When listening to music played back from a vinyl record or digital file, you can only hear as much of the content as was encoded in the recording and not damaged by playback through the sound system.
What is "bad" and what is "good" sound when listening to recorded music?
There was a time when the main criteria for quality in the sound of a magnetic tape or a vinyl record was "loud and clear". For many years thereafter, sophisticated consumers were mainly interested in how 'low' and 'high' frequencies were reproduced. In terms of these criteria, the pinnacle of technical progress was reached with the advent of MP3 files, Class D amplifiers and subwoofers. Everything sounded loud and clear, but unfortunately not interesting. The mass streamers and amplifiers of the 2020s do a worse job of conveying the emotion of the music than the mass gramophones of the 1920s. Modern vinyl records have deteriorated substantially since the 1950s and often turn into digital file stuffing. 100 years of evolution have led to a dead end.
People seem to hear more music, everywhere and all the time, but they listen to much less of it. Because it is mostly no longer music, but "muzak" - background music that is not necessary, and in fact not possible, to listen to seriously and enjoy in a special way. Emotions are either absent from such music or it is very primitive, suitable only for morning exercise or other special occasions.
How did this happen and where is the solution? What are the reasonably rich recordings now available, where can we get them, and how can we reproduce more interesting music from them without significant loss of emotional content?
This presentation from the "Closer to the Music" series at the Music Magic Club will talk about the nature of sound and its impact on emotions, about recording formats and their implications for music playback, and about sound systems in homes. You can't cover everything in a couple of hours, but you also need to listen to the music and discuss it... -
The topic will be presented by Artashe Ghazarian, a doctor of social sciences, who is neither a true audiophile nor a sophisticated musicologist. He is the founder of the NGO "Music Magic" and a great lover of listening to good music - if not live, at least reproduced well enough. For more than 20 years he has been studying the phenomenon of musical sound from both the information theory and the neuropsychology side. He has already published a number of articles on the subject and is constantly experimenting at the Music Magic Salon - something he will have to share with those who would like to enjoy more music from recordings.
Running time: 2.5 hrs.
