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Different Types of Music Listeners: What's Your Music Personality?

We all have our favorite music genres, songs, albums and artists, but you can break music fans down into even broader categories. On one end of the spectrum, there are casual listeners who couldn't name all four Beatles if their lives depended on it. On the other end, you have hardcore audiophiles who try to only listen to original pressings of vinyl records and have piles of live recordings in their music collection.

Denon Staff

It begs the question: What's your music personality? Let’s see if any of these music listener personas sound familiar.

 

The 'hits or bust' crowd

These fans like huge pop songs and tracks that have received major radio play over the years. Compilations and greatest hits are their bread and butter. They rarely — if ever — listen to albums in full and skip straight to big chart toppers. They may not know Thin Lizzy from Blue Oyster Cult, but they know what they like.

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Take the latest hits with you. Stream your favorite music while you hang by the pool, at the beach, at a party with friends or anywhere else you need your tunes.

 

Nothing before — or after — 'X' year

Some music fans can't fathom listening to anything released before a particular era or even a specific year. For some, classic rock sounds horribly dated and early hip-hop lacks the sophistication and immediacy of recent artists like Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples. Influence doesn't matter so much as the quality of the music and, in their minds, modern recordings have the past beat. Same rules apply for listeners who lean toward the tunes of yesteryear over the ones of today — more attuned with chordal thrums of “Smoke on the Water” by a band like Deep Purple than, say, “Cigarette Daydreams” by present-day indie darlings, Cage the Elephant.

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Only deep cuts

Deep cuts fans somewhat mirror the "hits or bust" music listeners. They've heard popular singles so many times that they can't be bothered with them anymore. Only album tracks, B-sides and other deep cuts will do. These folks can't wait to tell you why The Clash's "Spanish Bombs" is so much better than "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "Train in Vain."

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Vinyl-exclusive

There are plenty of music formats to choose from these days: digital, streaming, CDs, etc. While most people have their preferences, some music fans insist on only listening to music in its original form. For a large swath of pop music, that means going vinyl. Vinyl-exclusive fans never really got into cassettes or CDs and scoff at the idea of digital tracks. They can point out the audio quality differences between an MP3 and an LP and will go on at length about vinyl's "warmth."

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The highly-reviewed DP-300F features strong base construction to reduce vibration and improve performance, a new tonearm design and phono-equalizer built-in. Give your cherished vinyl records the quality performance they deserve.

None of the music listener personas listed above have it wrong. The beauty of music is you can listen to it any way you like, whether that means only tuning in to the hits or exclusively using a particular format.

Regardless of your music personality, Denon has the audio equipment needed to achieve the best sound quality possible.

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