Does the average listener really care if its analog?

[Kriminal]

Digital is not exactly a compliment, I take it.

I like a lot music that sounds digital and doesn't even try to sound "warm" or "analog".

Cheers
Dennis

BURN THE WITCH...!!!!!!

[Kriminal]

Well, someone is claiming to be a God among us mere mortals.

[aciddose]

BURN THE WITCH...!!!!!!

[BBFG#]

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[awol9000]

KVR answer "No"

Gearslutz answer "YES!"

I side with KVR.

[aciddose]

Actually KVR's answer was:

Yes.

Next question.

Here is a list of those who outrank me and thus can immediately overrule:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?sk=d&sd=d

Is it wise to grant vurt such power? Don't worry, we have hibidy to keep him in line.

Of course this is all open to discussion, that is what we're here for. So even the answer from the ultimate master is not entirely definitive. Unless he says it is of course.

Then though we'd need to quantify everything. Define "listener", define "analog", define "average". Nobody likes that sort of thing.

Yes.

Next question.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

Err....# of posts = power? You're being facetious there right?

Not sure we'd need to define listener. A listener is someone who listens. Pretty self-explanatory term. I'm also pretty sure most people know what the word average means (despite the many ways of coming to a figure, statistically speaking, it amounts to the round about the same thing). Analog...well...yeah I'll admit that one: do we mean process or sound or both? Would most listeners know the difference?

I'd be more inclined to use general concensus as an answer (if there really is one that we can quantify). Not sure what that is without rereading the whole thread and counting the yays and nays - and probably every other similar thread.

edit: I think what is really meant by "average listener" is the "majority of listeners". In that do the majority of listeners care or not? After thinking about it, I can see why you'd need to define what an "average" listener would be in the context of opinion on a single factor like this.

[aciddose]

Listeners to what?

I meant in terms of.. I'm fairly certain fans of classical or jazz genres tend to appreciate that actual real life analog instruments were used.

Electronic? In terms of... I doubt people listening to "acid" care if it was made on a real tb-303 or some software or whatever.

So on. It really does depend upon exactly how you make each of these terms concrete. Leaving them abstract makes the whole question ridiculous.

Do people watching a movie care the soundtrack came from samples? I doubt it.

Then again, they aren't there to watch an orchestra perform live and if they were they suddenly would care. Even if they were the very same people!

Do people pay a street musician more and want to buy their "albums" if available more than they would for similar genre material off itunes regardless of where it came from, synthesizer or otherwise?

Do people appreciate the difference between recordings of wind versus electronically generated white noise in their noise suppressors?

[whyterabbyt]

Leaving them abstract makes the whole question ridiculous.

The question was ridiculous anyway. Unless someone wants to provide a universal metric for 'average listener.'

[ZenPunkHippy]

The question was ridiculous anyway. Unless someone wants to provide a universal metric for 'average listener.'

"Has ears" ...

[aciddose]

Of course, that is what I mean. Asking it with terms that are so abstract makes the whole question abstract and completely unanswerable.

Is the color you see in the sky really blue or some other color the name for you wish you knew?

If the color isn't blue, is the color in the sky another color to another guy?

If the color is red in your head is it green in your spleen?

If the color is reflected off the wall, is it still the same color as if it passed directly into your eye ball?

[whyterabbyt]

The question was ridiculous anyway. Unless someone wants to provide a universal metric for 'average listener.'

"Has ears" ...

did you know that humans, on average have slightly fewer than two ears. ergo, there's no point in mixing in stereo for the average listener.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

If you take everyone who listens to music, regardless of what kind of music it is, I think you'll find that the vast majority of them don't care or spend even a tiny amount of time thinking about whether it has been made with analog instruments, analog recording gear, or any kind of analog or digital process.

If you want to break it down into people who like this or that, then that's a seperate and more specific question or series of questions.

But if we take the question as meaning, as I think it was, do listeners (if you take they amount who do and divide the amount of listeners by that thus getting an average of sorts) care about these things then I don't think they do. Being able to find the quantity of either is impossible, but there are ways to get a rough answer by polling a reasonable amount from a broad cross section and extrapolating from that. The usefulness of that data put against the amount of effort required would make the endeavour a bit silly, but it wouldn't be impossible. Nor any more abstract than doing so for a specific subset of listeners, IMO.

[trimph1]

The question was ridiculous anyway. Unless someone wants to provide a universal metric for 'average listener.'

"Has ears" ...

....some cannot hear.....

[aciddose]

But if we take the question as meaning, as I think it was, do listeners (if you take they amount who do and divide the amount of listeners by that thus getting an average of sorts) care about these things then I don't think they do.

The vast majority of listeners however do not like music unless it was performed on instruments by performers. The majority require vocals and lyrics.

Since the term "analog" was part of this question we can assume we're discussing electronic music. So why not specify that instead of avoid it?

If we're talking electronic music, we're talking for the most part uneducated young people who have not so much interest in the performance (if any exists) in this genre. There is a reason the biggest people are the young guys who jump out and play some tracks at some event.

What the "listeners" are interested in isn't the musical performance. It's the performance at the club or event, the people they're with.

Now we're talking the majority of the listeners though, did you want to narrow that down to people who own albums in the electronic genres and sit listening to them alone on headphones? Now this is a bit more specific and we can start to question whether this set of listeners actually is educated to a degree and does appreciate otherwise obscure or insignificant elements in the music.