September playlist ONE
August 28th, 2007 by Nuprin Boy
The first weekly playlist for our two readers.
Archive for August, 2007
the music man
August 18th, 2007 by CBuck
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’
Vinyl pains
August 15th, 2007 by Nuprin Boy
Several weeks ago fideliscopev put forth the question: “What about your thoughts concerning the sound of your LPs versus the CDs? What are the strengths, and weaknesses of each in your experience?”
I’ve been wanting to put my two cents in about that for a while now (and will soon) but tonight I wanted to share my frustration with buying new vinyl.
I mentioned earlier that I finally have a “system” capable of of vinyl playback. So for the past couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning records and listening to a bit of my old collection. My musical tastes are varied and my collection of records shows that in terms of genre, artists and the records themselves. The records have come from may places: thrift stores, the interweb, friends, record stores and things I’ve held onto since junior high school. Of course the packaging and sleeves are in various stages of disrepair (I’m more of a record listener than a record collector) but the vinyl inside is usually in good to excellent shape (even some of my discs from the 80s). generally speaking, the vinyl I have is clean, heavy and quiet. While I do have some discs from the 50s and 60s that have a bit of wear, they still are completely listenable.
So when I ventured looking for new vinyl I was pleasantly surprised to see 180, 200 gm vinyl from so many different labels. I’m glad that the vinyl “rebirth” that’s been going on for the past few years has finally hit the mainstream. Unfortunately hitting the mainstream seems to mean lack of quality control from some vendors. Continue reading ‘Vinyl pains’
disposable???
August 3rd, 2007 by CBuck
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???’
little wonder
August 2nd, 2007 by Nuprin Boy
I’ve been living in NYC for a year now, with no “real” stereo to speak of. I still have equipment, but most of it is boxed up and still in New Orleans. Some of it has found a new home at CBuck’s place; other pieces are scattered throughout the country. Frankly, my space is too small for a “proper” set up. So I have been listening to music via my ipod and computer on my trusty Grado SR 80s and shure E3. While it was alright for a while, having to be plugged up and linked to my’pod got old pretty fast. So, last fall I went on the prowl for some music friendly powered speakers.
I needed small, versatile and self powered because I don’t have room for a traditional setup. I wanted to be able o hook up an ipod, my computer and somewhere down the line my turntable. A tall order, I know, but since the ipod created a market for self powered speakers (that weren’t of the studio monitor variety), I thought: “how hard could it be, I live in New York City after all.” Well, extremely hard actually. I went listening knowing full well that is IMPOSSIBLE to find a powered speaker that would be as good as my old spica-tc 50s, but I wasn’t looking for perfection; I just wanted musicality and listen-ability (some imaging and soudstaging would be nice too). They didn’t have to play loud, but some mass to the sound would be welcome. Most of all, they had to simply not wear me out- not too much coloring of the sound. Continue reading ‘little wonder’
