My step father worked nights at the Armed Forces Radio Network in Vietnam during the war; use to be a taxi driver in NYC, and went to jazz and rock clubs thru the 60s (he ended up becoming amicrowave broadcast engineer.). I grew up being dragged to record stores and live clubs in Stroudsburg, Scranton, WilkeBarre PA and many in NYC, and would have to go to the Deer Head Inn in the Delaware Water Gap for Jazzfest every year. I've seen and heard some amazing, and extremely TANGIBLE music and music venues....and the artists who played there. I mourn today's generation for their almost inability to have intimacy, original and their OWN experiences like I did. There is something, on a molecular level that happens to every part of your being that changes simply because you were there, present, absorbing....and you didn't have to like it! It changed you, dare I say "expanded your mind", and your being. When I try to create moments like this for my friends, the reaction is always the same "I would have never done this, listened to this, experienced this, tried this....unless you made me.....I don't even understand what I'm experiencing!!!". You can see it on their faces, and you can resonate with that feeling they have inside. I greatly appreciate your videos, because it resonates, and I learn a great deal and even reinforce a great deal. Even if I may never be able to afford one of your pieces, I value your teaching!!! Please keep it up!!
You have been a Listener in the famous Deer Head Inn? Wow. Do you know the excellent concert-Album of Keith Jarrett in this location? The RU-vid-Video-Link: ru-vid.com/group/OLAK5uy_krikk4XGkIYD2DCzJEAGMzUFikb7sMqwA&si=2orM04MfiT_ab6MR
What you are describing has always been. Most people are not very particular about what they consume, be it food or entertainment, and they don't think it's worth their time to put the effort into digging deeper. Basically, they like what they like and that's good enough for them because they have more important things to focus on (from their perspective). That's nothing new - it's just that today we can see a lot more of it because we are more connected to things that highlight it, like the internet and in cities where small retail is being edged out by big retail because in our current economic landscape small retail can't compete. Ironically you point out the compression that Spotify is using, but when compared to digital, vinyl is compressed. It's compressed to fit on the plastic disk and then decompressed (through equalization) while playing. Most people don't actually listen to the music they have playing, they have it on in the background while they do something else. So anything better is like feeding fillet mignon to your poodle, when he's perfectly happy with canned dog food. Taste hasn't died, it's just not something that the bulk of the population has, that's serviced by the larger concerns that use marketing to attract customers.
Just found Arooj Aftab through discovery mix in Amazon Music. At 63 most of my musical discovery was exactly how you describe it, and also through fellow musicians' recommendations. But! I must say that I have found a ton of incredible music thanks to algorithms. We are living in different times, I remember seeing Dizzy, Elvin Jones, Pat LeBarbera, Cecil Taylor, Sonny Fortune, Hal Galper with the Brecker Brothers and others at the Rising Sun in Montreal. These are musicians in an intimate environment that no one will ever see again, but am I sad?, not really as now we can enjoy musicians from around the world, including those that don't have a label contract but have the wherewithal to get their music streamed so we can enjoy their music in our own intimate environment. With vinyl coming back in force and online streaming we are actually in an artistic renaissance. Different times.
A long conversation between Jonathan and Peter Ovortrup (Audio Note , UK) about Taste, Progress, Music and with some recommendations would be my dream podcast. Legends. Thank you.
I always love your comments, Jonathan. I have been a music lover and hifi enthusiast for 4 plus decades and I have been building my own tube electronics and speakers for about 25 years. When someone asks me how to get started in hifi I advise them to get a really good radio for the kitchen along with the hifi. I spend way more time in the kitchen than sitting in front of my hifi system. Can’t tell you how many times I would have missed something valuable were it not for my radio.
I watched Leonard Bernstein talk about music in detail many times. You have a very similar way of conveying your thoughts. Please take that as the ultimate compliment.
Really well express, love the way you explain the importance to consolidate the human sense with the exterior respecting the human body after all. Cheers from Fla.
Enjoyed listening. I grew up in the analog world, drifted into the digital one and don't feel as comfortable as I used to in the old days. Focusing on the essence of life seems to get more and more important to me. This also includes vinyl records on an old fashioned high quality playback system (LS 3/5a - 15 Ohm - with tube amplification).
I really appreciate what you're saying. I've always found it sad when something got replaced by a big box store or something unique just disappeared without a trace. This quirky old stuff has always been more interesting. Old hardware stores, grimy grocery stores, little crappy food joints. I really miss music stores.
I kind of get what you're saying and I have a decent audiophile system. That being said, I discovered Tchaikovsky as a kid, listening on an AM radio and fell in love. It seems that, in the audiophile community, an appreciation for great sound reproduction gets conflated with music appreciation.
After watching this I can easily confirm and say that most people have broken taste buds , which is why many saturate themselves in sugar based products. Same applies to music.
It's true about streaming being the Plato's cave of music but Band camp is great for new and off the beaten path stuff. And one can buy the vinyl of lesser known artists direct.
You really are informed on this. I've seen it happen in NYC for over decades. What's so ironic is that people are waiting in line to sit in shops...not interacting, but sitting there on their phones. It's like thermal runaway. Are we not DEVO?
Spotify is actually the reason I got back into hi-fi about a year ago, but let me go more back in time first. I got my first taste of high-end audio about 20 years ago, started buying some gear and enjoyed it a lot. Years passed, I had to prioritize differently, sell a lot of my gear and I just settled into sort of a "bah, Spotify is good enough. I'll upgrade one day". At home we've been using Plex + Nvidia Shield Pro to stream movies from the NAS to the TV and really liked that experience, but then one day I decided to give the music-streaming functionality a try, and even on budget equipment it blew my mind how much better my flac rips were sounding than Spotify. So now I've upgraded my speakers, preparing to get Roon going, looking into dacs, REW, and even my girlfriend is noticing and appreciating the efforts.
This is tangentially related to your other video Jonathan where you talked about "noise". Not in the sense of bad sound necessarily, but in the sense of distractions. Every day we're surrounded by "smart" electronic devices that eerily enough seem to be doing an ever increasing amount of thinking and work for us without it really being more convenient in the end. I work with computers and process electronics at a steel plant every day, so when I get home, I kind of want to unwind and disconnect from the digital world for a moment. How have I chosen to do this? By building a fully analog audio system. I come home, put away my phone, browse the record shelf and pick something that fits my mood for the moment and throw it on the turntable, set the volume on my amplifier and sit down on the sofa. No remote, no temptation of skipping to the next song, no "infinite music library" at my fingertips. I have a completely different relationship with music after making this a conscious decision and I really take my time now to properly listen to the music. Not to sound smug or pretentious but I think an awful lot of people have gotten lost in the constantly-updating, ever-changing, full-access world that our smart devices have given us access to. It doesn't matter where I am, as long as I have an internet connection (which at this point is almost everywhere), I have all the information in the world at my fingertips. As much of a win these technological achievements are for us on a personal and societal level, there is also a huge amount of things we lose and perhaps don't think about, "taste" being one of these things.
I am the first to react so it seems. A warm welcome to the Netherlands. It’s my native country so obviously I can. I agree that this algorithm is a bugger I bump into as well. When I look at second hand stuff, audio or not audio. When I am Spotify (yes I am also on there just like I am on RU-vid), etc. It makes my world smaller. Sometimes i wish I could shut off these algorithms. Algorithms don’t know me, don’t feel me, can’t dive in my mind. I love those Devilles.
I was a rep for a major manufacturer of cartridges back in the day and we even had different cantilever materials for the same cartridge body and stylus. From aluminum to titanium. Beryllium was usually my favorite. And yes who would use Old World Pinot glasses for a New World Pinot!
There's no constant dominate sub woofer frequencies in orchestra? Every manufactured speaker assembly only sounds best housed in Instrument grade plywood surfaced six sides. Density laminations matched applicably to desired pronouncement of caricature depth. It is a thing 🙃 T Y great place great information. side by side if I had to describe it. There's a kinda found wisdom. I mean you could move into seasoned exotic woods They gain resonance with age.Ha. there's no end to it. Which makes it great! Still analog is closest to original progenitor. Modern day audio annunciation units. Are designed around the digital conduit. Commerce design expenditure's preclude natural wood cabinet's augmentations. It can't be equaled. Those pressure measurements won't see it digitally. What we don't know that can help somewhat hurts. But if everyone forgets. Your arguments become fiction? Is your run of the mill Violin with the finest strings made the same as the Stradivarius?
My experience in the cities I’ve been to from nyc and Philly to Florence and London, has been exactly like yours. People searching for the “best” standing in ridiculous lines. I don’t stand in lines anymore. There’s a great tiny sandwich place a couple blocks from the place everyone lines up at in Florence. You know how I found it? I walked around found another place and said this looks good.
Rosy retrospection at its finest. There's nothing wrong with apple music, spotfiy or any other streaming service. The sound quality is superb, yes even when delivered through those chinese (god forbid) class D Texas Instruments based amps. Traditional hifi brands that won't adapt will be soon swept aside by the younger generation, led by innovative, Direct to Consumer companies like MiniDSP, Apollon, Buckeye, Arendal, Wiim and Buchardt.
Must say that Spotify streams very well using a good streamer and DAC. The mastering quality is much more dominant in the final sound result than the media or Stream service.
While I understand what you're saying who is the arbitor of what is good and bad taste? If I watch and listen to a bunch of audiophile dealers and manufactures on RU-vid the algorithym will convince me only audiophile goods will be my source for good taste in sound, just as much as a mass market will. If I cannot afford a $15,000 speaker, does that mean I will never have good taste?
You miss the point. Nobody plays the arbitor of good taste, but mr. Weiss gives some indications how to get into objective quality judgement thru care. You don't need a stereo sytstem for thousands, you can buy some well preserved quality elements of the 80's, they're better and cheaper than todays average crap and by the way you do some good to the evironnement. It's like for the food... not buying the worst is a good beginning.
@@mischadickerhof5375 Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the whole OMA thing, but sometimes it comes off a bit pretentious (Especially when the title is The Death of Taste). What exactly is the worst food? Is your interpretation of the worst the same as mine? Do I need to go halfway across the globe to wait in line for hours to experience the best? I don't expect a answer or anyone in the comments to agree.
Yes i get you clearly, as i can hear the smell of the sound through the taste of your music with the ingredients you used to make the efficiency of using more energy to listen then to talk, sir maestro sir.
Dear Jonathan Weiss. Yes, good taste is probably disappearing. And it would be good if you too would work on making it popular for many people. By offering products that people who want to get to know good taste can afford. But since you only offer super-expensive products for very rich people, your wishes for more good taste remain out of reach for more people. Because your customers have good taste anyway. Either because they have a lot of money. Or because they come from an educated family. As a RU-vidr and high-end manufacturer, you will never reach people who want to learn good taste. How are they supposed to know that you exist and what kind of person you are? I like you and your videos and admire your product philosophy. But I couldn't afford your products either. Although I am not a poor person. What a pitty.
And do his designs even sound good? I’ve never heard anyone say so. Never seen any measurements. Some of them, just by looking at them, have big time design flaws.
till this day nobody found a solution to this problem. It starts and ends with economy and you can experience fast version of it in a game of Monopoly. You start with many players and very fast you go toward one player who owns it all. Very sad indeed. Algorithms just do it faster than real economy of whatever like businesses, housing or music. If we find a solution, we will be able to integrate it into the algorithms. Anyways, who in power would want such solution.
Interesting but wrong. NYC was ruined by Starbucks and Gap long before the internet. Go behind the algorithms to the real cause, corporations. In bracing the internet is fantastic. I've found more great musical artists via the internet in the last decade than in the previous four plus decades.