Classical music fans...how do you prefer your fix? Vinyl, CD, digital, tape...? I would love to know.
How Do You Like Your Classical Music?
- Thread starter Techichi
- Start date
I have many classical cd's , but I listen to mostly classical on radio , either Sirius , or online wqxr NY. I have an attachment allowing me to listen to music originating from my computer and it will play through my Bose Wave Radio
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The majority of my collection is on MP3. If I have my druthers I'll listen to vinyl on my good speakers at home. However a turntable doesn't do too well in a car. Plus I have a miata and there is just no room on the dash or trunk to mount a proper tube amp and pre amp.
LIVE!!! meantime I've got plenty on vinyl and digital.
Don't have much on vinyl, and it's mostly inherited stuff that prominently displays something like "stereophonic sound", so it's pretty much all digital. At home, it's CDs, but on the go it has to be lossless. I like bopping to Chopin on the subway: it's fun sneaking peeks at people watching me. Some of them must think I have palsy bopping my head to mazurka time or all those crazy quick tempo changes. Almost as much fun as playing Celestial Terrestrial Commuters in 19/16 time. Oddly, what really throws people is the 1930s - 1950s jazz. Maybe they get the time signature and tempo, so they're not thinking I'm oddball, but they still can't grok the rhythms. And every once in a while I get a knowing smile when listening to jazz, usually from an old timer, or more rarely, someone actually gets that I'm listening to classical. The funk and R&B is too easy, and has its own "audience". I gave up on the internet radio because there's too few channels that stream lossless.
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I have more cds than anything else. But I prefer vinyl.
So why would one prefer vinyl? Is it the nostalgia or somthing else?
Mostly people prefer vinyl (or any analog) because CD has a nasty cut off filter at 22kHz, which is too close to what people can hear. It can cause digital harshness, phase changes, stuff like that. There's also the digital recording side, which causes its own problems. But analog recording has issues, too. The technical idea is that ultimately it's all analog, so digital is just extra steps that can only make things worse. In non technical terms, the extra steps and unnecessary filtering basically annoys some folks, and others say analog can play those higher frequencies. The cut off filter thing can be handled with newer formats that record and playback at higher than Redbook audio's 44.1kHz. (You need to sample twice as fast, so the cutoff is half of 44.1k, which is where the 22kHz filter comes in.)
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I own a bunch of classical CD's, but most often listen to the local non-commercial station over the internet here in the SF Bay Area. KDFC is the call sign and it's good listening!
The same way I like my steak, rare.
I prefer my Classical music performed live by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, here in my home town.
Second choice is probably CDs, mostly because I can get a whole symphony on a single disc instead of flipping over my LPs every couple of movements.
Nick
Second choice is probably CDs, mostly because I can get a whole symphony on a single disc instead of flipping over my LPs every couple of movements.
Nick
On a good system, most LPs sound better than most CDs. The advantages of CDs--convenience, less need to be careful with them, etc.--are obvious, and a well-made CD can sound great, but LPs continue to provide the best sound.
I prefer classical music live but, it wasn't a choice and I feel my vote would have been wasted on 'other' so, I voted for CD, my second choice. (cheers Nick Danger) The best show I ever saw was a performance of Mozart's Requiem by the Mostly Mozart Orchestra at New York's Lincoln Center. They had a full chorus of about 40 men and 40 women; men on the left side of the stage and women on the right. The women sang, then the men sang, then they all sang. It created an awesome stereo effect. It was the only classical show that I've been to where the audience was actually sitting up in their seats and riveted! If you ever get a chance to see Requiem with a full chorus, don't miss it!!! My favorite CD: I Musici's Brandenberg Concertos.
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.flac all the way... but flac is basically the same as cd playback... i notice a loss in dynamic range when comparing a flac file with a 192 kbps mp3. i dont have a great hifi system with pristine vinyl pressings and a record player with an audiophile-quality needle...thats probably awesome... but i have rocked my sox off to surround beethoven symphonies with lossless playback and there's nothing like it, except possibly hearing a live performance in a room with phenomenal acoustics. i find the difference in quality stands out most in playback that has a lot of high frequencies and overtones.
...cassette tapes lmao
...cassette tapes lmao
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I think the poll's referring to (typically 1/2" and larger) reel tapes. They can sound really good.
- Thread starter
- #17
Yeah, not cassette or 8 track. lol
I guess I should have mentioned I was really concentrating on medium used at home, putting live events and car rides aside.
Thanks for the responses so far. It's good to know there are still folks listening to classical music. Keep em' coming!
I guess I should have mentioned I was really concentrating on medium used at home, putting live events and car rides aside.
Thanks for the responses so far. It's good to know there are still folks listening to classical music. Keep em' coming!
I'm heavily invested in CDs and they're quite nice. I have to confess that my older vinyl albums sound better on my system.
Live can't be beat though. We were season ticket holders to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestral for many years since before Bass Hall. Trouble is, now we're 160 miles away so can't swing regular attendance.
Live can't be beat though. We were season ticket holders to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestral for many years since before Bass Hall. Trouble is, now we're 160 miles away so can't swing regular attendance.
Vinyl all the way for me.
I got in to classical very much in the ~CD era and then after getting my first deck visited the Diskery in Biirmingham (uk that is) and bought an armful of 2nd hand classical records. Never looked back. Even with the pops and crackles and groove noise there's just to much other good things outweighing the bad for me.
A few years ago I got about 30 odd SACDs and some are exceptional and I thought this may be the best of both CD and vinyl for me. But even thugh a few excellent independant labels carry on with it (Channel and Bis amongst them) I never felt there was enough for me to continue with the format, although I still enjoy the titles I have.
Besides I have a Shostakovich 5th on a Decca LXT which was my first mono and made me wonder how far we really had come in 50 odd years. It was, and still is, an amazingly wonderful piece of music.
I got in to classical very much in the ~CD era and then after getting my first deck visited the Diskery in Biirmingham (uk that is) and bought an armful of 2nd hand classical records. Never looked back. Even with the pops and crackles and groove noise there's just to much other good things outweighing the bad for me.
A few years ago I got about 30 odd SACDs and some are exceptional and I thought this may be the best of both CD and vinyl for me. But even thugh a few excellent independant labels carry on with it (Channel and Bis amongst them) I never felt there was enough for me to continue with the format, although I still enjoy the titles I have.
Besides I have a Shostakovich 5th on a Decca LXT which was my first mono and made me wonder how far we really had come in 50 odd years. It was, and still is, an amazingly wonderful piece of music.
Whatever the music genre, I prefer high quality digital streaming, as it it is the easiest format to consume. My CD collection is now all FLAC and sounds great. 128 kbps MP3 internet streams are not that good, but I have learned not to notice the artifacts as much and tolerate them. But a 192 kbps MP3 stream is a big improvement over 128.
The Sizzling Sound of Music looks at the sound of compressed MP3 vs Vinyl.
The Sizzling Sound of Music looks at the sound of compressed MP3 vs Vinyl.
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