Every mp3 player is not an iPod. FUCK. I hate it when people make that generalization.
[quote]TeeVee69 wrote:
…I don’t see how liking mp3’s is getting less for my money. It’s portable, it holds more in less space, and it delivers great quality. That’s more bang for the buck in my book. But then: I’m not a savant, so wtf do I know?
[/quote]
hey i like mp3 also for the same reasons you mention. and most pop music, like maftei says, is just fine on it. most acoustic music is not however. coltrane shaking my house can’t happen on mp3 or even on cheap cd. not even close. and like i said before anyone can hear the difference as easy as they can see the difference between hi-def tv and regular. if you’re not into it fine, no one says you have to be. but don’t pretend that the difference doesn’t exist. what is the big deal with having the desire and enthusiam for quality and why are you being such an insulting elitist asshole about it ?
[quote]swivel wrote:
hey i like mp3 also for the same reasons you mention. and most pop music, like maftei says, is just fine on it. most acoustic music is not however. coltrane shaking my house can’t happen on mp3 or even on cheap cd. not even close. and like i said before anyone can hear the difference as easy as they can see the difference between hi-def tv and regular. if you’re not into it fine, no one says you have to be. but don’t pretend that the difference doesn’t exist. what is the big deal with having the desire and enthusiam for quality and why are you being such an insulting elitist asshole about it ?[/quote]
LOL, dude. I’m the insulting elitist asshole? Better work on your reading comprehension skills and check the mirror. I’m not the one claiming to be the savant (your word choice, not mine) that can discern a qualitative difference when the average listener cannot.
But hell, if you say there is a difference…you know what? I believe you.
Can’t argue with a purist…
How would you know a person in the first place if you did not strike up a conversation with them?
What a great, friendly world we live in.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Why do you feel the need to strike up conversations with everyone you see unless you know them?[/quote]
[quote]Natural Nate wrote:
How would you know a person in the first place if you did not strike up a conversation with them?
What a great, friendly world we live in.
Professor X wrote:
Why do you feel the need to strike up conversations with everyone you see unless you know them?
[/quote]
I speak to people I would like to know. Don’t pretend as if you just blindly walk around talking to everyone you see indiscriminantly. You know that isn’t true just like I do. People read other people all of the time by watching their interactions with other people, observing what seems to motivate them or simply observing how much drive and intensity they seem to have, especially in the gym. The guy “benchpressing” a 25 on each side who barely breaks a sweat over the course of an hour, that you see every single day and hasn’t changed at all in 2 years and barely looks like he trains is probably not someone I care to get to know in a gym setting. If you watch most gyms, most of the larger guys either know each other or at least speak to each other unless they are new to the area.
It is the same way I might walk past some guy in the mall who clearly looks like he lifts and we nod at each other. That is something we have in common and something that would only need to be explained to someone who had very little size on them and never experienced it.
I’ve had an iPod for a year. My job requires a good bit of travel through parts of NC that have little or no radio. Sorry but the last thing I want to be stuck with on a long drive is either “old timey country” or religious radio.
I will listen to them when the urge hits but normally no. The iPod allows me to listen to what I want to when I want to (I have one of those FM things that interfaces between the iPod and the car stereo). I also will wear it while at work since I have to spend my day in various NOCs that are rather loud.
I used to wear mine at the gym when I first started. Why? I wasn’t trying to be unfriendly but in this southern town my gym has a lot of yappers. On my first day there I walked in behind 3 guys who had towels over their shoulders. They stood in front of the rack and chatted, did a few laps to get water, then left. On day 2 they started chatting me up, in the middle of a dumbell press one of the guys starts talking to me. Huh? After that I took my iPod in with me. About a week later one of the apparent old timers asked me why I wore it, I aimed my head at the group of guy chatters and said “I think you know why”. He laughed and said yeah, they basically use the gym as a shower and that’s it.
After that I quit wearing it. I’ve managed to talk to a few people. I know a couple of them by name but mostly we communicate via nods and small talk.
[quote]etaco wrote:
On another note, I think the main factor in how friendly strangers are is less regionalism and has more to do with the level of urbanization. It’s more significant for a rural person to see another human than it is for a city dweller who has to deal with oodles of dumbasses up close all day long. [/quote]
There are huge regional differences though. If your car breaks down on a Michigan freeway, someone might stop to help. If your car breaks down on an Alabama freeway, half a dozen people might stop to help.
[quote]Applesauce wrote:
All southern cities aren’t like that. In Houston …[/quote]
I don’t think most people consider Texas to be in “the South”. The culture is completely different. Florida isn’t a part of “the South” either, except for most of the panhandle and some parts of the northern interior.
[quote]swivel wrote:
TeeVee69 wrote:
4est wrote:
MP3 is a LOSSY compression. You lose information. That can definitely be heard in the typical MP3. It does not matter what medium it’s saved to. It’s still lossy compression.
Yeah, but the information that’s lost probably isn’t audible to 99% of the human population under normal listening conditions anyway. Are you saying you’re not human? It sounds disingenuous and borderline elitist to claim you can hear a difference, when 99% of the population does not.
The same goes for the BS that vinyl purists have about CDs too.
simply because you don’t care enough to hear the difference doesn’t mean it’s not there.
can you distinguish between a piano and a digital piano ? live strings and synthesized ? analog or digital recording ? can you tell flourescent from incandescent, from natural light? real tits from silicone ? jap cars from euro ? can you bite an apple and tell if they over-irrigated ? can you tell if your drink is diluted ? macdonald’s burger from homemade ?
it doesn’t take a savant. anyone with normal hearing can hear the difference if they care to. why do you want less for your money ?
[/quote]
You are right if you are talking about your standard run of the mill 128k MP3 files. Completely right. That said, if you bump the bitrate up to 192k or 160k Variable, or better yet, use one of the newer file formats (AAC/MP4 (what apple uses on the itunes store) or OGG come to mind) the difference begins to disappear.
With the newer files that do a better job, the fact of the matter is unless you have VERY expensive speakers or headphones, you won’t tell any difference. And even if you do you might not. Nothing amuses me more than hearing people complain about lossy file formats, when they are listening on the latest $300 5.1 speakers from Klipsch or Logitech. Don’t get me wrong, these are good speakers, I have some myself, but they aren’t audiophile quality or even close to it.
I don’t see how a lot of you guys wear headphones at the gym, they’d always be falling out of my ears, and interfering with exercises, plus i’d always be playing with/ adjusting them in between sets.
[quote]alstan90 wrote:
I don’t see how a lot of you guys wear headphones at the gym, they’d always be falling out of my ears, and interfering with exercises, plus i’d always be playing with/ adjusting them in between sets.
[/quote]
Behind the head headphones don’t fall off your ears. They are clipped onto your ears.
[quote]DooMMOoD wrote:
Every mp3 player is not an iPod. FUCK. I hate it when people make that generalization. [/quote]
And all tissue paper is not Kleenex.
And all hook and tab fasteners are not Velcro.
Woah. Velcro is a brand? It’s amazing when a company makes a product so definitive, its name enters vocabulary as the type of product it creates.
The same thing went for Kleenex, I didn’t know it was an actual company until a couple of months ago.
[quote]TeeVee69 wrote:
LOL, dude. I’m the insulting elitist asshole? Better work on your reading comprehension skills and check the mirror.
[/quote] no, read your own posts:
obstinate, derogatory and belittling.
[quote]
I’m not the one claiming to be the savant (your word choice, not mine) that can discern a qualitative difference when the average listener cannot. [/quote]
yes i chose the syntax, but get it right. what i said was “you don’t have to be a savant” it’s your own retarded comprehension skills that are holding you back on the meaning. and despite how mis-characterise me to support your own bigotry, this is not claiming to be savant, rather just the opposite:
my statement says that i’m nothing special and that everyone has the sensory ability to hear the difference. it is open to all. that’s kinda 180 from elitism.[quote]
But hell, if you say there is a difference…you know what? I believe you.
Can’t argue with a purist…[/quote]
once again with the derision. yet my original point still stands: it’s not that the difference is there, it’s that you don’t care enough to hear it. the fact that several others on this thread alone can hear the difference like “night and day” torches your “99%” hyperbole. the people who can tell do not have any special hearing skills. they simply care to notice what others do not. nothing wrong with that btw; everyone makes choices. the part that makes you an elitist asshole is the part where you think that if you don’t care to hear it then no one else should either, and further you will disdainfully jeer anyone who does.
btw the reason any of this even matters is not that someone can’t distinguish lp from cd from mp3. it’s that lower quality media homogenizes the artists and those with real talent are diminshed while the mediocre are elevated by default.
so the tone of ashley simpson’s voice doesn’t sound that far from christina aguilera’s from nina simone’s. or eddie vedder sounds pretty much the same as chris cornell. the balls of tone that makes hendrix or santana or stevie ray true greats are all but cut off. the tones produced by great drummers like tony williams or john bonham are reduced to a beat box facade. and jeeez-s the experience of something like a john coltrane ballad on mp3 has gotta be about the same as wearing a rubber and fucking a blow-up doll.
it matters cause the true greats don’t get to express their full talents as much as the listeners don’t get to hear it. that is a rip off for the sake of convenience and profit margin. in the end it’s not that you can’t hear it, it’s that you don’t care enough to want to. again it’s everyone’s choice to determine how much they care, if at all. but i know if i bet you ten grand to distinguish “coltrane live at birdland” on lp, cd, and mp3, you’d care enough to take my money pretty quick.
Swivel,
At first I thought this whole debate was kind of silly, but I can see your point. Everything in our culture is cheapened and hurried, and we don’t seem to care about quality anymore.
To me it is kind of like looking at a photograph of a great work of art rather than seeing it in person.
When I went to see the statue of David I had to wait in line for a couple of hours to get in. I could have just looked at one of the postcards of the statue on the stand outside and decided that was good enough, but of course I wouldn’t have done that.
Music is art and great works of music can’t be appreciated properly in certain mediums.
As a matter of fact I do. At least I used to. Before I was locked in the basement.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Don’t pretend as if you just blindly walk around talking to everyone you see indiscriminantly. [/quote]
Going back to the original discussion, I think that the abundance of media in our lives today is one of Satan’s greatest tools to keep us immersed in a contestant, meaningless noise. People use this noise to drown out the sound of their conscience, questions about their mortality and questions about life, origin and eternity. Basically, the voice of God.
Swivel:
It’s painfully obvious I struck a sore spot in you because you really are riled up – more so than I can comprehend, or for that matter care. So I’ll just say this:
You’re absolutely right. I honestly don’t care enough about this, as much as you obviously do. (And whether or not you care to admit it, your painstaking exposition of your position has vividly painted you as a savant on this matter.)
To me, the mp3 format sounds great with whatever music I listen to – always has. My original point to the other poster was just to point out that most of your average listeners (okay, wrong for me to use a hyperbolic 99% number – but trying to make a point) will discern no difference in the format with CDs under normal listening conditions (with ambient noise and other crap going on in the background); otherwise, it wouldn’t be as popular a format as it has proven to be.
The stuff about lossy-compression means little to the majority of listeners; if the music sounds great, that’s all that really matters. That’s really all I was saying. (Ok, I also added a slap at the purists who try to belittle us average listeners for thinking this way; and this may be what got you all riled up in the first place.)
Now, if my way of stating my point spoke out to you as being elitist, obstinate, derogatory, belittling (again using your words), enough for you to feel you needed to defend all that is pure in your world, well then, all I can say is:
[center]Welcome to T-Nation: where we all have an opinion on something.[/center]
Seriously, just listen to your Coltrane, take a couple of Flameout caps, and chill out.
Peace.
[quote]TeeVee69 wrote:
…Seriously, just listen to your Coltrane, take a couple of Flameout caps, and chill out.
Peace.[/quote]
[quote]swivel wrote:
TeeVee69 wrote:
…Seriously, just listen to your Coltrane, take a couple of Flameout caps, and chill out.
Peace.
[/quote]
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Smooth…