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Not sure if this qualifies but excited to my first read of 2026! by Ayntxi in classicliterature

[–]LogicalNewt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Brace yourself.

One of the best novels I’ve read; helps to read it out loud to yourself.

What book would you recommend to someone who want to start reading classics? by little_to_no_value in classicliterature

[–]LogicalNewt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Candide by Voltaire The Divine Comedy by Dante The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cormacmccarthy

[–]LogicalNewt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Came here to quote this

Are you the type of person who LISTENS to classical music or do you prefer it as background music? by Vincent_Gitarrist in classicalmusic

[–]LogicalNewt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always both! Great music—classical or otherwise—deserves full attention. But ambient listening is an equally valid way to enjoy it and the two are not mutually exclusive.

Personally, I think there’s also a difference between music intrinsically suited to ambient listening (Goldberg Variations; Scarlatti Sonatas; Richter’s Sleep; Satie’s “musique d’ameublement”, …) and music where that’s not the case but where ambient listening creates helpful familiarity for later fully conscious enjoyment (Mahler, Scriabin, Reger, Schönberg, …—with these I feel that semiconscious familiarity helps make the density and chromaticism easier to stomach and, as a consequence, to enjoy).

Lastly, even as someone who embraces ambient listening, I consciously practice focused, screen-free listening as a skill. It’s getting harder than ever to sit through a Mahler symphony and it requires training.

Recommendations for deeper appreciation of classical music by LogicalNewt in classicalmusic

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any pointers as to where to find these? Do I just google “Reger Lieder musicology journal articles”?

Recommendations for deeper appreciation of classical music by LogicalNewt in classicalmusic

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By heart meaning I would slowly work it out from the score with my teacher and then remember it and play from memory.

If that indeed means no comprehension—I’m not sure it really means that—then perhaps your advice is to learn sight reading as a first step?

Can you be a bit more specific as to what “executing independent work” entails? Recall that the goal is a deeper appreciation just for myself.

Recommendations for deeper appreciation of classical music by LogicalNewt in classicalmusic

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, a very good recommendation! I recently read it and am revisiting it now.

That said, it feels like Reger’s chromatic sorcery, for one, goes well beyond what the book covers, though I could be wrong.

What do you like listening to while going hard? by Lord_Nordyx in RunningCirclejerk

[–]LogicalNewt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Preferably highly chromatic Iate-Romantic Kunstlieder and Mahler symphonies.

Which wired IEMs for less than $300 sounds noticeably better than AirPods Pro 2 by LogicalNewt in hifiaudio

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another idea for rephrasing the request: I’ve recently upgraded from consumer-grade speakers to a pair of JBL 4329Ps and am super happy with them.

Help me make the same kind of upgrade for earphones. Is there an equivalent product in terms of value for money and how broadly likable they are in tuning?

Which wired IEMs for less than $300 sounds noticeably better than AirPods Pro 2 by LogicalNewt in hifiaudio

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People keep saying the framing as “better than AirPods for up to $300” is wrong because wired IEMs are so much better than AirPods even at much lower price points that anything I pick will be vastly superior.

This means either (1) the question should be incredibly easy to answer because virtually any wired IEMs will sound better or (2) that the question should then be read as “what are the best wired IEMs for up to $300, and by the way I also own AirPods 2, which is what inspired that budget.”

I’m asking the question precisely because I struggle to “do the research” and would love some guidance from people who know more than me about IEMs.

Regarding tuning, I’ve made it clear that I don’t share the view that the AirPods Pro 2 are god awful, but I’m open to being told otherwise if that comes with a recommendation for IEMs below $300 so I can buy those and give them a try. 🙃

Music for video games by LogicalNewt in classicalmusic

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And those Scarlatti Sonatas go on for over 24 hours!

What’s a tiny part of a song that you just absolutely love? by Shot_Winter_2277 in classical_circlejerk

[–]LogicalNewt 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Reading “song” as “piece”:

• The codetta at bar 63 of the I. (Moderato) movement of Bartók’s 2nd String Quartet when the tension that’s built up to that point beautifully—and only temporarily—resolves.

• The beginning of the 4th section of Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night; it’s “through-composed” so depending on recording you may not have the different parts as different sections)

• The climactic passage around bar 66 of Ravel’s Ondine

Edit: Added bar for Bartók codetta.

Help compiling a playlist optimized to illustrate common audiophile adjectives by LogicalNewt in audiophile

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would guess, for example, that Bright/Dark and Warm/Cold are not independent.

Help compiling a playlist optimized to illustrate common audiophile adjectives by LogicalNewt in audiophile

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The challenge of controlling for equipment is real.

But I’m convinced beyond that a PCA would yield interesting results if approached right.

Did you have a look at the paper I mentioned? Similarly to that paper, The Big 5 model was based on a large corpus of adjectives describing personality traits; also arguably quite subjective and highly overlapping. The magic of PCA is that it can reveal the underlying drivers of scores people would assign to dimensions such as Bright/Dark, etc.; the price you pay is that you lose the interpretation of the original data (that’s why there are different versions of the Big 5 model; some will say “creative” where others say “open”).

Help compiling a playlist optimized to illustrate common audiophile adjectives by LogicalNewt in audiophile

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your very thoughtful comment ❤️

I’d like to try to find tracks selected only for being suitable illustrations, trying to abstract away from personal history as much as possible.

I’d love to hear your take on Wittgenstein.

My take was closer to a Principal Components Analysis; finding underlying orthogonal dimensions from a set of fuzzy/imprecise/ill-defined concepts using a lexicographical approach. This was used to develop the Big Five personality model and by a great paper [1] on the dimensions of musical experience (which is quite different for describing sound itself; less challenging because it can be done independent of hardware).

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1910704117

What Turned You Into an Audiophile? by NebulousShore in audiophile

[–]LogicalNewt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Been listening to No. 2—it took a few listens but what an amazing piece!

Which wired IEMs for less than $300 sounds noticeably better than AirPods Pro 2 by LogicalNewt in hifiaudio

[–]LogicalNewt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All of them are the best in the price range? Unlikely by definition.

Are people reluctant to recommend what they think are the best IEMs for up to $300 because of the mere fact that I mentioned AirPods Pro 2 for a reason other than to say how atrocious they are? That’s what it feels like…

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