The Disgruntled Old Coot is too lazy and uninterested to delve into the “audibility” of music downloads and playing via the music “appliances” used by today’s younguns’.
Decades ago when music was much more important to me it was an era of 75-pound receivers and HUGE heavy speakers and with a separate turntable for better systems and record collections of frightful cumulative weight and with those wanting the “best” having a separate radio tuner and perhaps a reel-to-reel tape deck and some desired an 8-track player and the truly brave had a recorder and the delight when cassettes emerged and then there was the short-lived quadraphonic era and…………. how times have changed!!!!!
Back then RMS and frequency response and Db this and wow-and-flutter (‘wow” pronounced “woe”) and stylus tracking weight and so many other things were of importance to more than a few but not all folks.
When CD-based music appeared so many reveled in the superior audio “statistics,” I among them.
Music to “noise” and channel separation ratios were wondrous!!!!!!!!!
But, it appears to the Coot that light-weight, portability and the sheer number of tunes at one’s hands is of supreme importance.
So, has music “advances” been across-the-board advances?
Is it possible my lack of modern music “appliances” and continued use of a stereo receiver, speakers and CD player providing me with “better” music’ with its excellent audio output maximum frequency response within my admittedly declined-with-age hearing range?
Is the higher tonal response and other audio listening parameters of my in-shanty audio equipment”better” than what today’s younger folks experience, using their super-small audio devices so portable and holding hundreds of songs? Based upon raw statistics, yes. But it appears that portability trumps audio quality.
Sure, even traditional audio components have benefited in many ways with technology.
With adequate “proper” source material self-made CDs or DVDs are very handy and with even basic play-back equipment sure sound good to me. And those CDs (what I use) sound mighty fine, better and easier to make than the cassette tapes of old.
Moving is easier, too. I am happy with my 100-watt per channel basic brand-name receiver bought at a super-sale for a mere $70.
Back in 1975 a 50-watt per channel receiver/amp (Pioneer) listed at $500 in 1975 dollars (much more valuable than today’s $500) with sale prices less but not a LOT less!!!.
The “cost” of music HAS fallen over the years. Hardware, software… technology and competition have apparently benefited those clamoring to acquire tunes.
The influence of the Web has also extended its “magic touch” to music in so MANY ways!
Once, Rolling Stone magazine was, in some ways, the “Bible” of hard-core music fans.
With the Web there’s a horde of music types at hand.
Once, AM band radio offered a small number of stations binding youth in general together.
In the San Francisco Bay area, a large “market,” I recall two radio stations as being the major provider of groovy tunes for most teen listeners.
You were either a KFRC or a KYA listener.
There was some FM output but few folks I knew had a FM tuner/radio at hand and those who did, for various reasons FM did not reach out to our suburb mere minutes away from the bay very well.
Then there was the very few FM stations. I believe Berkeley and/or San Francisco had a station or two that the “heads,” “long-hairs,” “hippies” or whatever label one used to describe those grooving on the music of the time listened to.
As with so many aspects of music in general the availability has inundated We, the People.
The radio band is full of every type of music and talk and whatever will make a station money.
As late as the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s there were large sections of the USA with either NO or but ONE rock-and-roll FM and/or AM tunable radio stations available.
(more to come)
