I don't like to consider myself an Audiophile (and I really don't think I would classify as one anyways) but I don't understand why people are okay with paying hundreds of dollars (sometimes over $1,000) on HD TVs and yet stick with free headphones or cheap speakers. I personally think I listen to music more than I watch TV shows or movies - and I reckon this is true for many others as well. Why don't other people spend money on good sound equipment to have a better listening experience?
For example, I have a pair of Sennheiser HD600s which MSRP at about $400 I think. My friends find this ridiculous. I also have a $100 amp and a $70 DAC. So I've spend almost $600 on this audio equipment. I bought these 2.5 years ago and don't plan on replacing them any time soon (definitely content with what I have).
I don't really expect my friends to immediately plunge into what I have ($600) but they could try out a more 'beginner' pair like Sennheiser HD 555s which cost like $120.
$120 is, I think, more than reasonable for the sound difference you'd get using those headphones. Those are what I had prior to my HD 600s for close to five years and then decided I wanted to try something even better.
I suppose some of my friends HAVE spent ~$100 on Beats headphones, though this just makes me sad as they're complete crap compared to other headphones you could get for $100.
I dunno. I'm not trying to sound like I'm ranting but I do find it interesting that so many people find it wasteful to spend money on audio equipment when they spend so much time listening to music.
I cannot understand this myself. I mean, why pay thousands of dollars for HD TVs, period.
As for the cheap headphones part, who cares. They like the beat and the feeling of the music, not the details and the subtlety of the recording.
That's why they don't listen to jazz or classical that much.
What exactly musical subtlety do you miss on Justin Bieber, Metallica, Hip Hop, Skillrex, 99% of what passes for R&B today etc, by using cheap headphones? You'll miss some low-fi sampled, bit-crushed drum loops? Two-note synth motifs?
Can you get a good HD TV for less than "hundreds of dollars" (not sure where the limit is, $199?) that is any good, though?
Sure, there are cheap TVs. The cheapest LED TV in the 40-44 range on Amazon is $349, and it's some cheap no-name brand I have never heard of. It's probably not very good.
Of course, most people probably don't know much about what differentiates TV quality. I frequently see people watch horribly badly calibrated TVs (with things like motion smoothing turned on), and I frequently see people watch non-widescreen broadcasts stretched to 16:9. Whenever I ask, they say they don't see any difference, and some people even get upset when I offer to fix the settings.
Because you can't find HD TVs that cost under "hundreds of dollars"? :D
I don't watch TV that much, and bought a cheap 32" LCD for some videogaming + developing interactive applications for which I need a large screen, and had to pay ~$350 for it.
It sucks that your friends make you feel bad for things you enjoy!
The new Apple Earpods are acceptable though (compared to the Sennheiser 429 I own which are too big to wear in public).
Now, something like the Sony MDR-7506 has an excellent performance-vs-price ratio, but many people want to stuff their headphones in their pocket when they aren't using them, and it is hard to find the same performance-vs-price ratio for earbuds.
Personally, I'm at roughly the same spot as you. I have a DAC and amp, and two pairs of nice Senns.
It also explains why only nerds like listening to breakcore.
Do you have any source that refers to such a thing as "synchronization of brain sectors" that leads to "refined, less fuzzy thinking"?
This may not tell the whole story, but I believe it's a strong component, particularly given the historical relationship between religion and music.
[1]: http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/
There used to be a great Wikipedia page on it, but the deletionists got to it at some point and turned it into this content free page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_chill
There's a slowly growing body of studies into it.
There's also a reddit devoted to it http://www.reddit.com/r/frisson but I've found that what causes one person to frisson doesn't necessarily cause another.
This book has a bit on it http://books.google.com/books?id=uyI_Cb8olkMC&lpg=PR5...
I have sobbed to so many shitty movies, that I have lost count.
I mean, we are invariably worse singers so it surely makes it sound worse and this is besides the fact that signing ourselves drowns out much of the original sound anyway!
(Note: this is not to say I'm a silent listener, i'm a big fan of singing to myself ! :)
But not everyone has that musical background, so maybe not everyone is so compelled as you or me to sing along.
I like Chesterton's quote on the issue: "Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest".
See, this "I make the song worse" is a total cultural distortion, a byproduct of the rise of "specialists" (singers, artists, athletes) which other people passively admire.
In past human culture, for example, singing is a shared community experience that belongs to everyone, and all participate in. It doesn't matter if you do it better or worse than somebody else, because the joy is in doing it, and in the participation.
And why do we choose to sing or hum that tune?
> After Salimpoor had the car epiphany, she rushed home to her computer and Googled “music and the brain.”
Some interesting points/arguments that I remember from reading it several years ago:
- In many languages, the word "sing" is the same as the word "dance".
- It's relatively recently in our history that the majority of people have become only listeners of music, instead of creators.
- As humans evolved, one's ability to sing, dance, and play instruments well displayed good physical, intellectual, and emotional health to the opposite sex, and so gave you an evolutionary edge.
- Something about how even the most non-musically-inclined people can extract the beat from a song better than a computer and repeat it later perfectly (memory is hazy on this one...I'm probably saying something stupid here).
That's all I remember for now...references are in the book of course. Very good read.
Summary of the article: http://tldr.io/tldrs/516bfd54649fcf9e0a000de0/why-does-music...
I wonder if we all get beginners templates of what we will like via our gene pool :-)
There were more than one version of a few songs, and I couldn't cross-reference the audio on the researcher's site. I'll do it tonight, unless anyone gets to it before I.
Just noticed #4 swapped artist and title.
