abasio

I ended up buying these, they are really good, especially large soundstage for a closed back, but I've now gone down the audiophile rabbit hole. After these I bought the Sennheiser IE900s which retail around $1500 and now I'm thinking of buying a pair of Open Back headphones for the house, the Hifiman He1000se for way too much money. Help me

Flying Rhino and Dragonfly were the first two labels I started collecting. Some stunning releases on both. I was very partial to the Flight Series on FFR, GNotR, Technossomy as well were amazing. They were the main label that I was into that really evolved their sound. Their Re: evolution compilations still get regular play time. Dragonfly were pure Goa for longer and had great hits like Hallucinogen - Twisted, Pleiadians - IFO and Family of Light, The Muses Rapt - Spiritual Healing as well the Order Odanata series Also their chill out label - Liquid Sound Design was a regular in my post party sessions. Still love most of these releases.

Time to come down

Slinky Wizard - Slinky Wizard

I was thinking about old-school Goa labels earlier and got wondering which ones really had the biggest influence on the scene. Not necessarily the labels with the best catalogue, but the ones that were most important in shaping the sound, spreading Goa trance, introducing artists, or simply getting the music into people's hands. These are the labels that came to mind: Aurinko Records Blue Room Released BooM! Records Ceiba Records Concept In Dance Distance Dragonfly Records Flying Rhino Records Hadshot Haheizar HOMmega Productions Koyote Records Krembo Records Matsuri Productions Nephilim Records Nova Tekk Phantasm Records Phonokol Polytox Records POF Music Psy-Harmonics Psychic Deli Return To The Source Shiva Space Technology Spirit Zone Recordings Symbiosis Records TIP Records Tokyo Tekno Tribe Transient Records Trust In Trance Records Twisted Records Why Not Records What do you think? Which of these were the most influential for you, and are there any obvious labels I've forgotten? I'm particularly interested in the difference between labels that were genuinely influential at the time and labels whose catalogues have become more highly regarded in retrospect. And, of course: if you had to pick just one old-school Goa label, which would it be?

Man With No Name - Teleport Classic

The track that got me into GOA

Northern Exposure This was a post party comedown staple and still one of my favourite mixes ever. They're releasing a 30th anniversary Redux. Doesn't look like it's just remastered, different mixes of some of the tracks and on the CD version a dub mix of it. Pre-ordered it. But it'll take 6 weeks to come 😢

IFO has been a well loved Goa trance album for nearly 30 years. What other albums (any genre) do you still play regularly 20 or 30 years later? For me, the following still gets heavy play time Paul Oakenfold - A Voyage into Trance Shpongle - Are you Shpongled? Enigma - Le Roi eat Mort, Vive Le Roi The infinity project - Mystical Experiences Sasha and John Digweed - Northern Exposure (1, 2 & 3) Eat Static - Prepare Your Spirit Solar Fields - Extended Global Comunication - 76 14

So which of these are still mighty 12 years on? I still really enjoyed the most recent albums (proper) from Solar Fields And CBL but Solar Fields has had some disappointing retrospectives released. John Digweed still keeps the quality high with everything I hear from him. I'm not sure if Matt Hillier's recent stuff is still as good as the old stuff as he went through a phase of releasing way too much at sky high prices and I stopped listening. So who else is still the master of his or her craft?

I'll have to go back on the IFO choice here. I've been listening to the 3CD version recently and it's absolutely stunning. Some music just needs us to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it, and so there are many albums I initially disliked but came back to later and loved. I think in the era of streaming, this is much less likely to happen. When I'd bought something and had the physical disk sitting there, I'd usually give something a lot more chances.

Listened to this in the first time in years (somehow it never made its way on to my DAP) and it was one of the first CDs I pulled out to try with my new CD player (they really do still make these things, audiophile cassette players too 😲) Honestly, it's got a lot more beats than I remember. I think over the years I've listened to a lot of drone ambient and what I think of as beatless has become actually beatless. Why do we call light beats, beatless anyway?

On the doorstep of sleep What an amazing phrase. I'm going to steal that and use it. I know exactly what you mean and I often use ambient to influence those hallucinations. I was also just listening to Ishq - Orchid (I have the 2CD version on Dakini records) and it is brilliant for this purpose. I had a headache and needed some natural chill to help me relax and it worked beautifully with wonderful imagery.

Bought a Fiio DM13 CD player. Basically a modern Discman, powerful enough to drive my headphones at least. Been wanting this to help me rediscover my CD collection rather than letting it sit there and rot.

I have not managed to disconnect totally from the internet but over the last few years I have made a big effort to put my fucking phone down. I found as it slowly became able to do everything, I was using it for everything: calls, messaging, obviously, music, movies, internet, reading, photography, games, everything! The problem is though, that while phones can do everything, they don't do these things well. We have basically sacrificed quality for convenience. So over the last few years I have tried to remove my phone from everyday things. I still use it for calls, messaging and photos but I replaced it with multiple devices for the other things. Music - got a Sony Walkman - will never go back to listening to music on my phone Movies - bought a larger tablet - will never go back to watching movies and the smallest possible screen Games - I got one of those Gameboy looking things that can play all the old retro games. 1000s of games available in them and so many awesome ones. Reading - this one took a while but I finally last year got an ebook reader the same size as a phone from viwoods. Having something that I can keep in my pocket has been a game changer. In idle moments I don't just go for my phone now, I take this out and read a little bit. It's made a huge difference to my reading and I am now reading around a book a week. The problem with getting the quality back though, is that need for more quality. I have been sucked in to the audiophile community and I am seriously thinking of getting a new pair of headphones go maximise my in house movie and music enjoyment, the only issue is they cost $3500 I likely won't by them, but the fact that I am considering buying them when I already have a $1000 pair of headphones and and $1600 pair of IEMs is worrying. If I buy them, my wife can never know.