The new norm
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsI was just ruminating on the date. February 23, 2021. Two months into the second year of a pandemic lockdown.
Who’d have guessed?
As audiophiles, we’re thankful our passions are inside our homes. I mean, if you have to be trapped inside better with great music and sound than without.
Thank goodness for music.
Thank goodness for Copper Magazine.
Thank goodness for our HiFi Family.
We’ll get through this together as families do.
Approximately two months ago America reached 300,000 dead from CoViD-19;
today they hit 500,000.
That’s 10 months to get to 300,000 & only another 2 months for another 200,000
to shuffle off this mortal coil.
One word comes to mind; exponential…like compound interest.
“Meet the new norm; same as the old norm”
(We wont get fooled again?)
In Australia I’m not trapped inside; I just prefer it…there’s more to do 🙂
NZ v Australia yesterday in front of a full house and what a fantastic result !!!
Oh, the humiliation 🙁
😉
Good for NZ; they don’t get that many wins,
besides, it was only twenty/20.
Tomorrow India will start up the chainsaw again 🙂
Good Luck!
“And I’ll be what I am. A solitary man.”
Sorry, I song that was just playing (Promise — Gavin Greenaway, sung by Kelly Coffee) triggered a memory and emotional response. It happens. Mostly good, but it does happen.
Steven,
Don’t be sorry.
One of the best sounding (well recorded & well produced) LIVE albums of all time from 1972 is ‘Hot August Night’ 🙂
PS Audio or any other consumer brand are not my family. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. Families can be for good, bad and indifference and they are not a matter of choice. It is fortunate to have online interest groups because, for example, a photography club I occasionally attend has not met for a year. There are people who miss that terribly. If it wasn’t for WhatsApp and Zoom, we’d be in trouble. For the first 3 months I barely listened to music at home as I missed live performance. We then got live shows again last July till November and it’s been live streaming since then. Live streaming of theatre and opera has been around for years, but streaming of recitals have been fantastic, especially the camera angles that give views you don’t get from the best seats. Has also shown me the merit of HD Bluetooth from a tablet, which is new to me.
Hey Steven, do you have an opinion on which is better; Tidal or Qobuz?
FYI Fat Rat – you cant play CD’s on either 😉
We had a small gathering of close friends the other night for a Mardis Gras dinner and of course music. After midnight, there were just three of us taking turns cueing up old tunes until 2:30am! many I had long forgotten.
Where is the love – Roberta Flack
Alone Again – Gilbert O’Sullivan
Sneakin’ Sally thru the Alley – Robert Palmer
djB-O-B,
Haha…beautiful timing…you know that I have no interest in streaming.
I was asking on behalf of a friend & so I asked Steven because he knows heaps more about it than I do…
not difficult 😉
I love those golden oldie/one hit wonders from 1968 to 1973.
Google:
Spectrum – ‘I’ll Be Gone’ (1971) on YT & listen to that harmonica; now that’s music!
Harry Nilsson – ‘Without You’ & ‘Jump Into The Fire’
John Kongos – ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’
& the list goes on & on & on….
er no..The BEAT goes on, especially on a Sonny day – it Cher would be good!
Up late last night were you?
😉
I’ve been using Qobuz since before Tidal existed. As the focus was classical and jazz, it suits me fine. Its main selling point when it was limited to 16/44 in the early days, was heavily discounted downloads. Tidal partners with MQA, which I consider a fraud, so I won’t go near it. Qobuz also has excellent editorial and metadata, was the first service to provide booklets (very important with classical) and I still sometimes go back to the Qobuz desktop for booklets not available through Qobuz in Roon.
Qobuz went bust around 2013 and was refinanced. Their business plan was never to try and challenge Spotify, but to generate far more revenue per user the anyone else, which they do, through editorial and media partners, for example Gramophone Magazine. They also have their own magazine.
You can’t provide that level of engagement just by collecting data from search engines.
Thank you Steven.
Thanks Steven for the info on Qubuz, I asked Fat Rat and he asked you. Sometime soon I’d like to talk about ROON. I’ll do a trial of Qubuz and let you know. Again thanks.
Keep Listening
The Kids subscribed to TIDAL awhile back and are letting me piggyback on their ‘family and friends’ extended plan. Not that much of a streamer and I have never heard Qobuz, so I have no opinion there. I can say that TIDAL is more than adequately good (especially, for free) when I feel like checking out new music, but I remain an unrepentant physical media kind of guy with a good sized music library here.
Feeling like a little east-west hybrid exotica now: Yo-yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble. And some South American coffee.
I saw the Silk Road Ensemble and Mark Morris Dance perform Leyla & Majnun 3 or 4 years ago. They are a remarkable group of musicians.
Here in ‘Straya we don’t (yet – mooted for April) have Qobuz. I tried a 3 month trial of Tidal – seemed to lack ‘guts’, felt anemic somehow, both on my home system and even in the car via Android – hell even Spotify felt warmer and had more presence. So went to Deezer and am happy – better than Tidal where I am. Sure, it’s not hi-rez, only CD qulaity, but until I can spec Qobuz it’s staying.
Hey Rat I use Qobuz, never used Tidal, email me bout any questions Good Day !
Hi Michael,
Can I send ‘Hawkaudio’ your email address?
Sure he is a kool dude yes ! Hey and no more smoking in the woods. Let’s keep the home fires burning low! nothing worse than a blacken bush baby . . ..
Spending more time inside the house and specifically my music room has allowed me to improve my audio system. I’ve increased my knowledge of audiophile science, implemented ideas from Paul’s blog and book, and have learned critical listening skills. Experimenting with setting the three volume controls between the streamer, DAC and preamp became a “Wow” moment. For sure I’ll be happy when the pandemic subsides but, it has definitely made me a better audiophile.
I have to say that being an audiophile has helped keep me sane so far during this pandemic ( although on some days just barely ). This month has been tough with all of the snow. So far we have had snow fall on 14 days this month. I got a new snow thrower in December so the first time it was sort of fun to use it. However, using it three times a week is getting old real quick.
That mirrors my year pretty much.
A year ago I “retreated” to my retirement hobbies—photography, bird watching, wine and cooking. Kept me sane, engaged and learning a lot.
Come November and the end of outdoor comfort, I turned to music. Somehow I talked myself into new speaker cables, and after a few weeks I was smitten, especially when my wife could hear and appreciate the sonic improvements. That lead me to the internet and to Paul’s videos and newsletters. I spent 2+ months tweaking speaker placement. I tried several of the most affordable “snake oil improvements” : anti-vibration pads below al my electronics, high quality cables to replace the speaker and pre-amp to power amp jumpers, and Herbie’s supper black hole CD mat. I was suitably impressed, and then when Paul’s book/CD arrived I was able to fine tune speaker placement and get serious about listening.
So here am, Maggie LRS on order, Magna Risers on order, and as soon as the IRS (the Tax folks) deliver, I’ll be upgrading from my NAD electronics to PS Audio.
Yup, the new norm is moving up!
What a great retirement Palouse – audio, food, wine, birds, art – fantastic!
I had to laugh at the description of your (happy) down the rabbit-hole journey – seems similar to mine. I enjoy the same interests although painting is swapped out for photography – working hard on the retirement bit, the closest I get is last month having to ‘ re-tyre’ all wheels on my car!
My new normal is that I have become a better Audiophile like some of you by learning, tweaking and of course reading. Also like some of you (tonplachy) being an audiophile has kept me incredibly sane.
I work a lot still because I’m in construction, but weekends after 9pm I can be at one with my beautiful audio. My biggest leap was discovering and learning about PS Audio’s AC regenerators. It has surged so much love and more appreciation for the equipment I have. Other than seeing my wife and son at the end of the day, Music is what I look forward to most !
I also can’t tell you gentlemen, for how much money I’ve spent on music last year. Once again, as Paul pointed out that our main hobby is in our home I feel that makes for deadly spending. So much music. So much fun.
Paul. We are gonna get through this. Thank you for the great post and message. I feel great and so does my family. Grateful for that. 🙂
Yes, we will, and thanks for posting your encouraging thoughts.