Who Do You Credit????

[dingus]

for me, it was my older brother who used his paper route to finance a decent (for the day) mid-fi stereo. he also bought albums on a regular basis. since i had never had to put any effort into good sound and music, i pretty much took the enjoyment of music for granted, even after buying my very own stereo for the first time.

one day my roommate brought home a new album called "True Colours" by Split Enz. never heard of the group or album before. it was cool right out of the sleeve because the vinyl was laser etched in all these neat geometric patterns, even cooler was how it sounded. i had always enjoyed listening to music, and i liked having my own system, but until this album i had never heard music that really grabbed me an held my attention. for the first time i found myself listening critically, discovering nuance and subtlety, gaining an appreciation for musical skill, talent and most of all, creativity. i havent taken my gear or music for granted since.

[PeruvianSkies]

for me, it was my older brother who used his paper route to finance a decent (for the day) mid-fi stereo. he also bought albums on a regular basis. since i had never had to put any effort into good sound and music, i pretty much took the enjoyment of music for granted, even after buying my very own stereo for the first time.

one day my roommate brought home a new album called "True Colours" by Split Enz. never heard of the group or album before. it was cool right out of the sleeve because the vinyl was laser etched in all these neat geometric patterns, even cooler was how it sounded. i had always enjoyed listening to music, and i liked having my own system, but until this album i had never heard music that really grabbed me an held my attention. for the first time i found myself listening critically, discovering nuance and subtlety, gaining an appreciation for musical skill, talent and most of all, creativity. i havent taken my gear or music for granted since.

You bring up a very key phrase: listening critically. I think that the majority of the world typically enjoys the sound of music, but for some of us, that isn't good enough, we want to study what we are listening to, and it's not always a deep meditative thing, often times the music moves our soul and grabs us, but our brain is also working as well and it's analyzing what we are experiencing and putting that into some type of formula. For audiophiles we learn how to listen to music and we store memory of sounds in our brains as reference points, which most people are not able to do. We listen to certain musical cues and generate certain feelings and emotions that are often expressed in functional forms, but our entertainment of this hobby mainly exists in that never-ending quest to always have it sound a bit better, move us a bit more, grab us a little longer, and for that...we walk this journey without hesitation.

[Lance B]

for me, it was my older brother who used his paper route to finance a decent (for the day) mid-fi stereo. he also bought albums on a regular basis. since i had never had to put any effort into good sound and music, i pretty much took the enjoyment of music for granted, even after buying my very own stereo for the first time.

one day my roommate brought home a new album called "True Colours" by Split Enz. never heard of the group or album before. it was cool right out of the sleeve because the vinyl was laser etched in all these neat geometric patterns, even cooler was how it sounded. i had always enjoyed listening to music, and i liked having my own system, but until this album i had never heard music that really grabbed me an held my attention. for the first time i found myself listening critically, discovering nuance and subtlety, gaining an appreciation for musical skill, talent and most of all, creativity. i havent taken my gear or music for granted since.

Are you sure we aren't related? ;-) Similar tastes in music and an appreciation brought on by an older brother. It was my 5 year older brother who had a major influence in my love of music too, except he was not so much into critical listening at that time like I was, although he is into critical appreciation more so now.

Again you surprise me with your appreciation of Split Enz's "True Colours" album as I would have thought that they were relatively unheard of in the States/Canada. Anyway, it's good to know that they have some appreciation over there. It is a very good album.

[dingus]

... you surprise me with your appreciation of Split Enz's "True Colours" album as I would have thought that they were relatively unheard of in the States ....

as far as i know they were, i just got lucky. though "True Colours" was my introduction to Split Enz, it is "Time and Tide" that is their masterpiece. i have followed Neil Finn's career ever since and am delighted by the reformation of Crowed House.

[hifitommy]

the radio was always on, i remember les paul and mary ford back in the late forties when i was 4 or 5 and as years went on, everything was on the radio as there were only a couple of stations (unlike the choices of today).

bing crosby, early frank sinatra, sabre dance (?khachatourian), doris day, dinah shore, ellington, ad infinitum.

my father was a bassist but died when i was 5 but mom loved music and it was ever present.

yeah, elvis, carl perkins, and later duane eddy, link wray, the ventures, buddy holly, ritchie valens. on the radio in buffalo was the "hound" who was the inspiration for wolfman jack.

a friends father built a stereo cabinet and put radio shack or allied radio components in it and the SOUND got my attention.

over in guam, while in the air force, the guys had great sounding systems in their rooms and i realized that components were the way to go.

after bieng in california for a while, i decided to go to pacific stereo and get some. between ar4Xs and dyna a25s, the dynas were MUCH better.

evolution went on ever since and continues today, especially in musical interests.

[Mike Anderson]

I also credit my older brother.

My parents were musical too -- mom was a music teacher, and dad had a great stereo setup -- but I didn't really identify with their tastes in music when I was a kid.

It was my older brother who really turned me on to all kids of cool stuff. He taught me how to use dad's turntable and tape deck at a very young age, and he accumulated a pretty big record collection himself. He also picked up the guitar and joined a band (which I did as well).

[Wireworm5]

I grew up in a musical family where my dad played the button accordian. Whenever we got together with our relatives they would play waltzes and polkas as my dad's brothers all learned an instrument, banjo, violin, accordian, drums. Later on they formed a band which gave me access to a tube amp and home made speakers hooked up to an RCA stereo, in my teens. As I was learning to play drums I would play my drums to rock music.

What got me started with my own taste or identity of music was when one of our neighbors stole two lp's and left them at our place. One was the Troggs and the other was Best of Deep Purple. I liked Deep Purple which was different than anything I heard up until that time, particularly the song 'River Deep Mountain High'. After that I was hooked on hard rock. Then came stuff like In-a-godda-da-vida and Deep Purple-Made in Japan, my all-time favorite album.

As for electronic music, my friend got my hooked on that when we went job hunting out of High school, to Edmonton. He would listen to cool stuff like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis.

When I moved back to Saskatoon shortly after, I bought my first stereo which was a Bryston 2B amp, Technics TT, Hafler pre-amp, ESS speaker Model 10 and Stax headphones. It all got stolen from my apt. except for the speakers and TT. After that I just used a ghetto blaster or listened to car audio while driving taxi. Then I sold my taxi (another story) and built my home theatre stereo system. I should have paid off my taxi debt's right away, but having a stereo was more important.