luddites abound here

[Mikalac Norman S NSSC <MikalacNS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hey, if vacuum tube radios, washboards, Stanley-steamers and LPs turn you
on, then go for them!  "it's a democracy", the conservatives say, so no way
can the technocrats spoil luddite fun except to make it expensive to buy old
fashions!

cutting-edge progressive technologist



-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Schaap [mailto:carob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 11:10 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:5668] Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: needs


Hi again, Norm,

>please ignore what Eric and other luddites tell you about CD sound quality
>because it is far better than that of tapes and LPs.  listening to a live
>performance is the only "real" sound, but that comes at the price of
travel,
>admission, audience disturbances, etc.  for some people, CDs are "too
>perfect" since the engineer can correct minor errors of the performers w/o
>retakes.  (i remember (classic guitarist) Julian Bream saying, "I have a
>hard time keeping up to my recordings!")  is that sound "bad"?
>
>the luddites will always insist that the pops, scratches and breaks "sound
>good".  they probably still use washboards too!  just ignore them.

Well, it might not be the pops, scratches and breaks that appeal.  Popular
music is, like the ads say, a sorta soundtrack to a person's life -
especially during that apprentice-snogging/leaving-home period (at least
they're the bits that stand out to me).  Music's job, in part at least, is
to bloody well sound like it used to.  The Led Zeppelin twin-set remastered
CD bloody well doesn't!  Bugger Jimmy Page's fingers tracing the fretboard
between cords!  That wasn't in the original!  And what about all those bands
who were engineered to sound best on car radios (a pretty sensible option in
the sixties-seventies)?  Didn't the Byrds like that Rickenbacker/Vox jangle
precisely because it stood out on the ol' trannie?

That ain't so much luddite thinking as mid-life crisis, I know, but you take
my point ...

Cheers,
Rob.