Better Music Experiences

Headline: A strange set of recent experiences have resulted in my realizing that there are 4 very different “Listening” experiences or modes: 1) HiFi (High Fidelity for the youngsters), 2) background music, 3) TV, and 4) Isolation/headphones. I was trying too hard to combine equipment for background music and HiFi music. Each has their place. Thus, I expanded beyond Pandora streaming over Sonos speaker and added qobuz streaming over a NAD amplifier with B&W (Bowers & Wilkins) speakers.

Listening Experiences Defined

HiFi or Audiophile

This is when you want to listen to music in its purest form. You’re not doing anything else except perhaps sharing a glass of wine or reading a book. The purists have only vinyl records with great equipment (turntable, amplifier, speaker cables, speakers).

Background Music

This is typically music just playing in the background when you’re doing something else like having guests over for dinner or when we just have dinner ourselves.

Television

This is pretty straight forward. You want clarity for hearing speech, but you also want bass for the action movies. All connected to your TV of course.

Isolation/Headphones

My best example of this is when flying and trying to focus on work on my computer. I listen to music with my noise-cancelling headphones and the whole world seems to vanish. And of course, we all know that the headphones send the signal that you want to be alone.

Where I Was

I had 3 of these – all but HiFi. I have lots of Sonos speakers including an Arc sound bar and Subwoofer for TV, and lots of speakers around the house synchronized to play background music. Then Microsoft Surface Headphones for isolation.

In April, music was just music. I used the Sonos app to play music throughout the house and I was able to play my ~500 CD collection that I put on my computer many years ago. Sonos was my music world.

Then my world changed.

My Journey to this Understanding

Opening Myself to New Possibilities

As the name “Joy of Excellence” implies I focus on good or great things and don’t tear people down. I like the phrase, “Praise in public, criticize in private.” But I do need to briefly mention why I was opened up to possibilities.

Sonos had a disastrous release in May 2024. So many things went wrong that one product manager (not at Sonos) said they now use the phrase, “Whatever you do, don’t do a Sonos.” That is now an expression for a very long list of things not to do in software development.

“Whatever you do, don’t do a Sonos.”

That experience was so painful I started looking for alternatives. To be truthful, there really aren’t a lot of alternatives. They really solved the “wireless music throughout your home” problem. But I was upset, particularly when I had a playlist for my wedding anniversary a few weeks later all lined up and couldn’t use it. That no longer worked in Sonos.

In hindsight, I’m glad this happened. I had been the proverbial “Frog in boiling water” – comfortably numb (thanks Pink Floyd).

Then I Walked into a Bar

My wife and I finished visiting the Denver Art Museum and were not quite ready to head home one Sunday, so I looked and found a bar. Not just any bar. But a bar called ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) HiFi Listening Bar. What an experience. Behind the bar they don’t have just wine. Behind the bar is dominated by vinyl records. The sound system playing these records in amazing coming through the Klipsch speakers and the acoustics in the bar bring out the best in that system.

I forgot music could sound that good! Thank you ESP!

That experience brought back memories of my pasts sound systems and sent me on a quest. I’d been looking for something else and perhaps a high-quality system was it!

My search led me to ListenUp

And that first conversation led me to the realization that I need to have quality end to end. Did I have a vinyl collection? At one time, but I gave that to one of my sons – and I’m not going to ask to for those back, they are his.

As they say, “Garbage in, garbage out”. If I don’t have vinyl, then what is my high-quality source? There are several High-Resolution streaming services out there, but I settled on qobuz. With that I would have a high-resolution source going into an excellent amplifier, down through good speaker cables (they’re too big to call them speaker wires) and finally to good speakers.

Selecting the Amplifier and Speakers

We went home from ListenUp and were excited to listen to qobuz to see what difference there would be. I asked my wife what we should listen to, and we chose Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. We played that from qobuz through our Sonos speakers that evening before going to select speakers several days later.

When we returned to ListenUp, well, they listened to our desires. We told them the type of music we liked and our space constraints (i.e., not those large, beautiful sounding Klipsch speakers). Then decided to again listen to Hallelujah. We started with some “cute” bookshelf speakers, and they sounded so much better than the Sonos speakers on which we had listened to the identical song previously. Then my wife asked, “Do these taller speakers sound any better?” The salesman who already knew the answer to that had to be laughing inside! He switched those on, and my wife said, “Game over!” And I wasn’t going to argue!

What we purchased

Augmenting my current sound system? – No!

My first thought was to continue with the theme of having the same music playing throughout the house. I looked at some components that would allow music to be fed to the Sonos speakers as well as the new Bowers & Wilkins speakers, putting in a lot of time an energy. I decided no. Why not?

Different Music Listening Experiences

I’m not going to discuss TV or Isolation Headphone. I’m only going to address Background Music versus HiFi.

HiFi

This takes me back to my younger days when I had only vinyl records and a Teac reel to reel tape player. What are the characteristics of HiFi?

• Purity of sound – that goes without saying, but it is a true delight to listen when the sounds are so pure and not muddled. You can hear fingers rubbing against the wound guitar strings, for example. You feel like you are at a live performance.
• Dynamic Range – If you have listened to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album, the first track(s) – Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pts 1-5) start out VERY low volume. If you turn that up so that you can hear it clearly, you will have some upset neighbors as the song progresses to the louder sections. Those songs in particular are so clear, so patient. In a word, Wonderful.

Background Music (aka, non-HiFi)

This is what I’ve enjoyed for years. But what are the characteristics of non-HiFi?

• Adequate Sound – It sounds ok. Unless you listen to HiFi, you tend to just focus on the familiarity of the music, not the quality.
• Compressed – When the music is compressed it quiets the loud sections and makes the quiet sections louder. Hence the name compressed.

Which is better? HiFi or non-HiFi

They each have their own place!

Non-HiFi – If we are hosting a dinner party, I don’t want Dynamic Range! I want a constant volume level, so we aren’t whispering one minute and shouting the next. People are talking over the music. The quality of the sound will be buried by conversation. For this, compressed music over speakers located throughout the home are better.

HiFi – If I want to listen to crystal clear sound and truly life like performance then this is a true delight!

Do I want to become a recluse and only listen to HiFi music? No.

Do I want to settle for non-HiFi music for our times alone? No.

Summary

Previously I only had Pandora music streaming played over many (seven?) Sonos speakers. I will keep Pandora, and for now Sonos.

But I have a newfound love for high quality music using qobuz streamed over my NAD amplifier and B&W (Bowers & Wilkins) speakers. It is so relaxing and inspiring to listen to when reading or enjoying a glass of wine.

Pandora over Sonos was previously the only music in our home. Now we also enjoy streaming qobuz over our NAD amplifier and B&W speakers.

The right music at the right time.