High Fidelity
 

I'm a member Of Head-Fi, a headphone forum and one thing that I definitely notice while lurking their threads--I do post occasionally, but not too often, and what usually surprises me, is that any discussion of music on the forum seems to be relegated to a drop down menu of a miscellaneous sub-forum. I mention that is because, although MB does have their occasional active thread regarding the gear that people listen to their music thread, 80% percent of the time it's buried due to lack of activity, which is just about the polar opposite of there. MB's Stereo and Production equipment sub-forum doesn't get a lot of use and the majority of the use that it does get ends up being questions regarding producing music, not playing it back for personal pleasure.

So, some questions:

-How much of an impact does a recording's quality have on your enjoyment of an album

-What do you make of the semi-catch-22 that the better recording you use to listen to music the more revealing it is of flaws in the recording or the file type/size?

-does being critical of a piece of equipments sound quality cause you to divide you attention between the music and the equipment, so you tend to listen more analytically.

-What's your preferred way to listen to music, headphones or speakers and where/when?

-Is high fidelity an important issue to you, or do you just get by happily with the bare minimum?

-What equipment do you use/own (iPod, CD player, Vinyl, some fancy amp that was made by trolls deep in the forests of Southern Bavaria?) What would you like to own?

Those are a few to get started. I figured the more the thread dealt with high fidelity as a general topic the more active it might be.

High fidelity is very important to me. I never use headphones - I doubt they can ever sound as good as quality speakers can. I prefer to listen to music in an otherwise quiet environment.

I notice recording quality issues on some music videos, cassettes, videotapes, old songs (early 80's or before), and indie songs, the last two categories which I generally dislike. Muddled sound, volume differences, too little channel separation, and the wrong amount of bass all bother me a lot. By the way, I find that old rock recordings as a rule sound bad on low-fi systems.

The only time I've noticed the catch-22 using hi-fi is with Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby." Listening closely, all the instruments basically make cacophony. If documents didn't suggest otherwise, I'd wonder if it was an unsatisfying recording that was donated to the soundtrack of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Ive noticed that as well...Head-Fi and A.K seem to be more into and about end user systems and electronics, here its mostly music..

To answer recording does not matter a ton to me, but has some impact if an album is recorded or plays badly, doesnt sound right etc I tend not to like it, I dont care to listen to youtube unless the quality is there, I wont download or use less than 320kbps etcetc but that has a lot to do with system as well. off the phone, in a cheap set of headphones Im not picky. On my home system however I am a little picky about what I feed through it just because my speakers do tend to accentuate a bad recording, background noise etc.
I prefer to listen to music either at home on my stereo, or in the car and very rarely use headphones. I do lean towards digital media due to convience however really enjoy a good session of vinyl listeneing.

Owned equipment is a long story lol as its pretty much my lifestyle however currently I am listening on a pioneer SA-7500II coupled to a pair of DCM timepieces with fulltime bass modules. once i get moved into the new place and have a decent listening space it will be time to pull out the mcintosh gear and some better speakers from storage.

Not that important for me personally. Yeah, I would prefer high quality audio but I don't have enough cash to make it a possibility.