Preference for Listening

[Zeno Marx]

Often I hear details in whatever I listen to that I didn't hear before and there's always a new kind of physicality to the music instead of the flatness of my old hifi--sometimes it's as if the music wants to jump out of the speakers.

imaging and separation can become fetishes of their own.  When it is exceptional, it's sexual.  Owsley "Bear" Stanley was likely the first person to describe, and maybe rather the first to see, sound as physical.  The way he cognitively processed and philosophized sound changed everything in the audio world.

[Zeno Marx]

I can't even imagine what a truly high-end hifi would sound like...

I had a conversation a few years ago with McKaras (autarkeia, cold industrial techno). He was telling me about and exhibition of most expensive and sky-high-fi setups that was held in Vilnius. And the most interesting thing is that he went there to try some industrial/noise records on those machines and ran into huge disappointment. He told me that when he tried BDN CD on those systems he couldn't even identify that it is Karmanik's material - the machine was cleaning the sound via bulb amps (and so on) so heavily that it influenced the sound itself. I don't know how legitimate this is, but after that conversation I am hoping to try this kind of thing myself.  

I don't buy it.  There's more to this than he was either saying or understanding.  I'd definitely recommend experiencing a nice system for yourself.  It's one thing to hear a $100K system and not be so impressed that it leaves you speechless, thus feeling disappointment; but it's quite another to say that same system is an overall disappointment.  It's not really a money thing, either.  You could put together a simple, very nice system for hundreds of dollars.  It's knowing what you like and then where to look for it.  It is a huge learning curve, though.  A race car drive can appreciate a car's handling a lot more than the average person.  It's a tool, and they know how to understand its capacities.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I think this could happen with any better system compared to low level consumer set. When I had standard good speakers, changing to hi-end speakers resulted that there is significant clarity in all levels of frequencies. That there is deep low end and very high crispy highs. Some records that used to be "forceful" when blasting through more narrow scale speakers, suddenly resulted that sound was less forceful, but clearer and more distinctive. This also meant that for example listening CD's like Darkthrone "Under Funeral Moon" became very bizarre. While small bad speakers would "compress" it sound pretty usual, with true hi-fi speakers, sound is really beyond....

But disappointment? Certainly not. If album can only handle to be played by crappy speakers to sound good, then problem is probably the album itself, rather than sound system.

[acsenger]

I know from reading on the subject (sadly, not from personal experience) that it's not necessarily true that the more expensive a hifi, the better. There are many factors that influence how much you like a hifi: the room it's in (shape, acoustics, placing of speakers), the synergy between hifi components (if one chain in the link is of lower quality than the rest, the overall sound won't be optimal), what kind of music it's best suited for, and, very importantly: the ears of the listener. What sounds fantastic to one person may sound like crap to another.
I don't know what happened at that high-end show with the BDN CD, but perhaps none of the above was right? Even at high-end exhibitions conditions can be subpar, down to the most elemental conditions (like speaker placement etc.).

for example listening CD's like Darkthrone "Under Funeral Moon" became very bizarre

That's interesting--I have the opposite experience. Just the other week I was listening to their Ravishing Grimness CD and I wasn't very surprised that the sound was not much different than on my previous, $250 hifi--no doubt because Darkthrone, not surprisingly, aimed for a "necro" sound. Indeed, how an album is recorded will determine how it will sound on any hifi. If it sounds like crap on the master recording, nothing will make it better. (Not saying Darkthrone sound like crap cause I like their sound.)
Listening to Xenakis now (GRM Works 1957-1962 LP) and holy crap, it sounds fantastic. Electroacoustic music must be one of the genres that benefits most from a good hifi.

[ARKHE]

Listened to an old Dark Funeral album (Vobiscum Satanas?) on a friend's system that he paid about 1½ month salary for. Sounded completely awful. Abyss Studios should be blamed for that though. Rotten Sound LP however, much better.

[Cranial Blast]

8 out of 10 times I probably listen to PE/Noise through headphones. In my opinion it's the best listening experience for this type of music. Noise in general is often an intimate listening experience to begin with, so makes sense to listen this way.

[MkB]

Laptop>foobar>headphones.

Sold all my hi-fi equipment and physical media after ripping a few years ago and went digital.

Suits me fine.