Quest for Vintage Audio
No AI in the post, no thanks.
I'm on a quest for sounds of the 1980s, arguably the best: AIWA, Sony, Bose, Denon, Marantz, B&O, JBL, and more.
Why? Listening to digital audio today pales in comparison. It's fine for research and reference, but do you really believe those stats about lossless and FLAC when you can barely hear anything at all?
The entire catalog at music is at your fingertips on a slab that's 6x3 inches but what good does that do when you have the attention of a gnat and it's all disposable and not even yours, including your personal data. For focused listening you need dedicated environments, powered and unpowered speakers, and vinyl or CD, not lossy connections where you scroll through options endlessly in search of something you could actually listen to end-to-end.
I didn't understand the need for studio speakers outside of the professional realm till I sat down and listened - really listened - to an entry level pair. Initial listen was underwhelming - struck me as flat, a tad dull, and barely worth the effort. A $50 Bluetooth has more sparkle. Before giving up however, a spark lit: I could hear the music for the first time as it was recorded with no manipulation and sound effects to muddy the rendition, or enhance it, if you prefer. The stereo was pure - this is what I was looking for - not Apple's lousy processing or speaker arrays stuffed into a conical shape designed for aesthetics, not of the musical kind. The ergonomics of listening to studio speakers suck - you need to sit in a chair at the proper distance to hear them right. One or two feet off kills the effect. Savor the moment for the best of the best of your audio collection and turn off distractions wherever possible.
Take a gander at this find on eBay - a relic from a bygone era, and yes, an integrated unit, but this and its ilk will drive me henceforth to get that concert or studio sound.
In better times, audio was an adventure, not a yawn. The variety of enclosures and components was truly diverse, not a closed ecosystem of derivative and obnoxiously corporatized apps, which, by the way, take away from artists, even though you could argue the barriers to entry are now lower than ever. Is that a good thing? Not necessarily, and this is why I'm going grab everything in sight and within reach to curate the experience and share - independent of influence and off-the-grid if, I can ever truly unplug from it.