Listening to music

[Brian37]

Vulcanlogician's recent thread on trippy music, made me wonder not so much what most of you listen to as much as how you listen to it. Are you playing back crappy MP3's on your iPhone with a pair of cheap ear buds? Do you have a nice DAC decoding high resolution audio files through expensive headphones, or maybe vinyl via an old Mcintosh tube amp driving a pair of $15,000 Martin Logans? I'm asking because it makes a big difference. Some of you may not realize how much of a difference if you have never experienced anything but your iPhone and ear buds.

Once upon a time I had a nice stereo system. Pioneer separates including an equalizer and reverb pushing a pair of JBL 4312 monitors. Too many parties, too many moves, and not enough appreciation for what I had meant it didn't last long though. Eventually I replaced it with a surround sound system. I'm now on my third generation of surround sound which works great for watching movies, but just wasn't cutting it for listening to music. So much so that it was rare when I listened to music at home.

I recently decided fuck that. I want to listen to music again. So now I have a decent 2-channel audio system again. Which much to Karen's chagrin, required moving a bunch of furniture around to make it sound right. But now I can listen to my music the way it was intended to sound. I can hear things I didn't notice before. The soundstage in the sweet spot is perfect. I can close my eyes and hear the base player standing to left of the singer with the guitarist on the right and the drums behind. It's music like I remember it and I'm enjoying it a lot more than I have in years.

I used to have an old mid to late 1970s  tube receiver, with a partially wooden case, and heavy dials and switches. I also had a full metal equalizer( most likely early 80s) with 12 sliders basically 6 channels for each speaker. Had gigantic tower speakers the size of the twin towers. I used the thickest gauge copper speaker wires too. Had an old turntable and a 6 cd changer hooked up to the receiver. 

That old system was so powerful you could use it for sound propulsion.

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^^^^^^^ This is a real stereo receiver.