Technology Is Ruining My Concert Experience

I never imagined that my AirPods Pro, Spotify's high-definition streaming, and hours of daily listening, would be the reason concerts started feeling underwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the energy of live shows and the artists right there in front of me. But the actual sound has become a problem.

I spend at least nine hours in my full time day job, immersed in Spotify’s finest, with flawless mixing, sharp vocals, tight bass lines, and a kind of studio clarity that only algorithms, compressors, and tech experts can deliver. Pair that with AirPods Pro, with their active noise cancellation and carefully shaped soundstage, and it feels like living inside the song. There’s no outside noise, no imperfections, just pure, concentrated music. It’s so clean it’s almost too perfect even for the kind of experimental ambient/drone music that I listen to the most.

And that’s the issue. My ears are now trained to expect that polished sound. So when I go to a concert, even if it's a favorite band or a dream venue, the sound feels different in a way that isn't always good. Vocals get lost in the crowd or swallowed by reverb. The bass isn’t sharp and punchy; it’s booming and uneven. Instruments can blend together. There’s the hum of amplifiers, the occasional squeal of feedback, and the unpredictable acoustics of the space. All the things that once made live music exciting now catch me off guard. I find myself tuning out, picking apart the sound instead of letting it flow over me like I used to. I’ve unintentionally become a bit of an audio snob, shaped by the engineered perfection of my daily digital routine.

Sigur Rós - Paris - November 2022

On the other hand, I still listen to music on cassettes and vinyl. The hiss of the tape, the slight wobble, the warm crackle of an analog recording, none of it is perfect, but all of it is alive nostalgic and organic in a way. The sound has a physical presence that matched the unpredictable nature of a live performance. The flaws are part of the experience. You don’t expect precision. You expect feeling. Those formats train your ears to hear subtlety, to connect with the grit and soul of the music instead of just focusing on clarity. They are imperfect in ways that feel human. My music creation is based on imperfections and I record it on tape. But I’m not composing music  all the time unfortunately, nor listening to this style and format of music very often. I listen to "tape music" on my AirPods most of the time. So even the imperfections sound “perfect”.

Now I’ve become so used to clean production, perfectly balanced mixes, and tailored equalisers that real-world sound feels messy and unfinished. It seems like something is missing, as if live music lacks the invisible polish my ears have learned to expect.

The strange thing is that I don’t think live music has changed. I have. My expectations have shifted. After hours and hours of listening to digitally refined sound, my ears want that same precision everywhere. I notice the smallest details now and feel let down when they aren’t there. But I also miss how concerts used to make me feel. I miss how analog sound could move me, even if it wasn’t technically perfect. Somewhere along the way, I traded wonder for control.

Now I feel caught between two versions of music. One is polished and flawless. The other is raw and emotional. I still go to concerts. But there’s always a part of me that notices how different it sounds from what I hear through my headphones. And that part of me is the one I wish I could silence, just for a while, so I could listen the way I used to.

Tool - Paris - June 2024