Tag: music

The Gift of Music: How to Do It the Right Way

Everyone has those people in life that are very hard to shop for. I mean what are you to get the person that has everything? Music. Music is always the best gift, and for the people that have everything, it’s often the only gift. Music is universal and received by everyone. No one can have all of it or appreciate all of it, which makes it such a great gift.

The best part about giving music as a gift is there are so many different ways to do it. You can give equipment, earbuds, speakers, listening peripherals, or just new music that you think they would enjoy. The options are virtually endless. Let’s take a look at some of the best music gift ideas you can give your friends, family, and loved ones.

Streaming Subscriptions

When gifting music the first place to start is the easiest place to start. That is a subscription to new music. Starting at $9.99 a month there is a plethora of streaming music subscription services. The subscriptions will allow you to stream, download, and listen to unlimited music, new, retro or classic. Whatever you wanna hear, whenever you wanna hear it.

The first one I would mention is Apple Music. Apple Music has the largest subscription-based of users as well as the largest database of music. They’ve been compiling music in their iTunes software since the beginning of digital music. Almost all the music you could ever want to listen to is there is a very easy to use, intuitive, user-friendly platform that syncs perfectly amongst all your iOS devices.

The next option is Amazon’s Prime Music. Prime Music functions mostly like the Apple subscription services. Prime music will sync across all your Amazon prime devices, you can even download the prime music app to your iOS or Android devices.

This provides flexibility in your multiple and various OS mobile devices. There are also services like Iheartradio, Pandora, and Spotify. All the services will run you $9.99 a month and make an excellent gift for anyone who doesn’t have unlimited streaming music service.

Harmonica?

Maybe you want something tangible to give? Another great option to give somebody is the gift of a musical instrument. Regardless of talent level, Giving the gift of a musical instrument is always welcome. This will give you some options as well, the classic iconic instrument, a keyboard or guitar, or you can get interesting like a banjo or harmonica. It’s fun, always remembered, and just may improve someone’s life. If that’s not exactly what you been looking for, Here are some specific music listening devices that will make great gifts.

Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo is one of Amazon’s premier speaker systems. It is an elegant and easy to use this quality speaker. It doubles as a speaker for most of your devices and comes with Amazon’s Alexa voice-enabled assistant fully built in. Full cloud sync-ability to prime music, you can add in that subscription for a total music package. Synchronization across your devices lets the Amazon echo provide the ultimate in home music listening enjoyment. The Echo gives the gift of high-quality speaker along with the content to play through it.

The Sonos Vinyl Set

Are you looking for a gift for someone who likes that hands-on music experience? Do they like the sound they can feel and touch? At the same time want to have that digital proficiency and quality without suffering the nostalgic sound of crackles and pops. Look no further than Sonos’s new vinyl set. Picture this, the Play:5, the best-sounding, most powerful speaker, matched with the Pro-Ject vinyl record player, allowing you to stream your vinyl to every room. Masterful.

Did I mention, the Pro-Ject includes built-in phono preamp. Outstanding. They will be able to just plug in any audio device, from a record player to a friend’s phone, and listen to their favorite music on the fantastic Play:5. Like all Sonos speakers, it is expandable. The Sonos vinyl easily let you go from streaming your favorite music and high-quality sounds to spinning from your own record collection.

Give the gift of streaming vinyl across the connected Sonos speakers to every room in a pure, balanced sound, unmatched by anybody else in the industry. Give the gift of their own musical completion, The Sonos Vinyl set.

Beats Studio3

You could just try keeping it simple and just go with the old trusty Beats headsets. When you want to give the gift of quality music look no further than beats headphones. The best of the beats headphones are the Beats. Featuring intuitive balanced, pure noise canceling functionality in the most robust and authentic sounding headphones on the market.

These headsets function flawlessly regardless of the situation or noisy environment that you’re in, always providing the perfect pure balance sound and they look pretty great.

February 8, 2021
Spotify Posts 100 Million User Numbers, Doubling Apple Music

There are two big names in the world of music streaming services. On the one hand, there’s Apple Music, which is baked into the infrastructure of Apple’s iPhone line. On the other hand, there’s Spotify, an algorithm-driven service that compiles personalized playlists for listeners.

Spotify has now announced that their paid memberships have now exceeded 100 million users, doubling the 50 million Apple announced in January.

Spotify Now Doubling Apple Music Subscribers

Juggernauts of Streaming

While there are tons of streaming services available, the biggest names in the mix are Spotify and Apple Music. Apple offers access to a wide range of songs from the iTunes store, allowing for downloads of songs and albums. The other big draw of Apple Music is that you get access to Beats One Radio, which is a live internet radio service featuring real DJs and radio shows.

Spotify is much more math-driven: there are no DJs, no real people selecting the songs on the playlists. However, the system is able to cater much more directly to the tastes of the user, thanks to the automated song selection software.

In Perspective

While Spotify is posting huge numbers in terms of global subscribers, Apple seems nonplussed by the situation. Apple Music is growing at the fastest rate of any streaming service in the US. This is good news for Apple, as the US is the largest single market for music consumption in the world.

Spotify, unlike Apple, also offers a free version that allows users to listen without paying but with ads. This, coupled with Apple’s more limited scope than Spotify, has made the Sweden-based service a popular global streaming option.

Of the two services, neither has a particular edge in an even field. Apple Music isn’t available on quite as many platforms as Spotify, but it can be downloaded on Android devices. For music-savvy users, either service is excellent for daily use.

April 30, 2019
Which Offers Better Sound: Analog or Digital?

The long-running debate over digital versus analog recording and playback has long divided music fans. Digital recording has been referred to as compressing and simplifying the sound of music. Analog recording and playback has been derided as outdated and inaccurate, mixing too much noise into the sound. Which one is truly the best way to experience music?

Analog or Digital?

Signal to Noise

Analog recording and playback involve using physical media and storing information in a way that is physically visible. Digital recording, however, uses binary code, ones and zeroes, to encode sound in the form of digital text. Both forms require specialized methods to facilitate playback.

In the case of analog, you need a machine that can read the physically encoded information. The most famous example of this is the needle of the record player interpreting the grooves of a record as sounds. Likewise, digital recordings require software to enable playback. Much like the needle reading the record, digital media players interpret the code as sound.

Pros and Cons

When sound is recorded, something is inevitably lost. There exists no perfect recording technique. However, there are some distinct strengths and weaknesses of both digital and analog. Digital has the issue of compressing sound, potentially distorting it, and being corrupted in slight ways.

Analog, on the other hand, has more chances to introduce noise. Those who have used record players have doubtless heard the slight hisses and pops that are introduced by using physical media to store sound information. Fans of analog media have dismissed digital recordings as sounded “cold” and “distant,” unlike the “warm” and “intimate” sounds of analog.

Digital recordings, however, can be transmitted easily over the internet. Streaming music services allow instantaneous acquisition of new songs, and digital is easier to transfer and edit.

A Case for Audiophiles

In fact, research has shown that increasing knowledge of recording techniques has led to digital recordings offering such high fidelity that it’s indistinguishable from an untouched master. Thanks to new software techniques in reading data, digital sounds can be rendered in perfectly accurate and crisp ways.

What this doesn’t account for, of course, is the irreplaceable tactile feel of holding a record. The warmth of the sound of vinyl is undeniable. In short, there are a lot of reasons to love analog, even if it isn’t as accurate or convenient as digital. It’s got soul, and that counts for something.

April 5, 2019
Apples’ Beats by Dre…Can They be Beat?
The Good
- Unrivaled sound quality, especially in bass heavy songs
- Lithium Ion Battery provides 22 hours of continuous listening
- New noise cancellation tech is an important focal point
- Robust and sturdy craftsmanship makes them hard to break
- Wireless and portable headphones make them great travel companions
The Bad
- The sound quality drops when not listening to songs through Apple Music, (i.e listening from Youtube, Pandora, Spotify)
- After extended period of wearing the headphones, the comfort-ability rapidly declines
- High price point. On average consumers pay an additional $100.00 just for a name.
The Conclusion

Apples’ Beat by Dre are clearly the best headphones on the market. With incredible clarity and tone, songs we’ve heard a millions times before are elevated to a different plain inside those earbuds. Coupled with quality craftsmanship and care, there is a reason why they are so distinguished from competitors. But can competitors get close in quality for a significant drop in price?

The upgraded Studio3 Beats are here to stay

The newly released and upgraded Studio3 Beats by Dre have continue to progress and fix the previous versions and continue to hold up the good Beats name. With focusing on the noise cancelling aspect of the Studio3 beats, these bottom heavy headphones are quieter than ever. And Apples W1 Bluetooth chip makes pairing a breeze. Additionally, iPhone users can switch between devices logged into the same iCloud account to easily move from an iPhone conversation to watching a movie on your Mac. (The headphone also works with Android and other Bluetooth-enabled devices.)Totaling 22 hours of wireless playback with the new Noise Cancelling Tech and approximately 40 hours of battery life without it.

With tough competition such as the Sony WH-1000XM2 noise cancelling headphones or the Bose QuietComfort 35 II, Beats has an uphill battle to stay at the top. Sony’s new headphones very closely rival Beats sound and quality, but struggle a bit in terms of battery life and comfort-ability. But for $100.00 less than the Studio3 beats, they are a great option for those not wanting to spend $379.00 on headphones.

Final Thought

The Studio3 Beats have made a great addition to the Beats line, and continue to rule the headphones playground for now. But at this point much is expected from Beats, and they need to find new ways to keep their customers coming back. The strong competition is gunning for Beats, and doing so by significantly under cutting Beats prices. The Bose QuietComfort 35 II has even added a Google Assistant button to their headphones for that extra bit of personality. I’ll be waiting for Beats next move…
February 11, 2018
Apple HomePod Plays?
Apple HomePod is a Siri enabled smart speaker with Apple-engineered audio technology and advanced software to deliver the highest-fidelity sound throughout the room, anywhere it’s placed. Apple has built the high-excursion woofer with a custom amplifier to play a wide range of deep, rich bass. HomePod is wrapped in a seamless mesh fabric designed for both aesthetic and acoustic performance. Available in white and space gray for $349.

The Great
- Siri is superior to Amazons Alexa and the Google Assistant’s conversation abilities.
- Fantastic bass and tremendous sound quality through out all music genres.
- Apple music play compatible
- Compact, solid and attractive
- Automatically balances its sound position to get the best out of your music
The Not
- Apple-only audio services when using voice commands
- Multi-room audio and stereo pairing, aren’t available yet
- Siri and HomeKit are inferior to Amazons Alexa and the Google Assistant’s compatibility.
Conclusion

Sound is the best of the best, unmatched, elegant and inspiring. With the capabilities of adding multi-speakers that will listen to each other and balance the sound through out an area you’ve got a revolutionary sound system. Voice controlled by Siri gives you all the functionality you will need, if you are in the Apple eco-system this is the speaker you must have.

[adSOC]

Its Here!

On February 9, Apple will launch the HomePod, its first smart speaker. I’ve been looking forward to the home pod since the introduction of Siri at the iPhone 4s’s launch. I thought to myself I could just shout out a song I want to hear and have it play and sound good. This the day I have anticipated and waited for has arrived. So let’s play.

Setup

Amazingly easy to unbox and get going with no set up, you know how I hate set- ups. With its High-excursion woofer and array of seven horn-loaded tweeters, each with its own custom amplifier matched with the 6 microphones, the HomePod balances and radiates sound beautifully. Its like giving your home an amphitheater like plethora of sound. I compared the sound side by side with a single Sonos One speaker and the edge undoubtably goes to the HomePod. Yep its nice.

More than a Speaker

It’s got Siri, yeah, we all know her. She knows us. She does he job as well as any digital assistant, Amazons Alexa and Google home speaks are equally as adequate. My advice to all tech purchasers these days is to pick an assistant and build your devices around her. The boom of the AI assistant isn’t going to slow or plateau anytime soon, and you will want your devices to have the best possible relationship. The dysfunctional familes of this century will be fueled by the clashing of competing tech giants all attempting to control every aspect of your home. They all have their strength and weakness, lets take a look at the top 3 and compare.

I’ve asked each of the digital assistants a variety of 15 questions on basic and general knowledge. All 3 did an adequate-to-impressive job, generally giving viable, quick answers with pertinent information, though they all sometimes gave erroneous answers on Jordan’s’ height and the where abouts of the Hubble space craft, and it only gave Jon Hamm a 8 on a handsomeness scale of 10.

Final Thought

The reality is the HomePod is the best main street smart speaker you can buy, with adequate AI and Siri functionality, impeccably amazing sound integrates as a perfect peripheral device for all apple products… Its exactly what you would expect, I mean really what did you expect. Its Nice, so ask yourself 3 questions, Do you have $349? Do you have an IOS or multiple IOS devices? Have you subscribed to apple music? If you answered yes to all three there is a link at the bottom of the page just for you.. Stay tuned next time I’m going to test the HomePods durability or destructibility.
February 8, 2018
The Martin D-35 Seth Avett “Signature Guitar” is a Thing of Beauty.
The Great
- Beautiful bright sound only the Martin Guitar Co. can produce
- Intricate inlays on the fret board specifically designed by Seth Avett, make this a visually stunning guitar
- Perfect blend of Spruce, Cherry, Indian Rose, and solid Ebony wood creates a lightweight, but sturdy guitar
- Professional grade audio and tech equipment pre-installed in guitar.
The Downside if any…
- Paying $4,300.00 for an acoustic guitar is pretty hard to justify
- Playing action is a bit high for intermediate players
- Dreadnought guitars can be cumbersome at times
The Conclusion

If you’re a somewhat advanced guitar player and have the means, this should be the next acoustic guitar you purchase. There is so much ornate detail and beauty to this guitar, you’ll be afraid to play it. Martin Guitar Co. and Seth Avett of rock group the Avett Brothers have partnered up and made a one of kind guitar that you can pass down for generations…

The Creation

In 2014, Seth Avett of North Carolina’s fame rock group The Avett Brothers, was approached by the Martin Guitar Co. and asked to partner up on a Special Edition Guitar. Seth immediately began to design and create a very personal and gorgeous guitar that has the sound at the forefront. With a Spruce Wood top and a blend of Indian Rose, and flamed Koa Wedge on the back, this guitar spares no expense. Adding Copper snowflake inlays over a solid Ebony fret board ensures that the sound and play-ability are second to none. For a taste of decadence, Seth added Herringbone Rosette and Bone tuning nuts. Another important feature for a professional player, was the partnership with Fishman Audio for this guitar. Fishman is the forefront of audio technology in the music world, and adding their Fishman Gold Plus natural electronics lets the guitars true sounds shine through any PA system.

As far as sturdiness and quality goes, anyone familiar with the Avett Brothers knows that Seth does not hold anything back on stage and with his guitars. I’ve seen The Avett Brothers live in concert many times, and Seth truly puts his guitars through the ringer. Playing with such passion and veracity, he usually breaks a string or two on about every song. That’s not an exaggeration…

Final thoughts

With a price tag of $4,300.00, the cost of this guitar is not for the faint of heart. To justify the price, Martin Guitar Co. and Seth Avett have truly chosen only the absolute best quality wood and materials for this guitar. Not to mention, all the intricacies and detailing to the guitar. But for someone who does not play often or well, I would probably go in a different and more affordable direction. This guitar is truly for the acoustic guitar connoisseur and or Avett Brothers admirer. But if you do “treat yo self” this is a guitar that could be a treasured family item and passed down to children and grandchildren. Martin Guitars only sound better with age.
January 27, 2018
Music firms sue to keep hit songs off fitness streaming app

By JEFF MARTIN, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Some of the nation’s largest recording studios have joined forces in an effort to stop a music streaming service aimed at fitness enthusiasts from using songs by Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Green Day and other stars.
In a federal lawsuit filed in Atlanta, Sony Music Entertainment and more than a dozen other record companies say Fit Radio illegally infringes on their copyrighted recordings “on a massive scale.”

The Atlanta-based streaming business is hurting artists who rely on music royalties, the music companies states in the suit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. The lawsuit mentioned several major artists, including Beyonce, Jason Derulo, Green Day and others.
“Rampant copyright infringement of sound recordings over the internet and through mobile applications, including the infringement engaged in and enabled by entities such as Fit Radio, has resulted in significant harm to the music industry, including to artists who rely on royalties from recorded music for their livelihood,” the complaint states.

A representative of the Atlanta firm said in a statement Tuesday that it looks forward to “being vindicated by the court system.”
“We will continue providing exceptional services to our customers,” it said.

Fit Radio is available through its website, fitradio.com, and through an application or app on mobile devices such as cellphones. Fit Radio recruits disc jockeys who copy and upload popular songs to attract users, the lawsuit says.

The streaming service entices the DJs to upload recordings to Fit Radio as a way for the DJs to “promote your personal brand,” the lawsuit states. The company also supports the DJs with marketing efforts through Facebook and email campaigns, according to the lawsuit.
The recording companies say their music is legally streamed via services such as Apple Music and Spotify through business agreements with them. But Fit Radio is different because it has no such agreements to stream the copyrighted music, they say.

January 23, 2018