What are you listening to...RIGHT NOW?

[po-m]

That was the worst thing ever, and I don't just mean in music. Why is my nose bleeding?

[consider us dead]

2 nights ago.

I'm still recovering

[heartbreak]

[fearful_syzygy]

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette — “Sorcery I” (1975)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=gEeHI4uRJsg

So, apparently "this UMG music-content is not available" in my area "because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights". Which means I have no way of being certain that that link actually is to the track I'm listening to...RIGHT NOW. But if it sounds like Abercrombie shredding like a mofo while Holland and DeJohnette lay down an outrageous groove in the background, it's probably not far off.

[fearful_syzygy]

[cohdey]

Been a long while since I've been on here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLo0N...e_gdata_player

Enjoy.

[fearful_syzygy]

[consider us dead]

[Admiral_Shanks]

Pretty much on repeat.

[Ellimist]

An American classic.

[LJonesy]

Why I always end up listening to this on repeat well after midnight, i'll never know...

[JaneEyreZH]

Daft Punk "Human After All/ Together/ One More Time/ ..." from Alive2007.

[nbora]

I am listening to some party songs right now just to hype up my mood since i have been very down lately.
I also like listening to some instrumental music. I have been downloading this super cool pianists in iTunes and she is really good.. She transforms modern songs into piano instrumentals. It helps me think and concentrate every time i listen to those kinds of music.

[modiFIed]

Hey, that's fascinating robot stuff nbora!

So anyway, is anybody else fed up with what the electronics industry calls "loudspeakers" these days?

I was, so I did something about it.

It seems the industry has given up on the average Joe. Your choices boil down to 2 - either you spend a small fortune on actual loudspeakers (e.g. Isophons or something) and enjoy music as it was meant to be heard, or you go to the Best Buy and get some crap setup involving two satellites for mid and highs, and a powered subwoofer for the bass.

Or, worse, you just listen to everything on your TV-based Sony "surround" system.

The reason is that these crap-o systems satisfy most tin-eared folks out there in terms of hearing what they consider to be the musical spectrum. "Hey," they are thinking, "I can hear the screaching guitars AND the thumping bass, so this must be a good system."

Of course, there's another entire piece of it - the midrange. In any event, you just don't get good mids and highs out of these little plastic boxes. Nor is there any cooperation between them and the sub to actually re-create the recording with true fidelity.

And definition? Separation? Detail? Sonic placement? Full-range frequency response? Forget about it.

Add to that the fact that most people now are listening to compressed, thin versions of recorded music on MP3, and you have a recipe for tonal mediocrity.

So the other day I got my priorities straight, drove out to the middle of Bumfuck, NW (Nowhere), and bought a pair of pristine Bose 901 Series Direct Reflecting loudspeakers, complete with dedicated equalizer, for a ridiculously low price.

Thanks, Bush-era Great Recession! Formerly middle class folks are unloading their high-end gear at bargain basement prices!

Now, there are various schools of thought on the 901s. Purists pooh-pooh them, because in effect they have only one speaker - a 4-inch driver. No woofer, no tweeter. But here's the thing - each cabinet has nine of them. So that's 18 in all. Eighteen drivers. That's fifteen more than I had before.

So sure, if you've got 20 grand sitting around, skip the 901s and get some Isophon Berlina Series mega-reference speakers.

Mr. Bose thought that by suspending and mounting the many drivers just so, and designing the cabinet so that eight of the drivers angle the sound to the back wall behind the speaker (with one forward driver - this gives them that 'pentagon' shape), the mix of forward and 'reflected' sound, as modeled by the custom-designed EQ, more than makes up for the shortcomings of the individual driver's design and fills the room with what he called "stereo everywhere".

Yeah he was right.

So I got them home and hooked them up - addmittedly a complex task involving running the EQ through the receiver's tape monitor loop - and threw on Boards of Canada's Campfire Headphase album.

It was like listening to music for the first time - I mean for real. I literally heard parts of the music that I did not know existed. I heard sonic definition and stereo separation I did not think was possible to reproduce in my home. The frequencies were so perfectly balanced - this is the first time I've listened to my system with the Loudness button turned off (for any who do not know, the Loudness button compensates for blah speakers by boosting the lows and highs, creating a sort of 'fake' richness and complexity to the sound). The bass was impeccable - not too much, not 'booming' like some Encino low rider, but definitely enough and, importantly, what was intended by the recording artist. The highs were crisp and sweet, like they were floating in the air. And the mids - they were there! Right there in the middle of the room! Absolute hussy mids marching right through the middle of the room all sassy and shit!

Ah, so I proceeded to listen to all kinds of stuff in order to hear what I'd been missing all these years, from classical to jazz. Wow. I cranked it and filled the place with noise - the 901s specs rather famously list the RMS input wattage rating at 'unlimited', and this is apparently true* - until I could see the cats wincing and the windows shaking.

I am officially in musical heaven, looking down on the iPod mortals below. If you love music and have $500 or so to spend, I recommend scouring your local Craigs list or Ebay and getting yourself some before all the good ones are gone.

*The original 901 series - which is what I now have - was introduced around 1968, when the most powerful amps around topped out at about 250 watts RMS. Later, with the introduction of the big killer amps, Bose published a maximum RMS input rating for the 901s of 270 watts and peak power handling of 400 watts (five-second continuous signal). I have an amp that is rated at 50 watts RMS per channel, so I'm good unless I want to destroy my city with sonic waves.

[po-m]

I also like to listen to music because it is enjoyable to me.

[modiFIed]

I also like to listen to music because it is enjoyable to me.

Let me guess - your favorite single is 'We Are the Robots' by Kraftwerk, and your favorite album is 'Mr. Roboto' by Styx.

どうもありがとうミスターロボット and to you Ms. Po-m, for helping me escape (when I needed to).

[LJonesy]

[Slow Dog Noodle]

[The Truth]

Fiona Apple's Tidal for me.

Before this was Holy Noise From Above by Haika.

Both great albums.

[mafleeted]

The new Japandroids album, Celebration Rock.

It's awesome, I love it.

[consider us dead]

Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Stare

[if_iHad_a_gun]

fall at your feet by boy and bear. and, if having songs stuck in your head counts, somebody that i used to know by gotye.

[Funes]

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Only discovered this band and album a couple of months ago. I am glad I have.

[consider us dead]

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

Only discovered this band and album a couple of months ago. I am glad I have.

One of my favourite albums of all time.

I was fortunate enough to catch Jeff Mangum in Islington earlier this year.

My mind was blown.

[benedict]

An Awesome Wave by Alt-J

[modiFIed]

Ahhh...the peacocks.

[Slow Dog Noodle]

Just Amazon Primed a few CDs. Yeah, I still buy Cds.

John Zorn - Gnostic Preludes - Awesome. I love Bill Frisell & Kenny Wollenson and the instrumentation on this album is fantastic. Guitar, harp and vibes. Very melodic and a bit spooky. Zorn's putting out a lot of material these days, and most of it is top shelf.

Grateful Dead - 7-7-89 - Bought the box set so I could get the concert DVD. I prefer earlier Dead but there's some gems here. What I really want is that Europe '72 box set.

Phish - Chicago '94 - A couple of '94 shows that really rip. If you like Phish these are a must. If you don't you probably never will but imo you're missing out on a goofy band full of really good players. There arent many people in the world that can play their instruments like they did in the early 90s. Much less write those songs.

Oren Blowdow - Luckiest Boy in the World -Pretty good. A bit poppy, but I bought it for the back-up band.

Bartok - Piano Concertos 1, 2 & 3. Great work music. And the old lady listnes to classical too, so I can play this at home.

[LJonesy]

[benedict]

[heartbreak]