx or the like, that one triggered my ears least.
What genres do you listen to? Well recorded music you don't like isn't worth much other than for showing your system off. @WPerry may have better suggestions than I can come up with as I think he has been in the industry more recently but I'll toss out a few possibilities (albums) that were popular as demo material:
Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon (if I never hear this again as long as I live it is fine with me)
Jennifer Warnes - Famous Blue Raincoat and The Hunter
Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live
Patricia Barber - Modern Cool and Cafe' Blue
Holly Cole - Temptation
Paul Simon - Graceland
Diana Krall - late 90s/early 2000s recordings
some of the Steely Dan albums were popular but I never thought they were all that well recorded
some of the Windham Hill stuff - can't remember specific titles (not my music)
Some afropop from the 70s and 80s was remarkably well recorded although some of it was really poorly recorded too.
A fair amount of the classical recordings from the late 50s into the early 70s were well recorded, at least on vinyl. Vox, Decca (London in the US), and EMI/Angel all had some really good recordings
I mostly use jazz to judge systems as I like the music, listen to quite a bit of it live, and it usually isn't as over amplified and manipulated as most rock, hiphop, EDM, etc. Chamber music: string quartets and quintets, solo cello, piano or piano trios, and small chamber orchestras I also regularly use.
Whoever recorded the first Televsion album is on my terrible recordings sh*t list, they compressed the life out of it.
Re: tinnitus, shelved or notched hearing, and other hearing problems it is important to remember that humans evolved in a very quiet world by modern standards. It was only in the last 150 years or so, the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, that regular exposure to loud noises started to become the norm for a significant chunk of the population. There is a relationship between volume and duration of exposure, in addition to a number of other variables, that can be predictive of hearing damage. A really loud noise, say 130 dB, can do some hearing damage with very limited time exposure but moderately loud noises, say 85 dB, can also do damage if the exposure is for hours in duration and repeated frequently. Take care of your hearing! I almost always bring ear plugs to concerts just in case I feel I need them.
HRC_64
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What do you really think about all the EQ that get used to make corrections during sound check, tho?
We don't equalize to make corrections unless the source is of poor quality. We equalize to make the instruments sound cohesive and mix together as we wish.What do you really think about all the EQ that get used to make corrections during sound check, tho?
My person preference, even though pretty compressed, was Red Hot Chili Pepper's Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Not great at all for dynamic range, and it sounds like he's singing through a paper towel tube, but it weeded out the good salesmen from the snobby ones If they sat through a couple songs from that CD I was happy to return the favor by listening afterward to some of their recommendations.
My first real hi-fi experience was about 15, when I spent a week at my aunt's house in NJ. I went out for a walk one day and stumbles across the small 'downtown' area, which included a stereo shop. The owner was in there, and he spent a few minutes welcoming me and telling me a little about his shop. There was a single system set up (lots of equipment on display on shelves around the side walls). The speakers were ones he had made, and I learned later in life they were infinite baffle. He sat me down in the single chair and put on an album. It was Dark Side of the Moon, which I did not know much about at the time. That system blew me away. I had never heard a stereo sound that good, and the bass literally had the cuffs of my pants moving. I had to get up after a couple songs and turn down the volume, as I was getting overwhelmed. I always turned our home all-in-one up to '11', but that produced NOTHING like this system. I started buying my own stereo stuff a year or so later, had a system when I headed to college. I upgraded/ expanded while in college using money from summer jobs. Once I graduated I slowly built a nice system of separates. Most pieces lasted me 20-30 years.
If they sat through a couple songs from that CD I was happy to return the favor by listening afterward to some of their recommendations.My first real hi-fi experience was about 15, when I spent a week at my aunt's house in NJ. I went out for a walk one day and stumbles across the small 'downtown' area, which included a stereo shop. The owner was in there, and he spent a few minutes welcoming me and telling me a little about his shop. There was a single system set up (lots of equipment on display on shelves around the side walls). The speakers were ones he had made, and I learned later in life they were infinite baffle. He sat me down in the single chair and put on an album. It was Dark Side of the Moon, which I did not know much about at the time. That system blew me away. I had never heard a stereo sound that good, and the bass literally had the cuffs of my pants moving. I had to get up after a couple songs and turn down the volume, as I was getting overwhelmed. I always turned our home all-in-one up to '11', but that produced NOTHING like this system. I started buying my own stereo stuff a year or so later, had a system when I headed to college. I upgraded/ expanded while in college using money from summer jobs. Once I graduated I slowly built a nice system of separates. Most pieces lasted me 20-30 years.
Listen to the black keys, nine inch nails, rage against the machine. They scale well to good equipment.
Goodness. Uh, there's a lot. I'll try to cover a variety, some intimate, some bombastic, and see if I can provide links to a recording, but keep in mind that whatever I link to might be compressed as ****.
Mother Nature's Son, Beatles, Anthology 3 version
Planet Dada (Flamboyant), Yello
Poem of Chinese Drums, Hok-man Yim. Be careful with this one... really.
Tin Pan Alley, SRV
Give it up to love, Mighty Sam
Scheherazade, Op. 35: I. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship, Rimsky-Korsakov. CSO/Fritz Reiner
Stimela (the Coal Train), Hugh Masekela. Sure to drive industry folks crazy if they have to listen to it again, but a stunning recording
I'm an old cowhand, Sonny Rollins
Rosa Parks, Outcast
Suite For Solo Cello No.1 In G Major, JS Bach, Janos Starker
1B, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor
High Life, Domnerus, etc Another one that an industry person wouldn't want to hear again.
Watermelon Man, Herbie Hancock
Oh Holy Night/Christmas Song. Wait for the chorus. Have literally had people fall out of their chair in front of 6 figure systems
Chan chan, Buena Vista Social Club
Untitled (How does it feel?), D'Angelo
Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
Layla (MTV Unplugged), Eric Clapton
Rondo à la Turk, Brubeck Quartet
Madness, Muse
Sail, AWOLNATION
Good intentions, Lyle Lovett
Georgia on my mind, Marie Nakamoto
Oh yeah, Moby
Okay, I've killed enough time for now.
The mtv unplugged ones usually sound abysmal, the clapton one is an exception?
HRC_64
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parbaked
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The '93 Nirvana unplugged is epic...
Muddy Waters- The Folk Singer
many blues recordings sound incredible, especially ones featuring amplified harmonica.
i fell asleep within first 5 seconds lol
What??? No effing way is that 27 years old! You take that back!
He died in '94!
What??? No effing way is that 27 years old! You take that back!
Garner Harrison
Well-Known Member
Earlier in the thread I thought I would be buying the Focal Clears but I change my mind like I often do and instead got myself a speaker setup. I thought it would of been silly of me to buy a $1200 pair of cans while I still had logitech speakers So I did some research and found the Micca MB42x was highly rated for the price and got those, speaker stands and some nice cables for it. Im going to use my Schiit Magni/Modi for the speakers and buying a balanced dac/amp for my headphones.
Thanks for people recommending me headphones and giving me advice on this thread!
So I did some research and found the Micca MB42x was highly rated for the price and got those, speaker stands and some nice cables for it. Im going to use my Schiit Magni/Modi for the speakers and buying a balanced dac/amp for my headphones.Thanks for people recommending me headphones and giving me advice on this thread!
Indeed.. I was really just being smug.Ah, yes ... this is the key part of answer
Michi
I dislike attempts to rewrite history
One of the best pieces of music in the the history of music. Not quite up there with Dark Side of the Moon, or Black Dog, or Beethoven's Fifth, but close.
