Hi Fi changes everything

I mentioned this briefly elsewhere...music always sounds better on the listening station at this place I buy most of my new music, and that's because their listening stations are fairly high-end. (Nakamichi MB-K300's, I think.) I get items home and the same albums sound kinda bleah, and my stereo actually isn't too bad.

Oh god! Quick, somebody link this to that one hi-fi thread! Otherwise we'll have the same argument all over again...again!

It will persist for all time, Ned. Abandon all hope.

I wish this burden hadn't passed to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Ok, here's how it works, kids...

*ducks*

fukc yopu cnuty.

Actually, I shouldn't have put Hi Fi in the title of this thread, as everyone hates Hi Fi. I am not into Hi Fi.

what I was more trying to get at was the thing Sean mentioned about music sounding really different (either substantially better or worse) on different equipment.

Marijuana

HI FI R00LZ U D00D.

I think the equipment you use to listen to the music is bound to change the way you listen to it, but not necessarily even in a "hi fi" context. I mean, all you have to do to really change your perception of music if you typically listen to it in a medium-sized room with no option for Proper Speaker Placement® is to simply listen to your music on headphones for a bit. Almost guaranteed that you'll start hearing things in the music that you never knew were there.

I used to have a receiver that I used as my stereo amp. It had a bunch of environmental settings like surround, etc, and I would occasionally listen to music I'd heard before through simulated surround. It would bring things that were buried WAY in the background out to the front...things that I'd never heard before. Probably not the best way to listen to music for enjoyment, but it shook things up a bit.

My headphones cost half as much as my stereo, so yeah, when I want hi- fi, I slap them on (even though an aficionado would probably scoff at their meagre $100 value).

It does matter if the music sounds like shit as long as it has soul. Any equipment can relay that primal need from music.

However, I did get a decent record deck recently after years of CD abuse and was able to revisit some of my vinyl. Whether it was a mixture of nostalgia for my youth and good music guaranteed I don't know, but I seriously heard something in my old vinyl that had not surfaced when I used to play it on my stereo.

I still stick to my first point as the most important one though

I recently got the chance to play my Sunny Sundae Smile 7" on a v.v. expensive rekkid player and was blown away by it. Just goes to show, even if the records are noisy and lo-fi, a quality turntable will still make it sound amazing.