One of the most crucial components of the indie music scene is its authenticity. Indie music isn’t created by a council of millionaires, it’s not funneled through test audiences, and it’s not about exploiting current market trends. This reality is important to keeping the creation of indie music fresh, while also introducing debate about how fans should listen.
To some, the only way to really experience indie music in your soul is to hear it live. This is understandable, but it’s not a way we can always engage. The rest of the time, it’s our home setups that produce the most appropriate and accurate experience. The question is, where do we draw the line here, and which tech is best suited to deliver the highest-quality experience possible?
Dropping the Pretence
To get the most important part out of the way first: the best way to listen is the way you enjoy most. This isn’t just for music, it’s how engagement with all media works. An example we like to use is in bingo games like you’ll see in online casinos. These titles like Cash Cubes and Deal or No Deal illustrate that while quality is important, there is a level where it’s all about taste. The difference is that we’d say it’s perfectly okay to listen to bingo game audio directly through tablet or smartphone speakers, but we can’t quite make the same claims for serious indie music listening.
Speakers and Headphones
Speakers are the classic listening option for all kinds of music, but they’re also the most problematic to get working properly. Highly-rated speakers and audio setups will cost you thousands, and that’s just for the direct equipment. On top of that, you’ll need to factor in modifications to your home for the perfect layout, and soundproofing if you don’t want constant noise complaints. On top of that, these setups aren’t portable, so they’re not a great fit for many busy users.
Saving the day as the most common option we have today are over-ear and in-ear solutions. These high-quality solutions are usually much cheaper than home setup solutions, but they also offer some key issues. The most common that affects certain genres of music is the lack of bass, which can’t truly be emulated through small-scale drivers. Earphones can be great at delivering the sound of bass, but they can’t physically hit you like a powerful subwoofer can. This can be a dealbreaker for some listeners, or it might be completely ignorable for others.
For some, finding the right listening tech and settling in is easy. For others, your lifestyle might not match with what you prefer, and this is a frustrating problem to manage. Ultimately, the solution for many of us has to be to understand that only the luckiest out there always get what they really want.
The important part is not to debate over which choice is truly superior, and understand we’re all waiting for the next day we get to our favorite band’s live. As long as we don’t fall into the audiophile trap of spending thousands of dollars on useless cables, we can all come away winners.
