and things went downhill from there

Back in the dark ages of analogue recording, we used to play our music from pressed vinyl discs, or cassette tapes coated with metallic particles. While both still persist in very niche markets, the technology for delivering music from its producers to our ears has changed many times over the years. Arguably, for the better. Rather, potentially for the better. We have the means and the technology to deliver better-sounding, higher-fidelity music than in any time in history.

Anybody who remember peeling the cellophane off a fresh LP, putting on some good headphones and dropping the stylus for the record's first play can tell you that the fidelity of modern music is, for the most part, hot garbage. I'm not saying that modern music is bad, but that it tends to be over-compressed, and often delivered at a substandard bit rate. When I was doing my comparisons between Spotify and Tidal recently, it occurred to me just how much I've been compromising my standards in recent times.

I used to be a real high-fidelity buff. I could not afford my own good equipment, but I had a friend who shared similar tastes (and had a bigger budget). We spent hours tweaking and balancing. Using sound meters to assist with optimal speaker placement, and spending days pouring over magazines where we'd drool over statistics on signal-to-noise ratio, harmonic response, dynamic range and the like.

I had always sworn that I would build a dream audio system someday, once I had the space and the income. Eventually I got both, but the age of high fidelity had come and gone, and my priorities changed.

Mostly, though, I never got around to it.

When we were sharing an apartment in the early 80s, my older brother had a pretty decent stereo. Not great, but pretty decent. He had a Carver tuner and amplifier. I don't remember what speakers he had - they were one of those slightly boomy Japanese models that delivered adequate sound. This was in the days right before Compact Discs became the de facto format for music, and we'd both built ourselves admirable vinyl libraries. My brother tended to buy new, but I had mastered the art of finding good quality used records. I prided myself on sleuthing out fine rarities.

One such find was a copy of The Rolling Stones album Black and Blue. My brother already owned the album, but I'd noticed that this one was a Japanese press of it, and it was in mint condition. I probably wouldn't even have given it a second glance, but I remembered my friend waxing on in the past about how the Japanese press of albums tended to be much better quality. I bought it along with a copy of Jethro Tull's Passion Play that was stamped, "For DJ use only - not for resale!"

I got back to the apartment and slapped my copy of Black and Blue on the turntable for a listen. Even on my brother's set-up, I could tell that there was something special about that pressing. I was vaguely aware that my brother was hanging out in his bedroom, but when the song Melody came on, he finally stomped out to the living room and demanded to know what I was listening to. He'd played his own copy many times over the years, and even from the other room he could hear a marked difference in quality.

In trying to describe the difference, all I can say is that it was far more nuanced. The sound was much cleaner and precise. When I played that album, all I could think of, "This is what the music is supposed to sound like." That record left me slightly disappointed with my regular LPs after that - and a bit annoyed that the industry was selling us sub-standard audio in the interests of higher profit. The industry on this side of the Pacific had the technology and ability to press records of that quality. They simply chose not to.

Anyway, what set me down this path of musical musing was that I was doing some A/B comparisons between Spotify and Tidal again this evening. We've cancelled our Spotify Premium service, but I just wanted to do a few more comparisons before its paid period ran out. I was impressed again at the difference in fidelity between the two services. It varied from song to song, but the music on Tidal sounded universally better - the only variation was in how much better it sounded. The difference is in the bit rate. Even at its highest setting, Spotify sounds muddy and lifeless in comparison. And I daresay it sounds like they are compressing the music a bit to try and make up for that. As I was flipping back and forth between them, it reminded me of my experience with the different vinyl pressings.

It's not that Spotify sounds terrible - I was fine with the quality of the music on there until heard it on a better streaming service. It's not awful, but it's ... sub-standard.

And I'm tired of compromising on my music. I may never go back to the golden age of analogue, but I'm not going to keep paying a service for sub-par sound.

We had some plumbers out yesterday afternoon to replace the drain pipes for the upstairs bathroom sink and tub. We were reluctant to have strangers in the house, but we were tired of having to bail out the tub after every shower. The plumber noticed that the tap in the tub was dripping. I told him that I'd replaced the washers in it a couple of weeks ago, and he said that the cartridge is probably worn out. He said that he's 90% sure he can get replacement cartridges for it, and he promised to have a look the next morning (this morning). We haven't heard back from him yet, but it would be nice to get that fixed.

I complained here the other day about how the update to Spotify broke the UI. Reddit came to the rescue with instructions on where to find its configuration file, and what line to change to revert it back to the old UI. The annoying thing about this is that from everything I've read, they ignored their beta-testers and went live with the crippled version that I complained about here. It was only when they got significant push-back from the broader users onto whom they had foisted this update that they stepped back and said, "Oh those missing features..."

I'm not a fan of the new UI, but if it would be usable if they address the 2-3 most egregious issues. Spotify has said that they'll be addressing them in future updates, so I'll check back now and again to see how its progressing.

One of the things they added to the new interface is a toggle in the settings that lets you switch it to monaural. I toggled that to test it out. I switched it back to the old interface and then realized I'd left it in mono. When I went looking for that setting, it's not available in the old interface. It would be an easy fix, but I've left it playing in mono for now so that I can pretend that I'm some kind of hipster. I don't even notice that it's playing in mono unless I stop and think about what I am listening to.

This brings up another question: do you call it monaural or monophonic? For that matter, do you just think of it as mono? Google had interesting usage statistics on the latter two terms. They both spiked in popularity in the mid-50s, then their usage started dropping off. Monaural has been in a linear decline since its spike, while monophonic had a quick drop in use, but has since levelled off as the more popular term. I find it intriguing how our language changes over time, and I sometimes wonder what factors determine the winners and losers for a word's popularity over time.

A word that I've seen popping up on Reddit lately is nibling(s) - a gender-neutral, collective term for one's nieces and nephews. It's believed to have been coined back in the 50s and languished in obscurity until it was recently dusted off again. I might start using that word.

Ironically, of course.

I always add Current Music to my posts when I am setting up the tags and other post meta data. When I was setting up to post this yesterday, the song I Got You came up in rotation - a metal cover of it, that is. I like the cover, but I was in the mood for the Split Enz original, and I went looking for it in my playlist - where it wasn't.

I am sure I added the original version long before I added the metal remake, but for some reason it had vanished from my Spotify list. It is possible that I hadn't actually added the song, but this is not the first time I've discovered missing songs that I distinctly remember adding earlier. My suspicion is that the artist/label pulled the song and replaced it with a cleaner version. It's still a bit annoying.

Recent updates have also made the Spotify application a bit sluggish and unreliable. It's not completely broken, but it's disheartening when a company somehow manages to make their product worse with each "upgrade".

Overall I love this music streaming service, and I think it's worth the monthly subscription, but there are definitely things I miss about WinAmp - such as having Semagic be able to detect what I was listening to automatically so that I didn't have to manually type it in. Also, I miss some of the funky plug-ins you could add to WinAmp.

Just two months ahead of the official start of winter, we had our first significant dump of snow. Usually snowfalls this time of year are short-lived. The significant, damaging blizzard we got in early-mod October last year was mostly gone within a couple of days, but we are hovering so far below our normal seasonal temperatures this year that some of the snow we got yesterday has a pretty good chance of lasting until spring.

I mean, it's pretty, but the novelty is going to wear off after 3-4 months. Most of the trees are bare now, but there are a few that hang onto their greenery until the last, bitter second.


Some of the standing water has got a crust of ice over it now, but the river has not frozen over yet. It will.

We recently bucked up for a family account in Spotify Premium. atara was going to sign up anyway, and when I learned that it was only $5 extra to sign us both up under a family deal, I figured it was worth a shot.

I'd had Spotify on my phone and Surface earlier, and removed it from both for reasons that elude me now. I probably complained about it in LJ at the time, so I'm sure I could go back and revisit my reasons. So far I am liking it a lot, so it is possible that the free version included annoyances that I am not seeing in the paid version. I do know that it had a habit of spamming me with celebrity birthday in the phone version, but that was something I could easily shut off, and does not seem like the driving force behind a full system purge.

Right now I'm looking to build myself a good play list for it. I'd love to mirror the one on my old iPod, but that would involve either manually replicating it song by song, or installing iTunes again. I'd rather not do either, but I guess the process of producing a new play list will give me a chance to add in some newer music, and revisit some of the songs that I've been meaning to remove from the list.

On the subject of iTunes, does anybody know of a good alternative I can get for Windows? I want to update the play list on my old iPod, but after my last experience with iTunes, I'd rather not expose my current install to that bit of malware.

iTunes needs to install updates. Please click "accept" and pay no attention to the details. Trust Steve.

Oh, hello, I see you have added Safari to the list of automatic "updates" again.

Fortunately, it sounds like they mercifully discontinued the Windows version of their browser, so at least I could scratch that off the list of concerns.

I like the convenience of the iPod when I am travelling, but I hate the inconvenience of trying to update its play list. It would be nice if I could just update the play list by dragging songs in or out of the folder - like on every other media device I've ever owned - but I understand that Apple does not play that way. So if anyone has suggestions for a good iTunes work-around, I'd appreciate any help.