Joe public knows the price of everything, the value of...
Posted by: seagull on 25 March 2008
Much has been written recently (here and elsewhere) about the "loudness wars" and the impact on the quality of the listening experience. I just thought I'd add a couple of observations from recent experiences.
Analogue LP vs Digital CD
Last week, Mr S was going out for a ‘Chocolat’ evening (involving watching the film and eating vast quantities of the stuff) and she suggested that I have a music evening at home with my friend, The Quiz Master, who is currently Naimless (it's all boxed up while he does some work on this living room).
He brought over some LPs and BEER and we settled in to give my system a damned good thrashing. We did our usual thing of taking it in turns to play something new to each other (e.g. he'd not heard 'Fear of a Blank Planet') or occasionally something old but much loved ('Walking on the Edge' - Wilko Johnson's Solid Senders).
Amongst his pile of records was 'Love' by Christine Collister. This was the one recorded on analogue equipment procured by the owner of Rega as an experiment to see what could be done with a purely analogue production. We played 'The Man With a Child in His Eyes'.
CC is one of the few singers who could take a Kate Bush song and make it her own. It was a superb recording with a very simple arrangement and CC's voice very much to the fore. It finished and we both had a huge grin on our faces at the end - it was THAT good.
I suggested that we try something digital as a contrast but one with a decent production. I picked Blackfield II, as this is a typically good Steven Wilson production, and chose a track at random. The experience was crushing!
It sounded shut in and lifeless in comparison though the strength of the music eventually shone through and we played another track off it.
Sadly, it was like moving from Oakham JHB to Tetley's Smoothflow (sublime to tepid).
Mrs S speaks...
We went away for Easter and returned to find a small pile of post on the table in the breakfast room.
"Have you been buying yourself an LP again?..." looks again at pile "...er TWO lps. What have you done to deserve these?"
As this is a public forum and there may be children reading, my response is not reproduced here...
After we'd unpacked and cracked open a beer (me) and a bottle of wine (Mrs S) I put one of the new purchases on the LP12. I'd been looking forward to the arrival of this one. It is very good and I even caught Mrs S singing along to "Even Less" at one point (that's a clue as to what it was) and she doesn't normally like PT!
Later I put on the second platter - I left the room to attend to the empty glasses and heard Mrs S call...
"Seagull, Seagull!!!"
"Yes my dear"
"It's not really my place to say this but this one sounds really rough. Should it sound like that?"
I stopped and listened and had to agree it did sound 'rough' in comparison. I was familiar with the music, but only the MP3 download on my ipod. You've probably guessed that the second disc was 'In Rainbows' on nice thick black vinyl.
The production is a bit dense and lacking the dynamism of 'We Lost the Skyline' although I prefer the colour (the PT one is on garish orange marbled vinyl). It's interesting the different production styles given that they are roughly contemporaries (though PT's success has been more gradual and nowhere near as large as Radiohead).
And my point is?
OK, I know that my LP spinner is better than my CD player but the CD5/hicap combo does get into the music and the differences were more marked than usual. Thinking about it though I do tend to stick to one medium or the other when having a listening session so there may be more difference than I thought.
It left me feeling grateful that PT didn't have instant success and thus have the pressures of producing LOUD recordings and wondering what Steven Wilson could do with a high quality analogue studio...
Either way I will stick to playing more vinyl than CD.
Overall, I guess this is the price we pay for music being conveniently available on a digital device near you versus the value of having high quality recordings to listen to at home...
Analogue LP vs Digital CD
Last week, Mr S was going out for a ‘Chocolat’ evening (involving watching the film and eating vast quantities of the stuff) and she suggested that I have a music evening at home with my friend, The Quiz Master, who is currently Naimless (it's all boxed up while he does some work on this living room).
He brought over some LPs and BEER and we settled in to give my system a damned good thrashing. We did our usual thing of taking it in turns to play something new to each other (e.g. he'd not heard 'Fear of a Blank Planet') or occasionally something old but much loved ('Walking on the Edge' - Wilko Johnson's Solid Senders).
Amongst his pile of records was 'Love' by Christine Collister. This was the one recorded on analogue equipment procured by the owner of Rega as an experiment to see what could be done with a purely analogue production. We played 'The Man With a Child in His Eyes'.
CC is one of the few singers who could take a Kate Bush song and make it her own. It was a superb recording with a very simple arrangement and CC's voice very much to the fore. It finished and we both had a huge grin on our faces at the end - it was THAT good.
I suggested that we try something digital as a contrast but one with a decent production. I picked Blackfield II, as this is a typically good Steven Wilson production, and chose a track at random. The experience was crushing!
It sounded shut in and lifeless in comparison though the strength of the music eventually shone through and we played another track off it.
Sadly, it was like moving from Oakham JHB to Tetley's Smoothflow (sublime to tepid).
Mrs S speaks...
We went away for Easter and returned to find a small pile of post on the table in the breakfast room.
"Have you been buying yourself an LP again?..." looks again at pile "...er TWO lps. What have you done to deserve these?"
As this is a public forum and there may be children reading, my response is not reproduced here...
After we'd unpacked and cracked open a beer (me) and a bottle of wine (Mrs S) I put one of the new purchases on the LP12. I'd been looking forward to the arrival of this one. It is very good and I even caught Mrs S singing along to "Even Less" at one point (that's a clue as to what it was) and she doesn't normally like PT!
Later I put on the second platter - I left the room to attend to the empty glasses and heard Mrs S call...
"Seagull, Seagull!!!"
"Yes my dear"
"It's not really my place to say this but this one sounds really rough. Should it sound like that?"
I stopped and listened and had to agree it did sound 'rough' in comparison. I was familiar with the music, but only the MP3 download on my ipod. You've probably guessed that the second disc was 'In Rainbows' on nice thick black vinyl.
The production is a bit dense and lacking the dynamism of 'We Lost the Skyline' although I prefer the colour (the PT one is on garish orange marbled vinyl). It's interesting the different production styles given that they are roughly contemporaries (though PT's success has been more gradual and nowhere near as large as Radiohead).
And my point is?
OK, I know that my LP spinner is better than my CD player but the CD5/hicap combo does get into the music and the differences were more marked than usual. Thinking about it though I do tend to stick to one medium or the other when having a listening session so there may be more difference than I thought.
It left me feeling grateful that PT didn't have instant success and thus have the pressures of producing LOUD recordings and wondering what Steven Wilson could do with a high quality analogue studio...
Either way I will stick to playing more vinyl than CD.
Overall, I guess this is the price we pay for music being conveniently available on a digital device near you versus the value of having high quality recordings to listen to at home...
quote:I stopped and listened and had to agree it did sound 'rough' in comparison. I was familiar with the music, but only the MP3 download on my ipod. You've probably guessed that the second disc was 'In Rainbows' on nice thick black vinyl.
The production is a bit dense and lacking the dynamism of 'We Lost the Skyline' although I prefer the colour (the PT one is on garish orange marbled vinyl). It's interesting the different production styles given that they are roughly contemporaries (though PT's success has been more gradual and nowhere near as large as Radiohead).
hi seagull,
I played side 1 of 'In Rainbows' on nice thick black vinyl and then 'We Lost the Skyline' (in Orange). I agree totaly with your listening experience and most unexpected. I have most of Radiohead's LP's, so I will compare the dense (Sub-Fi) 'In Rainbows' with the earlier stuff.
For another Dynamic Wilson experience I recommend no-man - returning jesus (the complete sessions) (triple vinyl) from Burning Shed. I played this for the first time today and although I have the CD, there's no comparison. This is the Dog's.
Denis