Does your system dictate your choice of music, or your choice of music dictate your system ?

Well certainly not the former but frankly neither.  

Regards,

Lindsay

When something’s been seriously out of whack then a warning to me has been the sound leading the musical choice. It’s extremely rare - the last time was around 14 years ago, when most things started sounding edgy, thin, dynamically challenged. I started playing simple, instrumental music almost exclusively.

I appealed for help here, and after heroic efforts (notably by one Mr. Weekes, but many, many offered excellent advice and tangible help) it was discovered that the mains feed to the house had gone badly wrong, leading to the local electric board laying a new feed from a different mains source (if that hadn’t worked they’d promised me my own sub-station!) and behold, my musical choice was all mine again.

Otherwise I select by mood and whim, with the exception of those powerful albums that don’t just compliment or enhance a mood but actually create or change your mood.

I like certain many genres of music, am ambivalent towards some and detest others. Having said this my tastes in music have changed over the years and too with the emergence and decline of certain types of music and bands.

I don't believe my choice of system has had any influence on the music I prefer to listen to, unless such an influence has been an unconscious one. This whole question is possibly further complicated by considering if there is a preference in the way in which you like your preferred music portrayed. I have heard the same favourite tracks portrayed rather differently depending on the system they are played on.

Now considering the other side of the question, does my choice of music dictate my system? Again I would say no unless there is something unconscious going on.

Now my brain is really hurting so I will sign out and listen to some music.

Neither!

system wise, I want all music I might play to sound good, with the system not differentiating: I’ve never understood the idea of “this sounds good with classical” or “this sounds good with rock”.if the system presents the music as recorded then it would simply depend on what was recorded.

That said, I do like to hear the full range of music, with the bass end equally important all the way down: if I didn’t like music with much bass thenI could have saved a a lot of money on speakers!

Music wise, I like or dislike music for what it is, and a better (or worse) system doesn’t make me like music I don’t like!

Nick Lees posted:

 

Otherwise I select by mood and whim, with the exception of those powerful albums that don’t just compliment or enhance a mood but actually create or change your mood.

 

I am the same Nick.Woke up this morning feeling a bit groggy but after a coffee started to feel a bit better and energetic and during washing up and tidying up put some Judas Priest on loud.Getting back this afternoon had a nap for an hour and put some Burt Bacharach on after waking up.

Have got 2 systems and my one with Quad 2805 electrostatics I enjoy classical on a great deal and the other with Focals or sometimes Rogers LS 3 5A's  enjoy rockier stuff but there both hugely enjoyable......so its mood thing

For me, I have certain types of music that the system must cope well with whilst others are less important to me. Particularly when choosing speakers, there are some which sound lovely and airy and spacious with say jazz or classical but just don't have the balls for the Grateful Dead or dub reggae. Naim Allaes, Musical Fidelity and Spendor spring to mind. Over the years I have gathered some trusty dem tracks on a usb stick that help to whittle down a shortlist before the home demo.

Not having unlimited money and space (or the inclination to go back to huge speakers and 7 or more Naim boxes) I accept there have to be trade offs and these are dictated mostly by my musical tastes. Having said that, I am as happy with my current system as I ever have been,

I'll admit I have changed speakers a few times due to the lack of performance with certain types of music. 

Neither really. But I do find that the better the system, the more it opens doors to different, unfamiliar or previously unlistenable music.

Jan

I'd love to be able to say neither, but experience (and research done by more experienced people than me) show that for most 'audiophiles' it is 90% the former. And it is not strange or source of scandal, in my opinion: any system prefers given sounds in a given room for given ears. Useless to pretend freedom of choice and absolute catholicity. Presently, I tend to prefer solo piano or small ensembles of acoustic music, male or female voices.

Be honest with yourself before posting, whoever comes next!

I am with Max.

But the dominant factor is the neighbors!

which means: less rock than I would have liked and, within classical (which is my main diet), more chamber than symphonic. 

Mindful of Max’s post, I can still honestly answer: neither. I just buy and listen to what I like (music). Naim just makes it even more pleasurable

Adam Zielinski posted:

Mindful of Max’s post, I can still honestly answer: neither. I just buy and listen to what I like (music). 

Likewise - And apart from having ‘discovered’ opera (which was through live performance) and of cource many additional artists over the years, the music I listen to and enjoy today is essentially the same as when I had my first system 48 years ago. A better system bow simply lets it ‘sing’ better than ever.

I would say neither, the system I purchase does not influence my choice of music, nor does the music I listen to influence the decision on which system/model to purchase. 

Perhaps I am naive, but I would expect the system that I purchase to play/present all types of music to the best of its abilities.

From reading through many of the threads on the forum there appears to be many ways that we can strive to improve the sound quality/presentation: source first, upgrade pre/power/integrated amps, change speakers, change interconnects/speaker cables, room acoustic treatment, racks, etc.  With this thought in mind, I would imagine that we all have preferences on how we want to hear music presented and the tweaking of various pieces allows a change in the presentation. 

I don't really know, what came first?  The chicken or the egg........

I'm in the Nick and Tabby camp. My mood seems to dictate what I listen to more than anything else. Like Nick I've had systems that little by little had me reaching for simple music to avoid the headache. I'll never go back to that. I'm not pursuing fantastic at the expense of being able to listen to anything.  Instead of awesome on select audiophile albums only, I'll take merely good as whatever I want to hear sounds like music. Naim has so consistently made music in my contexts and so often sounds fantastic on anything I play that I'm now slow to change anything.

Neither for me. What I would say that as my system has improved the range of music I listen to and now like has widened considerably.  That might be because the system gets in the way less, allowing me to appreciate the merits of the music more, or it could be just age.  I suspect a bit of both.

Adam,

to be more precise, I wasn't meaning the Cds you buy, but what you actually, usually end up taking from your collection on the shelf. I regularly buy music I have no idea if will sound good or bad on the system; what I do at home ends up in listening to what I love and sounds best.

M.

I think most people take music they enjoy and are extremely familiar with with them to an audition and determine what speakers/kits sound best to them based on the musical selections they took with them to the audition. So really the answer is you pick your system based on you’re music. 

Now if you’re like myself... I take a lot of music with me, rock, alt-rock, indie, blues, jazz, and yes even classical (which I don’t listen to very much); plus I take things that are dynamic that push the system I’m going to listen to so I see what its capable of.  I take live and studio recordings (of the same albums) to see how well a system differentiates one from the other. I’ve taken my speakers to auditions and I’ve taken my amps to a couple also. Plus and really important is how it sounds at your house, which I’ve done a number of times. 

Regardless, for me a system has to do everything! It even has to sound good when I play movies. 

For me the choice of music dictates the system. If my system was unable to play all my favorite music, which I very much expect it to, the system would dictate my choice of music. 

If I sit down and put a record on the turntable or select a file to be played, my system should reproduce it in a satisfactory way. If it doesn’t, I would, at least in the long run, only choose from the genres that the system is able to handle.

To Max: I am sure about this because I was in that situation not long ago and it sure was not funny.

I never liked dictatorships.. My music preference of small jazz and classical ensembles played at moderate volume gives me plenty of freedom to choose a sound system to my liking.

I prefer listening to classical or jazz at moderate volume with 70wpc and ProAc or Dyn speakers but prefer listening at loud volumes with 18wpc and JBL's ! 

Max_B posted:

Adam,

to be more precise, I wasn't meaning the Cds you buy, but what you actually, usually end up taking from your collection on the shelf. I regularly buy music I have no idea if will sound good or bad on the system; what I do at home ends up in listening to what I love and sounds best.

M.

Oh - in that sense. I started to appreciate my ECM collection a lot more - it started to sound very right now.

I was going to answer 'No'...

But then I remembered how I optimised and voiced my amplifier designs and particularly how chose my speakers...
Some, (e.g. Celestion SL6) were ruled out because, with them, all rock music sounded flat dull and lifeless.
Others (e.g. Mission 770F) were ruled out because, with chamber music, they chewed it all up and then spat out a random collection of unrelated sounds.
I settled on the Spendor SP2s because they did an excellent job with chamber music and vocals, did well indeed with orchestral classical music; and yet they still managed a creditable and perfectly acceptable presentation of the rock and electronica.  With subsequent (and better) amplification (300DR), even in those last categories they now perform with great aplomb.

I couldn't afford speakers that were excellent in all categories!

So for me the music determines the system.

With pre naim systems I have bought "audiophile" or "best sounding" cd's etc. With Naim gear it's definitely neither. In fact, my musical tastes have expanded as the Naim gear makes music make "sense" 

I never really understood this concept. Any half decent system should allow you to listen to any music. Certainly compared to what most people pass as hi fi. We are a fussy bunch....

I do accept that what you take to a dem might flavour things a bit, but really? I expect my system to play anything. If it sounds bad it’s down to the recording. Could I improve my system? Of course. Does it entertain me? Absolutely!

Stu

Adam Zielinski posted:

Max_B posted:

Adam,

to be more precise, I wasn't meaning the Cds you buy, but what you actually, usually end up taking from your collection on the shelf. I regularly buy music I have no idea if will sound good or bad on the system; what I do at home ends up in listening to what I love and sounds best.

M.

Oh - in that sense. I started to appreciate my ECM collection a lot more - it started to sound very right now.

And this means that some music is, if not chosen, more accepted because of the gear, which puts the thing more in the 'former' than the 'latter' category IMO... Happy that your ECM collection has now stopped sounding like if Manfred Eicher was hypersensitive to both ends of the sound spectrum. ECM discs recorded by Stefano Amerio are usually wonderful, but some other recordings sound like if the producer was afraid of airiness and depth. Or of digital sound, more simply.