We need to relearn listening and get Hifi back in our lifes!

[bluesfendermanblues]

Like the rest of you guys at this forum, I'm an experienced DIY builder of pedals, amp, speakers etc. I've done this on and off since I was a kid and my dad and grand dad inspired me with Hifi magazines and old tube amp books from back in the day and fueled my interest in music and gear.

However, in spite of a lot experience in building gear and having recorded bands (including my own), when I really started to listen to my guitar sound/tone on the Home recordings, I found it to be kind of compressed and uninspiring. I had arrived at spot where heavy strings and hard picking attack was supposed to create a strong tone. Horse power baby!

So I began a journey investigating what good tone is (for me) and arrived at Robben Ford's great dynamic tone as a reference point for good tone. This got me into diy Dumble amps....and a great disappointment, when I completed my first high plate skyliner back in 2008 - it sounded nothing like Robben Ford and was stiff and sterile, but after having tried all mods on this forum, the amp was finally 'played in' and I discovered along the way that these amps are supposed to be played dynamically with a combination of solid and gentle strokes like robben does - in order to create the 'bloom'. (I think he must be inspired by another west coast musician - Gary Mulligan - who also is a master of alternating between soft and hard blows/strokes). So building these amps made me a more conscious (and I believe a better) player in terms of playing with much more picking dynamic.

One other of the things I had missed in all these years, was in fact - believe it or not - LISTENING. That is conscious listening.

That might sounds weird since building, playing, rehearsing involves a lot of listening?? true, but listening to what and how? there's a lot of noise and snake oil information around in the music world - whether its about guitars amps or hifi. It can be very difficult to form and to learn to trust your own opinion, based on what YOU can actually hear. Rather craving products you see at your favorite store or read about great gear in magazines and on internet forums. We all have a certain amount of Gear Acquisition Syndrome. And thats ok - it helps keeping us alive. I guess.

Personally I was (and to some extend still is) to easy to impress and just wanted what my eyes can see. Looking back I had not really taken time to just listening to music being played back on quality hifi systems - and I don't mean ridiculously expensive hifi - just a good quality system. The past five years, I spent a lot of time helping a buddy of mine with his hifi system. Among others, building and re-building tube amps and listening, listening, listening to how instruments actually sounds both live and on records and performing a lot of tweaks involving various capacitors, cables etc. And I believe this has really trained my ears and developed my musical taste along the way. I used to listen for licks or just stuff I could use.

I cannot emphasize conscious listening strongly enough - I think we tend to zap much too much between music, amps, pedal etc. - and maybe we forget to listen. GAS is ok, but listening consciously is what really matters.

So get your old speakers out of the garage and back into your listening room and start to listen consciously to music.

By the way my Hifi is a pair of old ADS810 speakers that I drive with a NAD2200 power amp and a DIY Mark Levinson ML-1 preamp (SKA Audio kit). Sound source is a computer with all my ol CD's and a Musical Fidelity VDAC ii and a Pioneer CD player for when my mates come to visit and to listen to music bringing their own CDs. I use DIY Kimber PJB cables for interconnect and TelluriumQ Blue for speaker cables. The speaker cross-overs have gotten a cap upgrade. Total value of the system is around USD 1000-1500. Not expensive, but good enough to be able to forget the gear and to just listen (consciously) to music.

By the way if you want to read one good book next year - read Kenny Werner: "Effortless Mastery". there's a lot of musician wisdom in that book.

Disclaimer: I don't have any involvement with any of the above mentioned products what so ever.

[xtian]

Good reminder!

If you cannot take a cheap guitar, plug directly into a cheap amp set clean and low volume and make it sound pleasing, you've got work to do.

Me, I'm still totally, joyously in love with music. It continues to unfold. The more I learn, the more it offers.

And you folks are pretty awesome, too.

[JazzGuitarGimp]

I understand this completely. When I was in high school, I had time to LISTEN. I had a decent playback system: homemade 225wpc power amp, jbl L-100 3-way speakers, Nakamichi preamp, 40-pound JVC turntable with a respectable cartridge. I would bring home the latest LP from Earth Wind and Fire, crank it up, and just sit there and do nothing else but listen, and listen with CONCENTRATION. I completely absorbed so much excellent music in that phase of my life. Fast forward 40 years and I am listening to AICC encoded mp3 files from and iPad or computer - it's mostly background music these days, unless I am learning a song. My life is just too busy to listen like I once did. I still have the turntable and about 250 LP's, all boxed up in storage, and with the beginning of each passing year, I tell myself, this will be the year I start listening again, break out the turntable and the vinyls - it hasn't happened yet, unfortunately.

[bluesfendermanblues]

I understand this completely. When I was in high school, I had time to LISTEN. I had a decent playback system: homemade 225wpc power amp, jbl L-100 3-way speakers, Nakamichi preamp, 40-pound JVC turntable with a respectable cartridge. I would bring home the latest LP from Earth Wind and Fire, crank it up, and just sit there and do nothing else but listen, and listen with CONCENTRATION. I completely absorbed so much excellent music in that phase of my life. Fast forward 40 years and I am listening to AICC encoded mp3 files from and iPad or computer - it's mostly background music these days, unless I am learning a song. My life is just too busy to listen like I once did. I still have the turntable and about 250 LP's, all boxed up in storage, and with the beginning of each passing year, I tell myself, this will be the year I start listening again, break out the turntable and the vinyls - it hasn't happened yet, unfortunately.

Man you have a gift in that storage - once you open up the boxes... - it'll put a smile on your face and that ol' hifi of your must have been great. A lot of the albums from the 70's was mixed on those JBL. Great speakers sure.

BTW nothing wrong with computers. Have ripped my entire CD collection to lossless FLAC files. Sounds great or good enough not to get in the way of pure joyfull listening.

[galtjunk]

I have also converted my collection to FLAC.
It is now almost 4 terabytes.
I play it back through a 2 watt per channel amp I built using SV83's into a pair of 97db Klipsch speakers.
The design is the Decware Zen Triode SE.
This works great for up close listening in my office.

When I want to rock out I use my Dyna ST70 and a pair of JBL 4315's.

[TUBEDUDE]

I'm still using a Thorens TD160 for vinyl, a homemade preamp using 6U8/6DJ8 pairs in a Mu follower config, a Dynaco ST-70 that I modded with the Kimmel mod and homemade TQWTL speakers. I use the blue ray DVD to source my CD's, and a Ghetto mod Walkman for cassettes.

Future projects are a DHSE low watt pwr amp, and a pair of homemade Nakoga folded horns with Fostex FE166's.

All after finishing the 12 half done amp projects shelved in my shop.

[stelligan]

Still have my old Kenwood stereo amp and Turntable from the 70's.
What am I missing? Probably everything.....

[bluesfendermanblues]

Still have my old Kenwood stereo amp and Turntable from the 70's.
What am I missing? Probably everything.....

No. You never got lost....on the right track the whole time.

[Buschman]

If you haven't played around with tube HiFi,you are missing out. Harmon Kardon Citation V for me. I built a tube preamp from Tubenirvana. Cerwin Vega speakers although I will end up with some KLIPCSH hopefully soon. Old Dynaco stuff is readily available and won't break the bank.

[Ken Moon]

I like to think I'm a conscious listener, but the CD format, and today's over-produced style (made to sound good to teenagers with the "happy-face" EQ curve and massively compressed), makes it challenging.

One source of better sounding music was the DVD-Audio, which unfortunately never made it in the market.

The DVD-Audio version of the Hotel California album was completely re-mastered by Bill Szymczyk from the original master tapes, using his awesome creativity to decide what to put in the surround channels. This DVD sells for as high as $500 used on eBay.

I was told by the sales manager of an Acura dealer that a lot of these sales were/are to Acura and Lexus dealers, whose high-end audio systems designed by companies like Mark Levinson, play this format. They were used to demo the cars' sound sytems to prospective customers.

You have to hear it to believe it, when it's done well - the sound is incredible, encoded to 24 bits and sampled at 96kHz. The source files are called .MLP files, and you can rip them and play them back with WinAmp or VLC Media Player.

I tried about 15 other titles, but the only ones worth listening to IMO, other than Hotel California, are Winelight by Grover Washington Jr. and (surprisingly) Cry by Faith Hill.

Interestingly, my two sons, 26 and 31 years old, both love vinyl, and I bought them several LPs each for Christmas. They both have vintage AR turntables and RIAA phono preamps to interface with their computers and stereos.

[andresound]

I totally agree with the OP. Our lives are always too busy. But we need to MAKE the time. Listening to LIVE semi acoustic music is also important.

I listen (in my garage/workshop/gym) through a 70's pair of ALTEC 604's and a CONRAD JOHNSON CAV50 (in triode mode). All music has been ripped to flac and accessed via an old squeezebox and PARASOUND DAC. LOVE my music!!!

I do have a "high end" system in my formal lounge, but never spend time there

[gktamps]

I agree with the OP, and most of the good comments here. Over the years, I've grown weary of not hearing in recorded music the tone and character I know is present in voices or instruments. Lossy digital algorithms in digital music have sent listeners down a road of quantity, not quality.

That's not to say the vinyl was any great shakes by the end of its reign; I can recall, and still own, many records that were full of pops, clicks and noise whether because unused albums were being melted down carelessly to recycle into new albums as was reported at the time, or some other reason. Poorly engineered, mixed or mastered recordings suck no matter how good the sound system, in my view.

Having said that, I've rediscovered vinyl by upgrading the quality of my vintage gear - Oracle Delphi with Eminent Technology air bearing tonearm and Music Hall turntables, Benz Micro, Sumiko, and Goldring MC cartridges, rebuilt and upgraded APT preamp and amps, better speakers, etc., and the difference is simply astounding. I've never heard vinyl sound so good. I also have about 6TB of FLAC and ISO digital music that sounds fantastic (if it was recorded well in the first place). Makes listening a great pleasure.

[Colossal]

Nice setup and great call on Rush Grace Under Pressure

[gktamps]

Thanks Dave!
Most of my old Rush LPs sound amazing on this system.
Greg

[bluesfendermanblues]

Thanks Dave!
Most of my old Rush LPs sound amazing on this system.
Greg

A true music lovers setup!