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Pono seems totally irrelevant


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Luckily, we don't have anything to worry about wrt space aliens. They are so far away that they most likely couldn't get here in a thousand years - even at near the speed of light.

Thats not quite right George...

 

At 10% of the speed of light it would take around 50 years to travel to Proxima Centuri (approximately 4.23 light years away). Given that there are estimated to be 12 terrestrial exoplanets candidates within 20 light years and half of those are estimated to be within habitable zone thats 6 potentially habitable planets within 200 years travel at 10% of speed of light.

 

Yes I know about time dilation, but at 10% of the speed of light its not a huge issue (50 years ship time is around 50 1/4 years for a stationary observer). Of course as speed increases the dilation problem increases but its not till you get to 90% or greater of the speed of light where is starts to really become a problem - at 90% 1 day on board is over 2 1/4 days for a stationary observer.

 

There are lots of physics problems to overcome for interstellar space flight but time is the least of them!

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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I'm afraid I'm not totally with you on the above, John. To the extent that art also involves a craft or skill, e.g. painting or playing a musical instrument, there can be "bad" art if indeed it qualifies as art at all.

Good or Bad craftsmanship in playing a musical instrument is easy to define; but how do you define "bad craftsmanship" in painting? Are Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso bad craftsmen because their paintings are not photo realistic? Certainly van Gogh's contemporaries thought so!

 

Perhaps to a certain extent you could say that performing art is a skill and can be classed as a good or bad performance; creating art is more about inspiration and interpretation and there good and bad are not valid terms.

 

Eloise

Eloise

---

...in my opinion / experience...

While I agree "Everything may matter" working out what actually affects the sound is a trickier thing.

And I agree "Trust your ears" but equally don't allow them to fool you - trust them with a bit of skepticism.

keep your mind open... But mind your brain doesn't fall out.

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I'm afraid I'm not totally with you on the above, John. To the extent that art also involves a craft or skill, e.g. painting or playing a musical instrument, there can be "bad" art if indeed it qualifies as art at all.

 

Allan,

 

I do understand that "bad" craftsman are often consider "bad" artists by their contemporaries (see Eloise' post on V. van Gogh).

 

However, I would argue that the better test of "great art" is the degree to which it evokes emotion, awe, and reaction in the observer, rather than the craftsmanship of the technique. I have seen great craftsman's work that isn't great art and great art that has poor craftsmanship. I believe that the concept of "awe" as I have used it to include "technique or conception or expression" covers the idea that something that is an impressive technical skill starts move in this direction, yet it requires more than simply technical skill.

 

In an extreme, would you rather listen to 100 perfectly played scales or 1 improvisational expression that, while imperfect, moved you emotionally and demanded a reaction?

 

I would come back to the idea than the creative expression of the human condition often does not involve great technical skill, although when it does, it can inspire awe in the technique itself.

 

Best,

John

Positive emotions enhance our musical experiences.

 

Synology DS213+ NAS -> Auralic Vega w/Linear Power Supply -> Auralic Vega DAC (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> XLR -> Auralic Taurus Pre -> XLR -> Pass Labs XA-30.5 power amplifier (on 4" maple and 4 Stillpoints) -> Hawthorne Audio Reference K2 Speakers in MTM configuration (Symposium Jr HD rollerball isolation) and Hawthorne Audio Bass Augmentation Baffles (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> Bi-amped w/ two Rythmic OB plate amps) -> Extensive Room Treatments (x2 SRL Acoustics Prime 37 diffusion plus key absorption and extensive bass trapping) and Pi Audio Uberbuss' for the front end and amplification

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I know two things:

 

#1 PONO is totally irrelevant to this thread.

#2 None of us can define art. Otherwise, can someone here explain why this masterpiece by Mark Rothko is so revered?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13977[/ATTACH]

 

That art of Rothko looks like it belongs in the abstract expressionist style.

The Truth Is Out There

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[...] can someone here explain why this masterpiece by Mark Rothko is so revered?

 

Personally, Mark Rothko is about subtly of color and shading and the overwhelming size of canvas on the wall. That can't be reproduced on a page in a coffee table book, let alone as an icon on a computer screen.

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Personally, Mark Rothko is about subtly of color and shading and the overwhelming size of canvas on the wall. That can't be reproduced on a page in a coffee table book, let alone as an icon on a computer screen.

 

I chose Rothko because I don't like his aethetic, but I recognize that it is true art, because it provokes an emotional response in the viewer/listener, whether good or bad. So, while "George" dislikes rock music, that still validates it as art.

I also tend to think that with worldwide bandwith, the "cloud", YouTube, etc., more of our cultural expression, regardless of how banal, will inevitably be preserved for the future, rather than discarded.

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I chose Rothko because I don't like his aethetic, but I recognize that it is true art, because it provokes an emotional response in the viewer/listener, whether good or bad. [...]

I also tend to think that with worldwide bandwith, the "cloud", YouTube, etc., more of our cultural expression, regardless of how banal, will inevitably be preserved for the future, rather than discarded.

 

On the other hand, the samples of Rothko in the cloud probably won't get you the same emotional response as the real thing on the wall.

 

As for preserving all the banal stuff, it probably isn't a bad thing. I like collecting music from forgotten composers. The one I'm researching right now is Carl Czerny, who was Beethoven's assistant. These days he's mostly known for his piano studies that piano students will encounter sooner or later. But he also write in all popular genres of his day. These "serious" music has long been dismissed out of hand because "if you want the real thing, don't waste you time with the student, go straight to the master instead." Given the examples that I heard, I think that's totally unfair. It's good that we now have the spare capacity to deal with the less highly regarded stuff.

 

And another thing. J.S. Bach current has a little over 200 cantatas preserved. He wrote a lot more than that. Rumor has it that a significant number of sheets of paper with his cantatas on it were moved from the church attic and distrubuted to street vendors to wrap food for sale. The church elders apparently value the utility of the sheets more than the music on it. A pretty heavy handed judgement I suppose. But even today, of the 1000+ works of Bach that has assigned BWV numbers, I wonder what percentage is really well known. There are certainly a lot of the obscured works by Bach that should deserve much better. So even for well know composers, the judging/selecting is still going on. Again, good thing cloud has come to the rescue...

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I chose Rothko because I don't like his aethetic, but I recognize that it is true art, because it provokes an emotional response in the viewer/listener, whether good or bad. So, while "George" dislikes rock music, that still validates it as art.

I also tend to think that with worldwide bandwith, the "cloud", YouTube, etc., more of our cultural expression, regardless of how banal, will inevitably be preserved for the future, rather than discarded.

 

 

I never said that rock and other forms of popular music aren't art. You are conflating my argument with everybody else's. I am only saying that that the popular music characterized by second-half of the 20th Century, and what we have in the early 21st Century will likely not survive the test of time beyond the lifetimes of those generations at whom it was aimed. That's my entire contention. As I have said before, the fact that I don't like it only means that *I* place no value on it and it isn't to my taste. That has nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion about it's longevity which is based on my looking at the history of popular music over the last 100 or so years.

George

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I never said that rock and other forms of popular music aren't art. You are conflating my argument with everybody else's. I am only saying that that the popular music characterized by second-half of the 20th Century, and what we have in the early 21st Century will likely not survive the test of time beyond the lifetimes of those generations at whom it was aimed. That's my entire contention. As I have said before, the fact that I don't like it only means that *I* place no value on it and it isn't to my taste. That has nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion about it's longevity which is based on my looking at the history of popular music over the last 100 or so years.

 

Can you say why you think that is likely? I will counter that the roots of the music you refer to go back to the 1910s and 1920s, at least, and we have recorded examples that are still listened to. Go into the 1930s, especially, and you really start seeing lots of recordings of blues and old-time music (the roots of country and at least partially early rock and roll) surviving and being listened to.

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I never said that rock and other forms of popular music aren't art. You are conflating my argument with everybody else's. I am only saying that that the popular music characterized by second-half of the 20th Century, and what we have in the early 21st Century will likely not survive the test of time beyond the lifetimes of those generations at whom it was aimed. That's my entire contention. As I have said before, the fact that I don't like it only means that *I* place no value on it and it isn't to my taste. That has nothing whatsoever to do with my opinion about it's longevity which is based on my looking at the history of popular music over the last 100 or so years.

 

Very fair, George. I will narrow my comments to the point of art being memorable in part because it expresses the current human condition in a way that both speaks to the time it was recorded and is also of universal/timeless appeal. I would add to that that when it expresses itself in the medium of the era, it begins to then also speak to a greater progress of human advancement.

 

To that degree, much of the music of the 20th and 21st century will be remembered, perhaps the works of the 1960s the most, because they dealt with the human struggle as we transitioned to the information age yet still struggled to address social ills such as war, inequality, and intolerance.

 

Best,

John

Positive emotions enhance our musical experiences.

 

Synology DS213+ NAS -> Auralic Vega w/Linear Power Supply -> Auralic Vega DAC (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> XLR -> Auralic Taurus Pre -> XLR -> Pass Labs XA-30.5 power amplifier (on 4" maple and 4 Stillpoints) -> Hawthorne Audio Reference K2 Speakers in MTM configuration (Symposium Jr HD rollerball isolation) and Hawthorne Audio Bass Augmentation Baffles (Symposium Jr rollerball isolation) -> Bi-amped w/ two Rythmic OB plate amps) -> Extensive Room Treatments (x2 SRL Acoustics Prime 37 diffusion plus key absorption and extensive bass trapping) and Pi Audio Uberbuss' for the front end and amplification

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Have we not learned anything from Beats!

 

Beats (as overpriced and overrated as they are) at least offer an obvious and unmistakable improvement in sound (over stock iBuds). "Hi rez" audio does not*, certainly not in the noisy and imperfect settings where portable players will be used.

 

"It will get kids interested in vinyl" might be viewed by some as a positive effect of Pono, but that won't pay the salaries at Pono.

 

*(I'm sure we're all familiar with the research where listeners are completely unable to discern the effect of a 16/44 downsampling loop in the playback chain. I'd say that "unable to tell the difference in blind testing" equals "not an obvious improvement")

really good music -> high bitrate lossy files -> iTunes/foobar -> Fiio E10 - > Hifiman HE-400 headphones or Denon receiver/Mission 751/two 8" subs -> 45 year old ears

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:)

 

But the point of my hyperbole is that in 2214, nobody will have heard of the Beatles... I'd bet money on that.

 

And I'd gladly take that bet.

really good music -> high bitrate lossy files -> iTunes/foobar -> Fiio E10 - > Hifiman HE-400 headphones or Denon receiver/Mission 751/two 8" subs -> 45 year old ears

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In case you haven't noticed, the whole world is devolving - actually, going to hell in a hand basket is more like it. And it's only going to get worse.

 

I vigorously disagree. The case to the contrary is made by Stephen Pinker in "The Better Angels of our Nature"

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407357753&sr=1-1&keywords=stephen+pinker+the+better+angels+of+our+nature

 

As for art, 90% of everything is mediocre. 90% of all the "classical" music has been forgotten, and 90% of today's music will be forgotten as well. The other 10% will live on.

really good music -> high bitrate lossy files -> iTunes/foobar -> Fiio E10 - > Hifiman HE-400 headphones or Denon receiver/Mission 751/two 8" subs -> 45 year old ears

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Can you say why you think that is likely? I will counter that the roots of the music you refer to go back to the 1910s and 1920s, at least, and we have recorded examples that are still listened to. Go into the 1930s, especially, and you really start seeing lots of recordings of blues and old-time music (the roots of country and at least partially early rock and roll) surviving and being listened to.

 

 

Yeah, because so little of it from the first half of the 20th Century HAS survived. Tunes that can be re-treaded for a new generation, for instance, the tunes of Gershwin and Porter, certainly have survived as have multigenerational artists (like Bing Crosby). But who knows about the music of Russ Columbo, for instance? In the late 20's and early 30's, Columbo was as hot as any rock or hip-hop artist of today, but he died young of an accidental pistol discharge from an antique weapon and both he and his music have slipped into obscurity. Nobody listens to Al Jolson anymore but he was once the world's biggest star. The songs that have been forgotten are probably in their 10's of thousands. Around 1910 there was a whole genre of popular music on records and sheet music called "coon songs". You could probably find them in the Library of Congress, but not unsurprisingly, nobody performs them any more or even knows what they were. That is, for better or for worse, the destiny of most pop music. The more topical the music is, the more performer specific, the music is, the less chance it has to outlast it's "generation".

 

I really don't understand why this has turned into such a heated discussion. I know that many of you love pop music almost to the exclusion of everything else. Nobody is denying you access to that music or trying to enjoin you from listening to it. But when you and your contemporaries are gone, there is simply no reason to believe that a lot of this very commercial, very cynically produced music is going to be revered by people 75 years from now. Heck, a lot of perfectly good classical music has met the same fate. It simply wasn't good enough to stand beside Beethoven, Wagner, Vivaldi, Aaron Copland, or Ravel. Not all music - from any genre is great art, irrespective of how popular it might have been in it's day.

George

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I vigorously disagree. The case to the contrary is made by Stephen Pinker in "The Better Angels of our Nature"

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined: Steven Pinker: 9780143122012: Amazon.com: Books

 

I strenuously disagree with Mr. Pinker's "contrary case" A new Dark Age is threatening us and it gets closer every year.

 

As for art, 90% of everything is mediocre. 90% of all the "classical" music has been forgotten, and 90% of today's music will be forgotten as well. The other 10% will live on.

 

And I've disagreed with that where?

George

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Very fair, George. I will narrow my comments to the point of art being memorable in part because it expresses the current human condition in a way that both speaks to the time it was recorded and is also of universal/timeless appeal. I would add to that that when it expresses itself in the medium of the era, it begins to then also speak to a greater progress of human advancement.

 

To that degree, much of the music of the 20th and 21st century will be remembered, perhaps the works of the 1960s the most, because they dealt with the human struggle as we transitioned to the information age yet still struggled to address social ills such as war, inequality, and intolerance.

 

Best,

John

 

 

I really don't think that social context is ultimately going to matter very much - if at all.

George

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Around 1910 there was a whole genre of popular music on records and sheet music called "coon songs". You could probably find them in the Library of Congress, but not unsurprisingly, nobody performs them any more or even knows what they were.

 

I think you might be mistaken about that. Here's one that hasn't been forgotten, albeit from the 1920's:

 

 

A number of the same artist's songs are still being performed today by the likes of David Bromberg, John Hammond, and Gill Landry.

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I strenuously disagree with Mr. Pinker's "contrary case" A new Dark Age is threatening us and it gets closer every year.

 

Since this thread has digressed anyway, I'll ask: care to elaborate? Does this have something to do with Obama?

 

And I've disagreed with that where?

 

Well, you appeared to be comparing "Beethoven, Wagner, Ravel" to "the Beatles, Aerosmith, and Snoop Dogg", as evidence that classical will last and pop will not, which is unfair. You're comparing the classical composers *who lasted* to a random sampling of modern pop acts, two of whom are plainly mediocre and will likely be forgotten.

 

Here are the Aerosmiths and Snoop Doggs of classical music, in terms of historical legacy:

 

Superconductor Classical and Opera: The Superconductor Top Ten: Obscure Composers

really good music -> high bitrate lossy files -> iTunes/foobar -> Fiio E10 - > Hifiman HE-400 headphones or Denon receiver/Mission 751/two 8" subs -> 45 year old ears

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Since this thread has digressed anyway, I'll ask: care to elaborate? Does this have something to do with Obama?

 

Well, only peripherally. He's certainly part of it, but not the major (or even a minor) cause. Look to the Muslim world and the aims of their leaders and look to North Korea, and look to Putin, look to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Look to the world for the signs. They're there. Just look.

 

Well, you appeared to be comparing "Beethoven, Wagner, Ravel" to "the Beatles, Aerosmith, and Snoop Dogg", as evidence that classical will last and pop will not, which is unfair. You're comparing the classical composers *who lasted* to a random sampling of modern pop acts, two of whom are plainly mediocre and will likely be forgotten.

 

Here are the Aerosmiths and Snoop Doggs of classical music, in terms of historical legacy:

 

Superconductor Classical and Opera: The Superconductor Top Ten: Obscure Composers

 

I'm not "comparing" anything to anything, I'm just using examples I know. And I have agreed several times that there are certainly classical composers and performers who have not passed the test of time. I mean what do you want me to say other than just going round and round?

George

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I think you might be mistaken about that. Here's one that hasn't been forgotten, albeit from the 1920's:

 

 

A number of the same artist's songs are still being performed today by the likes of David Bromberg, John Hammond, and Gill Landry.

 

If ever ANYTHING should be forgotten, these are IT! And your example is mild, apparently, compared to some of them.

George

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I, for one, am shocked and saddened. It is beyond belief that anyone on this forum would have the stones to claim that they know what art is and what will stand the test of time.

 

Have we not learned anything from the thousands of postings here on Computer Audiophile (CA)?

 

We do not know if HD Tracks has real High Rez downloads.

 

We do not know if anyone can hear the difference between any format, bit rate, DAC, cable, amplifier, computer, server, or software.

 

Given our postings on all things audio, how can one person or any person(s) state that the Beatles (The Rolling Stones, J-Z, Snoop Dogg, the Jazz Messengers. et al) will be forgotten in 100 years?

 

We must put on our big boy pants and agree that we know that we do not know.

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake ~ Sayre's Law

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I'm not "comparing" anything to anything, I'm just using examples I know.

 

Of course. However, you're ignoring survivorship bias. The examples of classical music "you know" happen to be the ones that stood the test of time. No pop music from the second half of the 20th century has yet been exposed to the test of time, so none can be said to have passed it. Most of today's pop music will be forgotten, of course. But some of it will be remembered, just as Beethoven is. You appeared to be saying that no popular music of the second half of the 20th century will be remembered. (Certainly, if the Beatles will be forgotten as you claim, then everything else from the last 50 years will be too, as the Beatles would be considered "rock music most likely to last"). You also mentioned "the Great American Songbook" as an example of something which has lasted. I think you might be overstating the degree to which this is the case.

 

As for the "Dark Ages", I suspect that your definition of that term and mine will differ substantially, so I'll leave it at that.

really good music -> high bitrate lossy files -> iTunes/foobar -> Fiio E10 - > Hifiman HE-400 headphones or Denon receiver/Mission 751/two 8" subs -> 45 year old ears

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[...] You're comparing the classical composers *who lasted* to a random sampling of modern pop acts, two of whom are plainly mediocre and will likely be forgotten.

 

Here are the Aerosmiths and Snoop Doggs of classical music, in terms of historical legacy:

 

Superconductor Classical and Opera: The Superconductor Top Ten: Obscure Composers

 

3) Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707)

 

... mediocre? The one that J.S. Bach walked 250 miles to hear? When I listen to his stuff, normally I end up going on and on. It's really good stuff.

 

What about Christoph Graupner? He was the second choice for post of Thomaskantor in Leipzig. He couldn't obtain release from his patron at Darmstadt, prompting the Leipzig town council to remark "since the better men are not available, we have no choice but to settle for the lesser man" (or something like that). That's how Bach got to spend the rest of his life in Leipzig. Where is Graupner these days? Mostly nowhere, but the few recordings that you can find are beautiful.

 

And the list goes on and on and on. In fact, where was Bach himself the first 100 years after his death? Being forgotten and being mediocre often don't have too strong a correlation I'm afraid.

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