Audiophilia - I like that!
I knew things were never going to be 'like that' (back in the old days quality) the day mp3's became the normal way people listened to music - I'm talking the chirpy 128kbps MP3's that Napster got everyone hooked on (cause it was free). Yeah, I'm 'that old' ha-ha!

 

No, sadly enough it's the 'old people' that usually are the ones that still having a decent hearing! It's mainly the youngsters with their cheap plastic Apple ear buds that have been blowing their ears out with edm at 120db for years all day long that can't hear the difference between an mp3 and high quality audio anymore!

 

Hi-Fi comes in different classes. There's the budget amplifier with tuner and cheap speakers up until a set with separated pre and power amplifiers with ditto speakers. But you don't need to spend an awful lot of money to enjoy 'quality' sound in your home.

This is not correct! Even reproducing Jimi Hendrix' guitar sound is a challenge to reproduce on a Hi-Fi system. As is any other concert that was once played life. Hi-Fi means trying to capture and reproducing a sound and feeling as it was during the recording on a home system.
So that goes ranging from Paco de Lucia on his acoustic guitar on a small stage to a life concert of Metallica in a stadium. Hi-Fi is about capturing that atmosphere that was there during the life capture.

'Audiophilia' is totally different! That goes far beyond Hi-Fi and deals with purity of sound that sometimes doesn't even has anything to do with Hi-Fi or reality for that matter! It's mainly about how pure for instance a piano or other acoustic instruments can sound or how real you can make a string quartet, orchestra or even a full orchestra sounds in reproduction. Most of these 'audiophile' people chasing the ultimate sound with their ultimate high end gear often are beyond about caring about music. They're only interested in the ultimate perfection of reproduction of sound as they perceive it should be.

I've been in this Hi-End business for some years a long time ago and two extreme examples of clients I've been to I'll always remember.

The first: I went to a poor neighborhood at a very cheap apartment building to help out with some unwanted resonance. The guy living in a small apartment had speakers rising up to his ceiling. Besides his amplifier and his turntable there was nothing else in the room that was maybe 4x6 meters.The guy only lived and worked for his high end system. Whatever money he could save went into possible upgrades to his system.

The second: I went to a very big mansion of a very rich person to deliver some new interlink cables for his turntable. What I saw there I have never seen before or after!
This guy had a listening room the size of a small concert room and actually build a stage with the most exotic speakers to reproduce a live concert as closely as possible. He played me a Haydn string quartet and sound wise it was there on his stage! He played me Janis Ian singing and playing her guitar and when I closed my eyes she was there on his stage! The most amazing thing I've ever seen and heard! And still he wanted to experiment with a different interlink cables between his turntable and pre-amp?

This behavior is not unlike to some people in the music industry? Some people will tell you tales about sonic richness of this and that hardware compressor or EQ or reverb unit from 1975 that is unparalleled. And eventually it's all mixed to a 16 bit 44.1K for the kiddies to stream and blow out their ears on their iPhones or in their cars!

And that's why your audio is bad!

There is hardly any romance in audio anymore. It's not about quality anymore. It's about creating the best mix for ear buds on an iPhone or in a car.

And that's why all audio is bad for people that want to hear music on their speaker in their living room or even on quality headphones.
But that's the way it is today....

 

I've no idea what you're on about. I listen to abstract DnB compressed (or rather clipped) to -3 LUFS.

I also have no idea how this is different from what I've said.
You guys sound like the "Books will kill the soul of the story! It's meant to be told in person!" crowd 3000 years ago.

 

There are incredible soundboard mixes from Grateful Dead shows from the 70s. They have bootlegs that sound better than official live albums of most bands. The fact that they worked with the most advanced sound companies for their PAs and had live engineers who were considered part of the band helped.

What the hell are you talking about, it's is a biological fact that hearing deteriorates with age lol

As for the "youngsters with their cheap plastic Apple ear buds that have been blowing their ears out with edm at 120db for years all day long" :

 

I managed to make it past quite a few years of wailing-ass guitar/bass amps and giant PA's - BUT I wore SPL plugs/filters all the time and still do. It makes a difference if you want to hear your entire life or not..

 

I've actually pondered this very situation myself. I think you're absolutely right - that the modern generation, due to the kind of earbuds they are using and which projects sound so close to the eardrum - are the ones losing their hearing worse than we who are in our 50s.

That said, years of being a gigging musician brought on tinnitus which means I have frequency loss in those specific tones that never leave. The rest of my hearing is pretty respectable though!

 

"Good" and "bad" are completely subjective. You -- the composer/performer/audio engineer/mastering engineer -- create, perform and record, mix and master the music that sounds good to you. Then, it's up to your potential paying audience to decide whether or not it's good to them. That's the hat trick.

 

I'd be interested to hear these; Which do you recommend?

Grateful Dead is a mixed bag for me. I had a few albums when I was younger, Anthem For The Sun, Live Dead, American Beauty and liked them. I never really went with them further, a lot of it was a bit country for me (a genre I've never got along with tbh), it was more the psyche/jazzier side of them I found appealing. I did recently watch a gig of theirs on the TV though and whilst still a mixed bag found some of it very interesting, particularly the improv.

 

Wow. Oh man, lucky me for not learning to record, mix or master. Dodged a bullet there...

 

Check for your audio card driver. An outdated or corrupted audio card driver could result in your problem. Make sure the one in your computer is the best-matched one.

If you are not sure if the problem is from the device driver, then it is suggested you download a device driver scanning and updating software. Personally recommend Driver Talent to you. One of its highlights is easy to use. It could scan all drivers in your computer, list the problematic drivers, then fix it by just one click.

 

I agree with that video as much as this one:

And also, I made this a while ago....

 

That is 96 db above the noise floor in your room (or the recording venue), a quiet room is often around 30 dbA, so even playback at 110dB is not a problem.

(ref: Most orchestral instruments will be below 105 dB for most passages, though loud drums/bass can be over 120dB https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30826542.pdf)