They weren’t kidding when Warner Brothers said they couldn’t release audiophile CDs to the general public.\u00c2\u00a0 The level is ASTOUNDINGLY low.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got plenty of power, but I’ve never cranked my computer speakers that loud.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve got great computer speakers (AUX).\u00c2\u00a0 But I wasn’t wowed.<\/p>\n
I wanted to write and tell you how fucking great CDs without compression were.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead I’m gonna write how great VINYL is!<\/p>\n
I blew the dust off my Technics turntable and checked the strobe, locking in the correct speed.\u00c2\u00a0 And then placed the needle on side two of the Mudcrutch album, to hear "Crystal River".\u00c2\u00a0 It was quiet.\u00c2\u00a0 Ah, that level problem.<\/p>\n
Now I’m still using the old JBL studio monitors.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought of upgrading, but I’ve yet to be able to justify the multi-thousand dollar expense.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m mostly listening on my computer speakers.\u00c2\u00a0 And so often to compressed files.\u00c2\u00a0 This is all to say that I don’t have a subwoofer.\u00c2\u00a0 But, there was suddenly this ooze all over the floor of my house.\u00c2\u00a0 The same one that permeated the environment when I used to play "Long Time Gone" on that first Crosby, Stills & Nash album.\u00c2\u00a0 You know how you feel the bass, how it locates somewhere between your gut and your genitalia?\u00c2\u00a0 How it makes you feel like you’re truly at the live show?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the sound I’ve got right now in my house.<\/p>\n
Then there was that organ.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t hear the organ before.\u00c2\u00a0 Or at least didn’t notice it.<\/p>\n
And when the piano plays, I can SEE IT!<\/p>\n
And Mike Campbell’s fingers.\u00c2\u00a0 I notice them moving when he bends the notes.<\/p>\n
And Tom himself.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like him.\u00c2\u00a0 Like he’s inside the speaker, singing solely to me.<\/p>\n
It sounds like…music.<\/p>\n
I’ve got this Sony CD player…\u00c2\u00a0 You put a weight on the disc.\u00c2\u00a0 The lens doesn’t move, but the CD itself.\u00c2\u00a0 You can hear the difference.\u00c2\u00a0 I loaded the commercial Mudcrutch CD.<\/p>\n
After turning the music down, I noticed that the sound wasn’t radically different, not at first.\u00c2\u00a0 Then what impressed me most was the clarity.\u00c2\u00a0 The music was sharp, but I didn’t feel it.<\/p>\n
I felt the audiophile CD.\u00c2\u00a0 But it wasn’t warm.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a silicone tit, not the real thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Real boobs sag.\u00c2\u00a0 The girls think we hate this. Along with stretchmarks and that roll of fat around their middle.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas this makes girls real.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re built with a higher percentage of body fat.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re made to give birth, to nurture.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’d want to sleep with a ten year old boy?\u00c2\u00a0 A STARVING ten year old boy?<\/p>\n
A woman built for the media orders a salad and picks at it.\u00c2\u00a0 A real woman savors her food, she evidences sensuality.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that’s hard to see, but all men pick up on.\u00c2\u00a0 The same way it’s hard to quantify why vinyl sounds so much better than CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 You just FEEL IT!<\/p>\n
I’m convinced we’ve got this rhythmic music dominating the charts today because acoustic music, music with dynamic range, sounds so shitty on CD.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to drop the needle on a vinyl record as I took a shower back in the eighties.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to "Crystal River" brings me right back to those days.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I’m not alone in the house.<\/p>\n
Vinyl is not coming back.\u00c2\u00a0 Sales are anemic despite the cheerleaders fueling the press and the indie stores employing it as a profit center.\u00c2\u00a0 But vinyl is not the only way to listen to quality sound.\u00c2\u00a0 DVD-A and SACD were pretty good.\u00c2\u00a0 But they lost because not only were they overpriced, they were sold as surround media…\u00c2\u00a0 WHICH THE CONSUMER DOESN’T WANT OR NEED!<\/p>\n
Two channel is enough.<\/p>\n
Compressed files are portable, but can’t we have something better to tote around?<\/p>\n
In order to truly hear the Mudcrutch vinyl album I’ve got to crank it.\u00c2\u00a0 The louder it gets, the more the music unfolds.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like I’ve lifted a curtain on the musicians inside the speakers.<\/p>\n
And as it gets louder, the sound envelops me.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no longer background.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like getting high.\u00c2\u00a0 You know you’re on the drug.\u00c2\u00a0 But no drug is as good as music.\u00c2\u00a0 Nothing can transport you so far, make you feel so good without fucking you up.<\/p>\n
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They weren’t kidding when Warner Brothers said they couldn’t release audiophile CDs to the general public.\u00c2\u00a0 The level is ASTOUNDINGLY low.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got plenty of power, but I’ve never cranked my computer speakers that loud.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve got great computer speakers (AUX).\u00c2\u00a0 But I wasn’t wowed. I wanted to write and tell you how fucking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-q8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1620\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}