Re: 5 Things AppleTV needs to be a MUST BUY by Apple Gazette

[Charlton Wilbur]

On Apr 7, 2007, at 12:50 PM, Matt Johnston wrote:

>
> On 7 Apr 2007, at 16:40, LuKreme wrote:
>
>> but does it sound like you are sitting in the audience?  Unlikely.
>
> You say that like it's a bad thing.
>
> By this argument the whole "digital" thing is a crock. The  
> unfortunate thing is that the "music snobs" are not harping on  
> about the good old days of CD rather than the good old days of  
> analog or even the actual good old days of "being there".

They're not music snobs, they're audiophiles -- it has nothing to do  
with music and everything to do with stereo equipment.  The worst of  
them forget that they're listening to *music*, in their focus on  
sound quality.  But without the reference point of what it's  
*supposed* to sound like, how do you know what music quality is?

I respect that in recent years popular music has turned towards  
attractive nothings that need extensive sweetening to be heard:  they  
can't sing the same note reliably twice, and so their performance is  
heavily edited digitally and their concerts are largely lip-synched,  
which nobody notices because of all the attractive nearly-naked  
dancers on stage and because the actual talent of the singer is  
irrelevant to the cultural practices surrounding manufactured pop  
stars.  But this style of music is a passing phase, made possible by  
the existence of record company behemoths that can throw enough  
marketing dollars at a pretty face and tight body to manufacture a  
hit singer for a few months.

Reproducing the sound quality of being right in the room with the  
performer -- remember "is it live or is it Memorex?" -- is one of the  
goals of a good audio system.  The "digital thing" is not a crock,  
but, like all other recordings, it's an approximation.  This is why a  
music lover will choose a poor recording of a great performance, but  
an audiophile will choose a recording that reproduces well on his  
equipment.

Charlton






-- 
Charlton Wilbur
cwilbur at gmail.com