Originally posted by jdombrow
Passinwind:
You have an interesting approach, and I'm not going to disagree with any of it; however, it is not the typical approach that most musicians take. In fact, I've never heard anyone hear on TalkBass say they won't audition an amp, or cabinet, or anything else until someone sends them a soundclip. Maybe you could trust those clips in a good studio, but many computer speakers will make it impossible to make a judgement of something's true sound.
Maybe on your USENET, they say "post a clip", but here on Talkbass they say "trust your own ears".
JD
That's cool, but listening to a clip does allow you to judge with your ears; albeit imperfectly at best, in many cases. I wouldn't use computer speakers, of course. I live way out in the boonies, I make my own gear mostly, and I correspond with lots of folks who do the same. We can only get together face to face once in a while, so this is what works for us. If one's primary interest is in how things work in a recording, listening to recordings seems like a pretty logical place to start, no? I was actually suggesting a spectral analysis graph as the more appropriate demonstration in this case, which makes me even less typical, I guess.
Since I'm an audio repair guy, people bring me stuff to try fairly often. The local music store asks me to take gear home, or to a gig, and test it thoroughly. I never would have bought my new bass if the builder hadn't handed one to me at a jam session. So, at home I work from a much different model. I didn't say I wouldn't audition a cab or amp, I said I wouldn't audition a $175 power cable without a better carrot.
Online, posting sound files is sometimes more valuable to me than a simple verbal opinion. Naturally, I'm still going to want to audition gear live myself, when possible, but I don't have much time or motivation to cull through stuff that hasn't already piqued my interest.
Talkbass interests me because it gives me access to a much larger body of opinions. The better I know a poster, the more likely I am to value their input. I would hope and expect that any manufacturer who wants to sell me something online could produce a decent recording of some sort, or good solid specs in the case of something like a power amp. I'm not necessarily surprised that this is not SOP, but I personally feel that it ought to be. Just about every boutique guitar EFX maker now does this, and I'd bet that you'll see it more and more as broadband service widens.
regards,
Charlie Escher</b>
