The Dreaded Saturation Point? (aka The QQ Support Group?)

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My saturation point is all of the new discrete formats that all still have the cogging problem. Every time I hear the cogging, I cringe.

I also hit a saturation point when they started making "music" which to me is not music (screaming and atonal sounds)

There are lots of kinds of music I like.

- My main musical preference is 60s rock.
- - My favorites were Tommy James and the Shondells, Booker T and the MGs, Beach Boys, Beatles, Lovin' Spoonful, Neil Diamond,
. . . The Who, Abba, Monkees, Hollies, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Turtles, Cowsills, Herman's Hermits, Association, Toys, Supremes,
. . . Ohio Express, Royal Guardsmen, Harper's Bizarre, 1910 Fruitgum Co, and others.

I also preferred these genres (with examples):
- 50s rock - Chubby Checker, Little Richard, Everly Brothers, Little Eva
- Big Band - Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Freddy Martin
- Mariachi Band - Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass, Baja Marimba Band, Sandpipers
- Hard rock (not to hard) - Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, Iron Butterfly, Dr Hook and the Medicine Show
- Country - Johnny Cash, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, Alabama, Donna Fargo
- Disco - Meco, Kool and the Gang, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Commodores, KC and the Sunshine Band, Saragossa Band, Stars On
- Classical - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Moussorgsky, von Suppe, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Dvorak, Berlioz

Artists I collected everything they did (or everything up to a stopping point):

- Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (but not Herb Alpert alone)
- Tommy James and the Shondells*
- Abba (including the new album)*
- Meco (all I could find)
- Archies*
- Neil Diamond (until he stopped rock and went easy listening)
- Monkees*
- Booker T and the MGs*
- Lobo
- Stars On

* CD collections I bought recently



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I've been tepid toward surround music for a while.

I'm having a blast collecting (mainly) classic vinyl records. This includes classic Quad LPs, which is my closest connection to surround right now.

It's only super special releases that budge me, these days, and then only if the price is right.

$300 for an album? F*#k that. I'm enjoying albums for $1. Some classic vinyl costs more, but I'm digging the large artwork, generally good mixing and mastering and a focus on great titles.

The surround industry has done much to curb my enthusiasm. Slim pickins', high prices, hit or miss mixes and masters, re-re-remixes. It's frustrating.
 
When I read "saturation point," I thought the reference would be to there being WAY too much new music streaming in ATMOS to actually listen to and appreciate (cue the understandable complaints about compression, lack of physical media, inability to easily find this music on Tidal, etc. and much of it being in genres that folks on this board, including me, might not like much). Hell, there were a couple of years before the recent ATMOS streaming outburst that we'd all eagerly await a surround mix by Jethro's Jugband mixed in his backyard just so we'd have something to support.

What I definitely feel is an inability to deeply connect with all this new stuff.
 
This is an interesting thread to me because I find myself in a similar situation where my interest in surround music has waned just a bit. In part I have so many SACDs DVD-As and Blu-rays in 5.1 that if I tried to listen to just one disc each day it would take two years or more to go through my entire collection. But itā€™s worse than that because I donā€™t have time for music every single day, and who wants to wait two years to go back to a favorite? Probably due to COVID, it seems new releases have been slim to none. Or itā€™s been titles I am not interested in. Or too expensive to take a chance on. Or if I take a chance and spend the big bucks then the mix is just mediocre e.g. ā€œAll Things Must Pass.ā€ I wonā€™t be quitting the hobby that is for sure as I still get a lot of enjoyment from it, but I donā€™t feel the same intensity I used to feel. Itā€™s probably a temporary state.
 
Iā€™ve Never stuck to just one way to listen to Music, nor have I stayed with one type of music. I have Google speakers (about $20 each) in almost every room of the house including kitchen. I can access radio stations from all over the world, or my YouTube Music playlists by just saying a few words in the air.

I bought a new portable boom box from eBay that has decent enough bass (for what it is) to play Wav files on both USB drive and with a 32 Gig micro card in it. I listen to every type of music you could imagine. And it also syncā€™s by Bluetooth to play audio from any website or app. It also has an excellent digital FM turner.

I listen to cassette or AM-FM radio in a late 90ā€™s truck. And I have surround systems in 2 bedrooms and a living room.

What Iā€™m getting at is you have to mix things up. And find time to listen to music. Instead of putting on the TV when you get up, put on music. Lately, I enjoy waking up to Classical Music and Opera, and Iā€™m learning about music I wasnā€™t all that familiar with. I also continue to look for new music thatā€™s not in my comfort zone. And if I donā€™t like new stuff, I turn to old classics. Say, like what was the top 100 songs from the Billboard charts in 1961 or 1981.

Use a little imagination in your life, and you wonā€™t get bored.

As far as surround goes, we now have streaming in surround for not that much. An embarrassment of riches. If you think you have too big of a collection of DVD-A, SACD or whatever, might be a good time to sell a few things on eBay, so that new surround fans can get stuff in their collections that they really want.
 
I am in a kind of bored with music now space. I have lots of interests, and some take over the other once in awhile. I have 8TB of music which is like a gizillion songs and it's just really hard to keep up with things, plus so far this year has been a little dry for MCH releases, so to answer, yes I am well saturated with music and music gear at the moment.
Also which I find a weird thing with me, I much prefer listening to music I have purchased, then taking that same listening time and listening to all the cool Apple4K music in Atmos. Lets put it this way, I was much more excited buying my first set of Doors 5.1's SACD's then these new incredibly good Doors Atmos streams, and I have a super great listening rig.
Can't really say why the slump I'm in, but the information that I have received on QQ over the years has been invaluable, that is for sure.
 
...

It's only super special releases that budge me, these days, and then only if the price is right.

$300 for an album? F*#k that. I'm enjoying albums for $1. ...

The surround industry has done much to curb my enthusiasm. Slim pickins', high prices, ...

These are the issues I am having. I paid AUD 270 for Appetite for Destruction, and 320 AUD for the Beatles' White Album and have no regrets in paying so much to get those great mixes - but I would have certainly loved to pay a lot less for just the 5.1 blu ray in those sets.

If, for example, XTC can pack in a lot of material on a single disc at a very reasonable price (and they must be making a profit or they would not do it), I don't see why other groups can't do similar.

I will continue to buy every DV rock/easy listening disc they issue because of the great value they represent.
 
Music has to reach your soul, first and foremost!
I think we go through dry spells in all of our hobbies...then comes along the Wurleyscope, a Surround Master or, and in agreement with @J. PUPSTER...for most of us here, the songs that touch our souls and takes us for a journey. They are old ones, new ones, you just know it when you feel it. Some stay with us, others go as we change. Of course, new hobbies can feed us all the same...and should.

And yes...gotto love that Funk!
 
I am in a kind of bored with music now space. I have lots of interests, and some take over the other once in awhile. I have 8TB of music which is like a gizillion songs and it's just really hard to keep up with things, plus so far this year has been a little dry for MCH releases, so to answer, yes I am well saturated with music and music gear at the moment.
Also which I find a weird thing with me, I much prefer listening to music I have purchased, then taking that same listening time and listening to all the cool Apple4K music in Atmos. Lets put it this way, I was much more excited buying my first set of Doors 5.1's SACD's then these new incredibly good Doors Atmos streams, and I have a super great listening rig.
Can't really say why the slump I'm in, but the information that I have received on QQ over the years has been invaluable, that is for sure.
With me it's the other way around, I almost only listening to streaming from Apple Music, mostly in Atmos. I love all the new releases in Atmos and I'm playing more music each day now than for many years.:cool: I only buy music if it's a stand alone BD with Atmos.
 
I Think the last 2 years and the more recent so called ā€œ Special Military operationā€ in the Ukraine has certainly refocussed my own future ambitions. Music has certainly taken a back seat. I now think more about house , travelling , holidays and Wife . Not necessarily in that order ;). We are now both the wrong side of 65 and music is not top of the bucket list. I feel guilty that I have not been reviewing more , commenting more etc. I have made a recent decision not to buy any more SS music unless its something stupendous and I do not have to re-mortgage to buy it. I am happy with my 5.1 set up I am not adding to it and I do not stream. What I am doing from time to time is upmixing my favourite music, this makes me happy. I still read QQ every day , I thank god it was there when I needed it most to make valuable decisions but I know my contributions have waned . Sorry People ! :cry:
 
I think this thread is serving as a kind of support group lol.

I know that, for me, surround will rebound. I'm interested in vinyl for the first time in ages (teenage and early-20's periods). I'm having a blast with it.
The research. The hunt. The deals. The occasional splurge for something super special. The ultra satisfying needle drops.

The spark will ignite again, for cherished surround titles. If the industry doesn't change it's ways, purchases will remain few and far between though.
 
...Music has certainly taken a back seat. I now think more about house , travelling , holidays and Wife . Not necessarily in that order ;). We are now both the wrong side of 65 and music is not top of the bucket list...

That's another thing. As the number of years that I have left gets less, and the passing of those years seem to accelerate, I want every minute I spend sitting between 12 speakers (and watching TV) to be worthwhile. That's probably why I don't feel that I have anymore room left in my brain to process new and/or unfamiliar music.

Oh, and @tezzalavell , please send me your wife's email address in a PM and I will send her the link to your post where you mentioned her last. :D
 
That's another thing. As the number of years that I have left gets less, and the passing of those years seem to accelerate, I want every minute I spend sitting between 12 speakers (and watching TV) to be worthwhile. That's probably why I don't feel that I have anymore room left in my brain to process new and/or unfamiliar music.

Oh, and @tezzalavell , please send me your wife's email address in a PM and I will send her the link to your post where you mentioned her last. :D
Did I forget to say somewhere that I love and treasure My Cahones :LOL::ROFLMAO:
 
I guess my passion for this hobby cycles. Many of you have made points I can relate to.

My enthusiasm for audio increases in the winter months when I have fewer outside chores and no sailboat sitting at a dock for me to go to. I try to spend as much time as I can using my sailboat during summer because the season is so short. Then in the fall, there is football season to contend with (Go Bills!). All that leaves less time for audio activities. But then it picks back up again around the end of the year and goes along stronger until late spring. Note for those that do not understand Buffalo NY weather. Spring is like 2 weeks long. Winter ends in April, then two weeks of rain, then summer arrives. Thank goodness the Fall season is nice and long.

I keep trying to get some enthusiasm going for this new Atmos streaming capability I now have. But most (not all) of what I stream is a let down. Most of the new stuff I simply don't care for. So much of it just seems like throw away music with no real thought behind it and is aimed at kids wearing ear buds. Some of it is way gimmicky with elements placed in the heights which have no business being there. Like why should there be guitar licks and bongo drums coming from overhead? Its music, not sound effects. On a realism scale it makes old school ping-pong quad effects almost believable. And finally there is the issue of fidelity, which seems noticeably lacking in many of the streamed offerings. The bottom line is, my favorite music is still the 5.1 stuff I've had for years. There are a few exceptions to this, but sadly, not enough to turn the tide. See how I tied that in with sailing lingo??? :ROFLMAO:
 
I'm so glad this thread has surfaced -- this'll give me a chance to work through a few things.

Yeah... I've hit the wall on surround, I fear. Honestly, I have no interest in Atmos -- the addition of height has no appeal to me. And, even if it did, as a house renter, I'd have no ability to hang speakers from the ceiling.

Which would be fine if 5.1 was still a thriving and easily accessible format -- i.e. if streaming 5.1 mixes were all the rage, like Atmos and vintage Quad currently are. But... 5.1 is a streaming non-factor, which means any new 5.1 mixes are increasingly confined to unreasonably expensive box sets.

And yes, Atmos will downmix to 5.1, but having a downmix more or less determined by algorithm isn't the same as an experienced surround mixer making specific placement choices that are optimized for 5.1.

And I vented about this in a different thread a while back, but especially as far as 5.1 is concerned, there are next to no surprises anymore -- any projects that do emerge tend to be the continuation of a series, like Gentle Giant or Jethro Tull or the Band. I loved when Destroyer was announced -- we need many more of those kinds of out-of-the-blue releases. (Of course, that 5.1 mix was confined to an unreasonably expensive Kiss box set.) I could probably think of a hundred albums by artists who are unrepresented or majorly underrepresented in surround that I would buy in a heartbeat.

And... I'm not hearing much new music available in 5.1 that scratches that itch. (I will admit that I'm not really interested in modern progressive music or Steven Wilson/SW-adjacent stuff, and those seem to make up a bulk of newer 5.1 release.)

Anyhow... thanks for letting me vent. I really don't see anything on the horizon that I'm interesting in buying. And I pretty much have what I'm interested in as far as past releases. If D/V, for example, were to allow individual track purchases, there are songs I would definitely grab. But, absent that, I have my 40 or 50 physical discs, and a few dozen curated individual tracks on a hard drive, and I'll need to be content with that.
 
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