No Jazz, No Country and No 70s/80s Rock please

Why do you only hear Jazz at hi-fi shows. Why do hi-fi rockers only listen to classic rock?

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Am I a freak? I listen mainly to rock from 21st century. Yes Coldplay and Muse but also Foals, Royal Blood, the Kills.

Any one else here listen to this kind of music?

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I’ve only ever been to two hi-fi shows, one in the late 1980s, the other in 2016 to take advantage of a discount offer on an RCM (but I have seen lots of videos taken at these shows, and the appalling music makes me glad I wasn’t there). But you’re right, the music is always terrible. Most of it’s not even jazz, but awful stuff by people like Patricia Barber, Eva Cassidy or utter gash on Chesky or GRP.

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I think it’s it’s because we’re all old as methuselah and if you Demo your $100k speakers using the Dead Kennedy’s no one with $100k to spare would want to know!

Your right though the music even in hifi shops is utter gash… when I was demoing my new speakers (totem Hawks - very nice!) the guy put some god awful AOR female vocalist on. It’s like you tube speaker demos and Sade!

I’ve really noticed that at demos and shows they tend to use cuts with lots of reverb which creates the impression of space and depth - it’s a sales trick

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You can ask either no music at all

Weirdo…:grinning:

Incidentally one of the absolute best live shows I have been to was The Kills… top class heroin rock it has epic. You could spend a million bucks on hifi and still get no where near the sound!

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It’s interesting because at demos/shows you never hear music people actually like listening to (as opposed to music for demoing gear): Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Beatles, Blue Note, Abba, Bowie, even Pink Floyd… just headache inducing pseudo-jazz or boring female vocalists.

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I always take about 5 CDs that I know well when I go for a demo and play the same track off each CD for each configuration. I once went to a show with U2:Joshua Tree and asked each room if they would play my CD. Many just refused (wrong valves for that kind of music etc.). I wanted to see if it was worth spending money for a relatively high end system compared with my then mid-range system.

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You’ve obviously been going to wrong shows, or perhaps just walked into the wrong rooms, Kev.

I loved it when Naim released the Superline - we’d borrowed an Acutus from Conrad Mas and fitted an Aro and a Dynavector XV-1T which we took along to Heathrow. I took along some of my LPs for a spin and I had a blast playing Marvin Gaye, Labi Siffre, Patti Jo, Maze, Candi Staton, as well as some Cure mixes, my well-worn (but still great sounding) US copy of Hunky Dory and a bunch of other stuff I’ve now forgotten. I do remember we had a couple of Kraftwerk 12 inches one of which we proceeded to play at both 33 1/3rpm and at 45 rpm - weirdly it worked at either!

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That list just proves my point

Headache inducing pseudo jazz :joy:

A bit of Rage Against The Machine does a good job of testing a system and whether it can cope with lots of overlapping sounds.

Doesn’t get an awful lot of play in hifi shops though. I suppose it is a bit potty mouthed.

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I do, Angelface, but classic rock? It’s the law, it has to be listened to lol.

RATM was on heavy rotation by Naim and Musicline at one of the first Munich shows - played back via DBLs no less…

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Yep me, plus 70’s rock, Fleetwood mac, deep purple, Pink Floyd etc, Wonderful stuff!

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Heard sometimes good rock music at shows, though mostly the bigger names such as Muse.

At home I listen mostly to alternative modern rock and metal, progressive and sometimes also more classic and symphonic rock.
Good suggestiins to test your setup are i.m.o. Tool,Puscifer and A Perfect Circle :). Next to that Rush, Muse, Gojira, Frank Turner, Steven Wilson, Black Keyes and the newer Placebo recordings.

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I agree that a lot of the music is dire but the point of a hifi show is evaluating the equipment so they need to play stuff people are familiar with (are you listening Naim?). Anything that makes Dire Straits or DSOTM listenable must have something special so I grit my teeth and bear it!

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The bloke in the Focal dem room got a bit upset when I selected and played a track from Frank Zappa’s Imaginary Diseases album, at some hifi show.

I assumed that if it was on his streamed playlist that it would be ok to play it…

Look it’s simple - the stuff I listen to is good, the rest is unlistenable crap. eg my taste is The Only Truth :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Never been to a hifi show. After this thread and what I’ve seen on YouTube, don’t particularly want to…

I went to a camera show once when I was mad keen on photography - put me off events like that for life. Every middle-aged man in the place scrambling for the pinups stage…

Can only imagine the tedium of (mostly) men gawking at amplifiers and horn speakers while trying to hear Diana Krall (say) picking her teeth.

:wink:

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