Sailing by Ear

A great piece about rediscovering the art of listening to music, an art that, under assault from earbuds, MP3s, and shitty laptop speakers, seems to be dying. Michael Chabon writes:

I’m no audiophile; I want to say that right off. I have no idea what impedance is, or how to set the levels of an equalizer with any confidence or panache, and I still find infantile amusement in saying the word “woofer.” But it struck me all at once that the sound quality of the music I’d been listening to so heavily, with the indirect attentiveness I give music when I’m writing, was thin, brittle; all sheen and no depth. It was tinny, tiny, and pallid. It sounded like shit, in fact; and not only did it sound like shit, but it had been sounding like shit for years. Shit in the kitchen, playing from a big hard drive attached to an old PowerBook, through a couple of small, flush-mounted wall speakers. Shit, in the minivan and the Prius, patched from an iPod through factory-installed speakers greased over with a scurf of children and their miasmas. Shit, through the endless, vaguely rattling series of earbuds—that nauseating term, with its suggestion of Van Goghesque mutilations—accompanying me on morning runs and onto airplanes. The digitized music itself “compressed,” “lossy,” reduced to a state of parity with whatever system I consigned it to.

If you love music, it’s worth a few bucks to invest in some decent headphones or speakers. Preferably both. Your ears will thank you.