Archive for the 'Cbuck posts' Category
i realized recently, that i wasn’t enjoying music as much as i did when i was younger. i’m not one of those boneheads that moans and complains that, “music is dead. it’s over. music used to be good, but now it’s just crap!” i believe, no, i know there’s plenty of great music out there that’s just waiting for me to discover it and i’ll keep looking. but, this isn’t about that silly argument. this is about my listening habits of late. i’ve been listening to a lot of music, HOWEVER, i fell into the trap of listening to my gear. i would carefully select only source material that i thought would sound good on my system. back in the day when i worked in record stores, i grabbed whatever music was laying around in the promotional boxes. i read all the magazines and reviews in the newspaper and listened to the radio hoping to hear something new. (this was before two or three companies owned all the stations and they have no desire to play anything other than the most popular drivel. that’s the stuff that the, “there’s no good music,” people are complaining about.) i went to other record stores and even stereo shops to see what they were spinning to get people interested, not to mentioned checking out the record, tape and cd collection of every person i knew. all this is to say, that i listened to whatever caught my attention, and if it sounded good (quality recordings), that was a bonus! i was always interested in getting better equipment that would make my music sound better; even though i couldn’t afford anything because i worked in a record store, but i never chose the music just because i hoped it had good sonic quality. i just aquired it and listened.over the past few months, i began picking music that i already knew sounded great. it was only the best recorded and engineered and produced music by only the most proficient artists. subsequently, there was very little new music and little of the music that i’d formerly enjoyed just because i liked the songs. this was beginning to depress me. now, enter the new maggies (previous post). i’ve been listening to everything i own and loving it. yes, admittedly, it’s mostly due to the novelty of owning what are ostensibly my dream speakers (unless i win the lottery. there’s a bigger pair of maggies i wouldn’t mind having). but, i have been completely enraptured by the music i’ve heard over the past few days. this evening i’ve listened to sharon jones (lp), fiona apple’s tidal and her second release extraordinary machine (both cd’s), a couple art blakey records (lp’s), rachmaninoff’s piano concerto no. 2 also on vinyl and i’m currently listening to sugarcubes cd, stick around for joy. i haven’t heard this in years and it’s just as fun and enjoyable as ever! (bonus: it sounds really good.) this is what i miss about listening to music, the joy of listening.so, i guess thanks to the new maggies, the listener has returned. time to buy more music. when nuprin boy gets out here to the coast, that’s exactly what we’re gonna do.
crap. i just bought new speakers and i’m pretty broke. oh well, happy listening.
Tags: threetwostudio.com/TYMPANIC/?p=87
so i’ve spent some time, here and there, listening to music on my budget audiophile system: onix a-2150 dual mono amp, nad 314 integrated amp (as a preamp), harman kardon hd7500 cd, rega p1 tt and my pride, a pair of magnepan mmg’s. sounds great with most music, which includes everything i listen to, but i was always wanting to upgrade somewhere. the first thing i did was change the stock cartridge on the turn table (ortofone om-5 to rega bias 2). nice upgrade on the turn table, but i still felt i was lacking the complete full sound i like. don’t get me wrong, the little “budget” maggies were great, as was the onix (though i thought it lacked punch) and the cd player is a hold over from the 80’s and still kicks much butt. but, i just wasn’t hearing all i wanted to hear. i decided i was gonna take the plunge and get a new power amp, no a new integrated amp and lose the onix and nad. then i thought, what about upgrading the speakers? i love the sound of magnepan magneplaners, so i looked at the mg 12’s and considered the mg 1.6qr’s. they were a grand and two grand respectively. so back to considering an amp, or an integrated.after a couple of weeks of waffling this way and that, i committed to the speakers. no, the amp. well, the integrated… you get the picture. then the stars aligned. i made my first ebay purchase with the help of nuprin boy. (i’m afraid to by things through ebay, audiogon and worse, craig’s list.) but, together we closed the deal and i’m now the proud owner of…
a great pair of magnepan mg 1.6 qr’s.turns out the onix amp has plenty of punch. i’ve found the sound i was chasing. but, now i have a new problem. i’m addicted to listening to music again. other than bathroom breaks, and work today, i’ve been listening to everything! at this point, i’m just grabbing cd’s and records off the shelf and putting them on and enjoying the hell out of it! (note the dust on the speaker feet. i haven’t even cleaned them up yet.) i just can’t stop listening and enjoying the sound of the music.
performance: it’s the stones
sound: shrill
mood: okay
Martin Scorsese’s Shine A Light entertains a bit, but ultimately doesn’t illuminate anything, least of all The Rolling Stones. It may be a film made for true fans by a true fan and I’m not. I like some Stones songs, but they’ve never hit me the way they hit others. The movie is categorized as a documentary. I guess it is if you’re using the old Blockbuster Video categories; It’s not a narrative film so therefore it’s a documentary. The only thing I found out about the stones was that they are old and still doing what they’ve been doing for 40 years and I ain’t knocking that. However, I’ve seen concert video of them before and the only thing this film brings to the table is a smaller venue and Martin Scorsese. There’s very little that makes this a cinematic experience beyond the editing (which was fairly typical for a concert film) and the sound editing (which was awful!). Continue reading ‘Shine A Light’
I used to think audiophiles were gear heads, and they (we) are. But I must say; after researching the camera market recently (I got a nice DSLR. I’m very happy), I’ve discovered that photography hobbyists, camera enthusiasts, prosumer shutterbugs are the biggest gear heads around. They make audio junkies look like sane people. When audiophiles talk about gear at least they include the music the gear makes. I mean, that’s always the point. But photo hobbyists may talk for an hour and never once reference a photograph. They quote stats with as much religious fervor as hardcore audiophiles do, however, they are also downright zealots when it comes to brands. Audio people will mix and match, try different combos of amps, preamps, turntables; different brands, etc. But camera gear heads are married to their brands. Admittedly, they have to be because so many things are proprietary. That said, Canonites can’t stand Nikonians and nobody likes the Pentaxians. I think a Canonite mother would disown her son if he brought home a Olympian girlfriend. I hear there’s trouble brewing between the Sigmarians and the Leicans. And did I mention nobody likes Pentaxians? It’s because they’re jealous of us. 
What happened? They used to be the baddest band in the land! Now, they’re one of the baddest bands in the land… And that last one is bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good. Now, they are this 
, and this ain’t good. With new singer (scratch that) Frontman, Toussaint, the band has lost it’s soul. Alan’s drums are lifeless and can only keep time. Neal’s hammond is dull and Krasno’s guitar is just boring. And to top it off, new lead singer Toussaint is looking to Michael Bolton for inspiration. But Bolton had some soul by comparison. I know you shouldn’t talk so badly about people you don’t know because you never know, you could meet them, but this album is unforgivable. If you want some soul in your Soulive, try one of their older albums 
Doin’ Something, 
Turn It Out, 
Soulive, or any of the Instant Live recordings (I prefer the 
Conga Room in Hollywood). Now that’s soul. This new stuff is… I don’t what know it is. Well, it inspired my little angry rant. It is good for that.
my dad loved to listen to music. more than listening, i think he loved to play music, to share it with other people. i’m not talking about just background noise the way most people use music, but he liked to sit with friends and family and really listen with them. he liked to talk about music, tell stories about the first time he heard something or what it meant to him; kind of like what we want to do here on tympanic.my dad was first and foremost a bluesman. he listened to pretty much everything, but the blues was in his soul. and when i say he listened to everything, i mean it. he was a major influence on me and how i listen to music. after i moved back to los angeles we would get together every couple of weeks and listen for some hours. we’d take turns playing music each other, hoping that the other one was enjoying it just as much. our favorite times were when we’d go down to tower records and later up to amoeba, spend a couple of hours looking and buying and then we’d go to his place sit and chill and listen to music until late in the night. it was one of those nights that my dad found out that his son liked a good single malt scotch, but that’s another story. Continue reading ‘the music man’
I got my first iPod (late bandwagon jumper), just after christmas 2004. It was a fourth generation clickwheel and boy, it changed my life. (Note: 5th gens with color screens came out in Feb 2005. Damn!) My music listening life anyway. I loved my iPod and never left home without it. Never. And when it died (yes, it died) in mid 2006, I was heartbroken. For a while, I used my wife’s iPod mini to feed my addiction. It died too. I believe it was only a battery issue, but as some of you may know, a battery issue on an iPod can be an ordeal. That and, maybe it was just an iPod.Before I got that first iPod, I was into making my own CDs. Not just putting iTunes playlists on CD, but making CDs the way I used to make tapes. Each song carefully chosen and then arranged for maximum impact, with each side, 1 & 2, paced to perfection. I didn’t see any need to have more than an hour of consistant programming at a time. “Who needs a hard disc in their pocket?” And just before I became a pod-person, I realized that my CDs were no longer the works of art they used to be. They had become random collections of random songs, not in any particular order and they had begun to pile up. I had heaps of unlabled, undefinable discs. Continue reading ‘disposable???’
fideliscopev posted a comment on the old soundworx site and since i don’t know how to move the comment directly, i’m posting it here:
I’ve heard those Magnepan mmg speakers. They are quite good for the money. What about your thoughts concerning the sound of your LPs versus the CDs? What are the strengths, and weaknesses of each in your experience?
the maggies are great for the money. in fact, for my experience, they’re great regardless of cost. i’d like a bigger or more solid bottom end, but i love the overall sound and find myself very satisfied and happy.
the lp vs. cd thing is always a sticky topic. kind of like mac vs. pc. i’m a biased mac guy, but i’m not quite as partisan when it comes to lp or cd. i lean toward lp’s, and when at home with my stereo, an lp is always my first choice. that said, i will listen to and enjoy a good cd. i only use a pc when there’s absolutely no other alternative and i dislike it the entire time. kind of naïve, but real.
over the past week or so, nuprin boy and i listened to a lot of music and during that time we were able to do a few a/b listening tests with the same source material on lp and cd. we listened to peter gabriel “so” and bettye lavette “i’ve got my own hell to raise”. what we noticed immediately was that the cd version of “so” sounded constricted; somewhat muffled compared to the open clarity of the lp. of course that’s not considering the “clicks”, “pops” and surface noise on the 21 year old vinyl. the instrumentation on the lp had a more unified sound, as if the music was recorded together as opposed to being recorded at different times and then cut and pasted together on a track. that last part may be in our collective heads, but that’s the sound we heard and i’m sticking to it. i’ll talk more about the bettye lavette at a later time, because it deserves it’s own post. Continue reading ‘comment on gear’
i heard a few new things this past holiday week(end) and they were great. i may go into detail about each complete work later on, but for now i just want to mention them. the first is “ping-pong” from the ugetsu album; art blakey, 1963 recorded live at birdland. the whole album is incredible, but ping-pong is blakey at his best and the rest of the band is right there with him. the sound is incredible.the second new thing is the discovery (for me) of bettye lavette. after hearing both her 1969-1970 album “do your duty” and 2005’s cover album “i’ve got my own hell to raise,” i absolutely cannot believe her’s is not a household name in the world of r&b, soul and rock & roll. what an amazing voice. i can’t wait to talk in depth about this amazing singer.the third work is the score to gladiator; hans zimmer, 2000. specifically tracks 1 thru 3. this is an amazing piece of music. like most symphonic scores composed for heroic action movies, it borrows heavily from holst’s mars, the bringer of war, but this thing gets downright exciting. and the sound… incredibly detailed, dynamic and mind blowing.well, those were three of the great musical experiences i had this past week. there’s more to talk about, but that will come in later posts. Oh yeah, a quick mention about something else i heard; betty davis! a funk-rock fusion queen from the 70’s. i didn’t remember her and that was a loss for me. i can’t wait to dive into this one.
just for fun, i want to list the last 5 songs (currently playing) from my itunes library which is shuffling away.
current song: how soon is now - snake river conspiracy (good cover)
previous cut: love - the cult (one of my favorites)
before that: sweet lucy - the propositions (where did all the funk bands go? this is music!)
earlier: creeping death - metallica (ahh, the glory days)
first song: bulls on parade - rage against the machine (always a good pick me up)
bonus cut after how soon is now; black sweat - prince. (he’s almost back!)
i can’t wait to sit down a listen to a full album on the stereo. but the computer and the hk soundsticks are working just fine right now.
let it play!
Doin’ Something, 
Turn It Out, 
Soulive,
Conga Room