Any Music GEEKS/ENTHUSIASTS/AUDIOPHILES out there???

[Blue Meanie]

Recent threads here on Greatest Bands/Greatest songs etc. have made me wonder about the Music Geeks here on the Museum. I am a MUSIC GEEK!!! There, I said it and I'm proud of it. I went to Five Towns College for Audio Engineering and Music Business. Unfortunately and fortunately I never ended up in the industry...but I've had a fascination with music since I was about 12 years old. The Engineering work that I did while I was in college made me have an even more appreciation for different aspects of music...especially the production side. It also helped me appreciate the other genres of music...especially Jazz and classical music.

Anyway, the reason why I started this thread is to see if there are others out there that realise that CD's and Digital music isn't as GREAT as they are made out to be. I'll give an example:

Recently bought an ION turntable (I wished these would have been out BEFORE I started replacing my vinyl on CD...would have cut my spending by at least half if not 3/4...I have probably more than 1000 CD's in my music library) and tonight I decided to pull out my vinyl copy of The Firm (Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers) and test my ear to see if what I was hearing was in fact what I was hearing. Now I know that the music industry makes money over and over again by re-mastering CD's...but something wasn't sitting right with me. I put the copy of The Firm vinyl on the turntable and I feed it into the computer. Clean up the small static that I hear and that's it...no EQ and NO COMPRESSION, which is what the program suggests. I then proceed to burn CD of what I just took off of the vinyl/album. I bring the CD upstairs to a better stereo system and put the original CD that I have of The Firm...sounds blah with no "Punch" to it. I then put in the CD that I just burned from vinyl, the one with no EQ and NO COMPRESSION, and all I have to say is WOW!!!! My vinyl sounds better than my original CD did. And all of this was played on just a average sound system. I had a feeling that was true...but really haven't tested the theory until now.

Anyone else out there a Music GEEK??!!??

[megoat]

I am, of course, an obsessive "music geek" and have been my whole life. Records have been my fixation since I was 5 years old. I have a general appreciation for most forms of music but will plead ignorant when it comes to certain kinds--classical being the one that springs to mind first....I am mostly interested in things I have not heard before and am constantly seeking to challenge myself as a listener. The manner in which music interplays with my imagination is what is most exciting and intoxicating.

Currently I am dangerously absorbed with esoteric/fringe recordings from the 60's and 70's commonly referred to as "private press" or "vanity press" records. These have been on my radar for many years, but it has only been recently that I have immersed myself wholly into this kooky loopy world. Essentially these were records that were financed by the artists themselves and self released without virtually any significant distribution. Given to friends and family. Sold at gigs. Maybe sold on consignment at local stores. Because these records are void of conventional methods of manufacture (no "filtration" via record label honchos or any rational concern for a commercial audience), they are often bizarre statements of intense personal expression.

I have a general aversion to most "popular" music. I find most of it unimaginative and dull. Of course there are many exceptions (I mean, I love Dylan and the Beatles and the Kinks etc etc.)......But after, say, by the mid 70's or so, most Top 40/Billboard/major label stuff just really, really blows, IMO.....

I'm not really an "audiophile" per se, but I do require a decent sound system for my listening sessions. I spend much time on the headphones and finally bought a decent pair this year! I am a vinyl enthusiast--mainly because many, many records have never been available in other formats (and most likely never will be!). I also just prefer the format--the sound, the division of "sides", the big attractive packaging. It's the whole experience in my world--CD's don't really cut it and, gasp, MP3's even worse!

I will agree with you Meanie, that for the most part, vinyl is a better audio experience than digital. However, there are exceptions. Music where absence of sound is as important as the sounds themselves tend to fare better in a digital format. There are inherent limitations with vinyl recordings--they are never truly quiet. There is a physical needle gliding thru grooves on a piece of plastic. Extraneous noise is generally unavoidable.....But that said, I can think of no better format than the LP record for listening to and enjoying rock n' roll recordings!

So to answer your question--yes, I'm a music geek!

[The Bat]

I've been obsessed with Music ever since I was a little Kid...and Found My Mom's Elvis Albums(Sun Sessions & 1st RCA Album). Plus...I had an older Brother who played The Beatles for Me all the time...it's been in My Blood ever since!

My Brother can play 7 different Instruments...I can just play Guitar.

[The Bat]

This Tread needs a Bump!

[grayhank]

I am a HUGE music geek. I do prefer CDs to vinyl in most cases but do miss the Album Cover Artwork with vinyl. My obsession is somewhat different though as I tend to collect mostly Top 40 songs from the 60s to Present. I have over a dozen of Joel Whitburn's Billboard Books and am constantly going through them checking for songs I may have missed. Currently I have every Top 40 song to ever make the Billboard Charts for the 70s & 80s and the vast majority of Hot 100 songs. My musical tastes changed somewhat from Top 40 to Alternative starting in the 90s (due to my disliking of Boy Bands, Rap and manufactured "American Idol" garbage). There are songs that I love, hate and cringe at every time I hear them, but being the completist that I am, I maintain them in my collection.

When I load them onto my IPOD I put them in Chart Debut order. So If I want to listen to all songs from say 1974 they are altogether. But I love to put all these eras on shuffle because you might hear a Led Zeppelin song followed by Tiffany or some other obscure artist like Fred Knoblock. People who come over tend to ask what medication I'm on as I'm singing along to the Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" followed by AC/DC's "Back In Black". It's fun!

[David Lee]

People who come over tend to ask what medication I'm on as I'm singing along to the Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" followed by AC/DC's "Back In Black". It's fun!

That's awesome! I have the same eclectic taste myself... I do the same thing on my computer, I load all my MP3's then shuffle it... You might hear Comfortably Numb followed by Kung Fu Fighting and then on to Particle Man... Ya never know. I have always been this way... good is good to me. I also have an obsession with song indetification, who sang it and and when.

While I am not a huge audiophile, I do like good quality and I am intrigued by Roberto's discovery though I am not surprised in the least. Pressing vinyl has always seemd somehow more pure to me and a physical representation of the actual music. Digital is fun and easy, but it's not the same.

-Dave

[huedell]

I'm always interested when grayhank comments on his interest on
the most "popular" of popular culture---I've noticed that about ya Hank!
& I can relate somewhat ("Afternoon Delight" and "Back In Black"
are actually a pretty typical vibe of selections in my collection)...

Personally,
I'm lazy as heck---and I have huge hardrives full of popular rock so I have
music at my fingertips, mostly popular rock music from the 50s to the 90s--
-- low quality MP3s, but they get me by

I'm pretty obsessive on collecting anything rockwise/radiowise that I've been remotely
interested in since I remember discovering music on car rides with my mom as a toddler
so you might be surprised on what songs I have

I'm also pretty obsessive on figuring out what my favorite songs "ever" are
and burn CDs of 80 minute mixes and equalize the MP3 volumes and then
rip them back onto my computer as a folder so I have real solid playlists with
volume equalization---usually all the tracks are by the same band---but, like,
I have a couple "disco" folders, "christmas" folders etc.

The volume "equalizing" is about as audiophile as I get----but I thought I'd share

rock on guys!

[grayhank]

Yeah I really really really need to get a life one of these days, but even if I did, I'd still have 23 1/2 hours to kill.

[megoat]

I guess the real question is how many hours per day does anyone spend ACTIVELY listening to or reading about MUSIC? For me it's probably 3 to 4, sometimes more. This mean uninterrupted listening or reading. I'm obsessive about this junk. It's a sickness......

[The Bat]

I obsess about Music maybe a little too much...I'm in love with it. I sometimes drive Me Wife crazy with it...She use to discuss Music with Me...She won't any more.

Luckly...I have Friend's at work who love Music...that let Me bend Thier Ear.

MY tastes vary widely...from Elvis & 50's, to Beatles & 60's, to Punk Rock...to Classical(Beethoven).

[Titan4ever]

I'm an enthusiast more so than a geek. While I care about sound quality, I settle for being able to hear something I like at all even if it's not optimum. I also never found one system that made every type of music I liked sound the best, so I can't say I ever embraced a single technology over an another. Maybe my hearing's just not that acute, but unless the production value is sadly lacking, I'm not sure I'd notice.

I LOVE Vinyl, but have also chosen to amass a pretty decent CD collection over the years for convenience' sake. I realized in early high school ('82) that even then the playlist system coming into vogue would never accommodate my musical tastes, and started buying 45's and later albums by my favorite artists in drabs and dribbles. It's all in storage now, but the last time I counted (I have learned since not to do this) I had around 900 singles, 30 12" singles, 200+ albums on vinyl plus a slew of Reader's Digest & Time/Life boxed sets (original artists, musical eras compilations) to my name. When I had my own place, and space, I always played music unless I was watching TV or asleep. My friends all kidded me because I used to say my life required a soundtrack If I had to pick, I prefer the warmth of a good hi-fidelity tube set with a diamond-tipped stylus. Otherwise, most anything by Bose.

But having always lived on a shoestring budget, finding affordable equipment over the years became harder and harder (my last magnavox stereo cabinet with tubes died in 2006) and I haven't tried any of the nostalgic turntable combos I've seen the last few years because I didn't like the lack of auxiliary speaker jacks. Someday, I hope to have another system on which to hear these records again, but I'd be surprised if it happens anytime soon. Instead, I've been duplicating significant portions of my collection on CD (Thank God for eBay,Half-Price Books, and in the mid-west, Hastings). I have something over 750 CDs, most of which I have reluctantly loaded into iTunes on my PC.

My tastes are mostly towards pop, heavily concentrated in 80's bubble gum, dance, AOR, and like genres, but I also have the taste for Big Band Swing, Motown, Disco, Alternative Rock, some Folk Rock, Techno, Emo and Industrial. I pretty much like everything except Classical, Progressive Jazz, Hardcore Punk, Gangsta Rap, and Speed Metal.