-The intrinsic value of music-

Thanks for all your reactions! There are some very interesting insights in them.

The funny thing about a column is that it is not a forum entry. It may look like it, but there are some subtle differences. The biggest being, that a column is definite. After the last period (.) it's over. That's it, thank you for reading, goodbye... In this case, there is a possibility to react directly to the column. Personally, I like that. It is surprising to see how much emotion a piece of writing can evoke.

A column is a nice place to (hyper)ventilate a personal opinion or a feeling. And since personal opinions and feelings are, by definition, only a personal truth, there will always be people that disagree with what you write. And that's good, because that indicates that we are still all different.

A column should at least stir up some reactions, because, ideally, it should make people think about their personal truths. There are many ways to achieve that. Because it was the first column, I chose a subject that is rather close to the roots of this community. And no big shockers, just situations that most people can, in a way, relate to.

A column can also be harsh, rude, provocative and controversial. I kept it rather quiet for my first effort, but I can't promise to be as meek and mellow in a next column :twisted:

I think that the objective is to try to come back to the sound of the record as the artist intended to do it. A good system should not "alter" the sound, keep as pure and neutral as possible, without a color which could change all record's sound. In one word : be faithful to the artist's (the musician, the mixer, the people doing the mastering, etc...). The record is "warm", "rich in frequencies,....", well the result should be like this on the system.

And as the 70ies records were done on analog tapes, and done for vinyl, this means that the current media (CD, mp3, etc..) may give different results upon the way it was transformed from analog to digital. Therefore I agree in a certain extent that listening to a vinyl record could be more fai!thful (on a good system) than on a CD player.

I have also the feeling that the CD players (the good ones) sound better today than 10 yers ago.

440Hz

Interesting column and I agree with most of the things, not all though.
It could be that these youngsters wanted to have a good way of listening to their favorite music while on the bus and still have one hell of a music system back at home.
I can't think of a better way/sound then a high bitrate MP3 music for travelling.
I consider myself quite a sound/music purist myself having a nice setup at home but I personally don't mind the MP3 quality when I drive to work (and not having to switch CDs constantly).
Sadly the true story of most of these youngsters (I'm 34 so I guess I'm stuck in the middle of young and old) don't care about the quality or that some artists put a lot of work in it and that it should be heared on a decent system.
I loved the LP for it's coversize but never for its clicks and pops, terrible. I always recorded it immediately when I bought one so that I could hear it with the least possible clicks/pops (and I had a Thorens too).
But there was something about those concept albums with those side long tracks.

I grew up listening to LP's and the only thing I miss is the Big format... which allowed for fantastic cover art ... you ever bought those 3 Lp albums? (E.L.P. , YES, ETC) having them was a big event... now you can have all that in a little box...

But I certainly do not miss the scratch!!!

CONGRATULATIONS on the new "Portal" !!!!
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