Tastes change with age?

No, @czarivey , you’re salty enough..!

As I’m aging, my tastes are definitely changing. When younger, I was all about electronic music. That’s all I would listen to, all I was interested in. Moving to the UK and getting in with a great group of DJs and musicians exposed me to all kinds of music. They loved Shostakovich, Leadbelly, Terry Riley, John Cage.. they were into abstract film and all kinds of great generative art. Since then, i listen for the soul in each piece of music, as opposed to the sounds it’s made from. Now I like just about everything that has, at its core, space and harmony. The sounds may be death metal, noise or sweet k pop, but if it stirs me, I’ll listen to it.

As for overly loud, car rattling stereos, I’ve hated them since I was a wee lad. Never understood why my friends did that to their cars, back in the day..

@Stfoth > “… as "audiophiles" age or moving with technology, might others prefer different types of music/gear than they once upon a time did?”

Blindjim > change is inevitable. Do nothing and as humans we change, lie it or not, just like tubes. We are always changing.

Getting much older, I am far more interested in the hear after lately then ever before. I’ll go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and when I get there, wonder, what in the Hell am I here after?

Perhaps my favorite ‘change’ of them all is Social Media. Spacebook. Tweeter. Insta-headache. Drop out. All of which enable us to now become instant non culpable voyurers immune to proscecution regardless what we witness electronically. It’s a long over due facility.

Especially Spacebook. I’m always impressed to hear someone’s cat is on their roof, or the garage door is stuck and they’ll be late for work. Or someone just ran over road kill. Stopped. And took a picture to prove it. It makes for a much fuller, richer life!

How I was able to enjoy life without some innocuous Spacebook email notification every 5 minutes telling me someone posted what they had with their corn flakes, or a picture of a vulture sitting on a billboard advocating against texting and driving, or a pic of their kids first pulled tooth. OMG. I am ever grateful!

I’m praying for a Spacebook chip insert directly into my eyeballs so I can enjoy a constant 24/7 feed of all the utter nonsense.

I feel we are obliged to change and even forced into change by technology. Sure, preffs vacillate. But tech has certainly changed our lives and what we use on a daily basis. Indeed, how we use it or them.

I still don’t listen to ‘face down, butt up’ rip rap or hip hoppity noise. Somehow it just doesn’t hit any buttons for me.

I still like Rock, but am not thrilled with how poor the SQ is all too often. On SQ, it has moved me into new genres which exhibit better fidelity though, purely for the sake of better sonics.

New tech and approaches in Class D. Advancements in Digital tech has moved Digital conversion much farther ahead. In the proper context it is now closely approaching analog quality.

Loudspeaker technology is steadily marching onward and new materials and tech is being devised for motors, and diaphragms. As well,loudspeaker building is enduring yet another influence in manufacturing perspectives as they lower overall impedance yet slightly increase sensitivity. Little harder to push, little louder if you can.

Following loudspeakers lead, amplifiers are escalating outputs be it SS or glass to accommodate that industries current obsession. .

The presence of the dark and dangerous web has delivered us new sources and resources for streaming content. Connectivity in the home or outside it. Now we store entire libraries on network storage devices or merely in a off site Cloud and on Flash drives you can hide in the palm of your hand.

Software too has forced or obliged us to migrate into new worlds with the advent of subscription rather than once upon a time, free programs, or pay just once. Music and video services abound and are to prolific to number.

Even remote controls are in our phones, not on the coffee table or chair arm.

Mobile devices have made TVs cameras, and voice recorders, notepads, calendars, address books, rolodexes, all quite optional.

The only audiophiles who will live longer lives will be the ones spinning LPs. At least they have to get up and walk around every 20 minutes or so.

As a kid while complaining about having to walk half a mile to the bus stop, or about what was for dinner, my mom would relate stories of her youth wherein she had to walk thru the snow 5 miles to school. Uphill both ways. In the snow. Avoiding alligators snakes and ferrel cats, while slaying zombies with only an iron skillet, then had to kill and clean and cook what ever was had for dinner with that same skillet! Always ending with, “so shut up and be greatful!’

…and I was, or am, or was, before Spacebook and images of road kill and baby teeth, quite grateful.
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@ roberjerman > USF

Blindjim > ever tune in on Saturday nights? They used to do a sort of road show from 3 different venues moving from East to west crosss country ending in CA. Lincoln Center, sometimes, San Antonio, and like Birdland West or some where out there. 7p to 10p or so.

… and Prarrie home companion. Exactly who’s better than Garrison keeler?

No doubt taste in music can change, but in my case I wonder if it didn’t really change so much as it became exposed via higher end gear (less distortion, greater frequency extension, flatter frequency response, etc.) When I listen to music I want to be emotionally and/or spiritually moved and to connect with the performer and their message. I suspect I may have always liked many more genres of music back in my younger years than realized, but hearing them through crap systems (car radio, elevator, dentist office, Good Housekeeping gear, $5 cartridge from Woolworth, boombox, etc.) the only aspect of music that COULD move me was the driving beat, thus R&R. It was the only "message" that could be disseminated from the gook that spewed from all of the crap gear to which I’d been exposed. A pattern certainly emerged for me as I got into higher end gear: better gear begot enjoyment of more performers and different styles of music, some of which I used to ignore, or even hate.

So, did my taste change, or did it simply become evident through better reproduction of sound? Maybe both? Hard to say.

roxy54

Hey...I still listen to the old Cat Stevens albums! OK, not the new Cat Stevens (aka Yusef), but early Cat Stevens i.e.Tea for the Tillerman, Mona Bone Jakon and Teaser and the Firecat were genius, and still relevant today. He absolutely deserves his place in the R&R Hall of Fame.

I do listen to music at lower volume than I did when I was younger. But my taste in music elevated to it's exquisitely high level at an early age ;-).