speedo miles and km for usa models...by law?

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Don't worry. It's not a big deal about the stereotyping.

That was an afterthought that in hindsight should have been omitted. What I should have included, but did not was that this whole music/motorcycle thread is based on Ulvetanna's comment, "It's what Millennials want. They don't have any idea of what actually makes anything function. They like cassette tapes, and vinyl records, and all that junk because certain kinds of old school are very cool. Those are the people buying most stuff now." I should have set aside the insulting portions of this statement and focused on the first sentence. I suppose that it may be what Millennials want; I do not know. What I do know is that neither Triumph nor Honda designed their retro bikes to appeal to Millennials. Most, if not all, the Bonneville ads I have seen feature men over 40 (Gen X or Boomers) or women (of whose age I am not certain, but younger than myself). Honda, as we know, didn't advertise the CB1100 in the US very much, but the ads that I have seen feature older, usually Japanese, men. Honda's own description of the target market for this bike is those people who recall the CBs of the early 70's, which is to say mostly men, many of whom are approaching their early 70's themselves.

So, it is highly unlikely that these "faux" parts on these bikes were added because "it's what Millennials want". If they are added to appeal to a particular market demographic (and I am not conceding that they are), then it is much more likely that it's what GenXers and Boomers want. Oh and by the way, if it also to be assumed that it is the Millennials who like the idea or "look" of analog recordings because it's "cool", then the entire music/motorcycle analogy as presented blows up.

Ferret - I know what you mean about listening to discussions about technical matters that are beyond my comprehension. WGN radio did, maybe still does, do a farm report at noon everyday. I would tune in even though I do not know a thing about farming. They'd go on about fertilizer or seed or the price of pork bellies. Fascinating stuff which I was never able to retain for more than 2 minutes. LOL

We are experiencing thread drift. There was another thread discussing the failure of Cycle World, Sport Rider, and so on. They failed to understand what makes Millennials tick. It's a social-media-driven world out there now. So, there's nothing insulting intended to be in my comment. It's accurate. From a purely marketing assessment, the comment is accurate.

My explanation of the change in music from analog to digital and back to analog is well-understood in the music production community; I wrote it in response to Guth's post about it.

Well, if you're not an audiophile then maybe the chosen analogy is not the best. I'm not talking about basic music consumption. I'm talking about actively listening to music for playback accuracy. "High-Fidelity" man, as the kids used to say back in the day. As a general rule, musicians tend to be some of the least demanding individuals when it comes to their musical playback equipment. I don't blame them as the price of decent playback equipment is part of the problem these days. The cost of an iPhone isn't that much more than a really good phono cartridge (and they only go up from there). That's just the cartridge. I still have my old Linn turntable from the 80's and it cost more back then than any iPhone does now. By the time you add amps, preamps, speakers, etc. you could have bought a motorcycle, lol. But guys in pursuit of high-fidelity find a way to justify paying for such systems, just as we were able to convince ourselves that a relatively slow, air-cooled 1140cc, standard motorcycle with few bells and whistles was worth the cost for the experience it provides.

Vinyl records might have limitations when it comes to dynamic range (the difference between soft passages and lound passages), but older recordings took very good advantage of such range. I own around 2,000 albums, the majority of which are more than 30 years old. Most of today's recordings (that happen to be digitally recorded) are so compressed that they just don't sound natural to someone who actually actually pays attention to how live music sounds. Recordings don't have to be made this way, but the industry chooses to do so because this tends to make the overall recording sound more "exciting" to catch someone's attention, but it's not realistic. This works just fine for the masses as most people just don't care, don't notice, or both. When you take those same overly compressed recordings and then transfer them to a vinyl record, there is no benefit at all. The only thing that you've accomplished is that a person is now able to play said recording on their cool new turntable. Which in the case of most turntables bought by young folks today don't even have the same abilities for playback quality as the CD player that they've now abandoned. (It's the motorcycle equivalent of some young guy trading in his CBR250R for a Sym Wolf Classic 150 just for the retro vibe.) But those same young folks will go on and on about how great this all sounds because they've been convinced that vinyl sounds better. Vinyl can sound better, but there's no guarantee that it will. You've got to have the right vinyl and the right playback system. MTC, I'll give your kid the benefit of the doubt here and trust that he knows all this stuff.

That's what I'm referring to in this case. If Triumph were being honest, they would have said something along the lines of "we've made our fuel injection look like carbs, added some fins to the cylinders and tucked away the water-cooling where folks have a harder time seeing it so that you'll be seen rocking the cool old-school vibe!" That's honesty, but most boomers aren't going to be swayed by that. Trying to convince people that those fins are really anything other than aesthetic as Capo noted is no different than the young guys talking about how much better their new vinyl records sound. In the case of the typical young guys I'm referring to, it's simply ignorance. In the case of Triumph it's marketing baloney. But hey, it does indeed sell, just like the turntables and vinyl records that so many of the young guys are buying these days.

Ulvetanna, I'll give you a different analogy. I don't hardly play my electric guitar anymore. I ended up giving away my 1964 Fender tube amp to my brother as I knew he would truly appreciate it. Now a company could build a solid-state amp and then stick a few light bulbs in the head so that they would glow like tubes. Then they could market such an amp as having "tube sound". Plenty of guys wouldn't know the difference. But if I had sent something like that to my brother I don't think he would have been nearly as appreciative. Fake tubes/fake fins done just for looks and marketing appeal, same difference. Bugs me, but most guys just don't care about this kind of stuff anymore. So be it.

LongRanger, those old Marantz receivers get the job done. They even had decent phono stages. I've got one out in our cabin, just because I like the way it looks. I don't have a turntable hooked up out there because I don't really sit down to listen to music. I just use it for background music every now and then so I'll just hook up iPhone to the auxiliary port. If those old original Blue-Note records are still in decent shape then you've got a relative goldmine on your hands. The prices for those slipped beyond my comfort zone about 20 years ago. Consider me envious.

Boss, you are preaching the gospel to the choir here. Literally.

Without getting into all of it and writing a book, I go back a ways, to 1970, when I first started playing and listening to electric music.

We are ABSOLUTELY ON THE SAME PAGE here.

Well, if you're not an audiophile then maybe the chosen analogy is not the best. I'm not talking about basic music consumption. I'm talking about actively listening to music for playback accuracy. "High-Fidelity" man, as the kids used to say back in the day. As a general rule, musicians tend to be some of the least demanding individuals when it comes to their musical playback equipment. I don't blame them as the price of decent playback equipment is part of the problem these days. The cost of an iPhone isn't that much more than a really good phono cartridge (and they only go up from there). That's just the cartridge. I still have my old Linn turntable from the 80's and it cost more back then than any iPhone does now. By the time you add amps, preamps, speakers, etc. you could have bought a motorcycle, lol. But guys in pursuit of high-fidelity find a way to justify paying for such systems, just as we were able to convince ourselves that a relatively slow, air-cooled 1140cc, standard motorcycle with few bells and whistles was worth the cost for the experience it provides.

Vinyl records might have limitations when it comes to dynamic range (the difference between soft passages and lound passages), but older recordings took very good advantage of such range. I own around 2,000 albums, the majority of which are more than 30 years old. Most of today's recordings (that happen to be digitally recorded) are so compressed that they just don't sound natural to someone who actually actually pays attention to how live music sounds. Recordings don't have to be made this way, but the industry chooses to do so because this tends to make the overall recording sound more "exciting" to catch someone's attention, but it's not realistic. This works just fine for the masses as most people just don't care, don't notice, or both. When you take those same overly compressed recordings and then transfer them to a vinyl record, there is no benefit at all. The only thing that you've accomplished is that a person is now able to play said recording on their cool new turntable. Which in the case of most turntables bought by young folks today don't even have the same abilities for playback quality as the CD player that they've now abandoned. (It's the motorcycle equivalent of some young guy trading in his CBR250R for a Sym Wolf Classic 150 just for the retro vibe.) But those same young folks will go on and on about how great this all sounds because they've been convinced that vinyl sounds better. Vinyl can sound better, but there's no guarantee that it will. You've got to have the right vinyl and the right playback system. MTC, I'll give your kid the benefit of the doubt here and trust that he knows all this stuff.

That's what I'm referring to in this case. If Triumph were being honest, they would have said something along the lines of "we've made our fuel injection look like carbs, added some fins to the cylinders and tucked away the water-cooling where folks have a harder time seeing it so that you'll be seen rocking the cool old-school vibe!" That's honesty, but most boomers aren't going to be swayed by that. Trying to convince people that those fins are really anything other than aesthetic as Capo noted is no different than the young guys talking about how much better their new vinyl records sound. In the case of the typical young guys I'm referring to, it's simply ignorance. In the case of Triumph it's marketing baloney. But hey, it does indeed sell, just like the turntables and vinyl records that so many of the young guys are buying these days.

Ulvetanna, I'll give you a different analogy. I don't hardly play my electric guitar anymore. I ended up giving away my 1964 Fender tube amp to my brother as I knew he would truly appreciate it. Now a company could build a solid-state amp and then stick a few light bulbs in the head so that they would glow like tubes. Then they could market such an amp as having "tube sound". Plenty of guys wouldn't know the difference. But if I had sent something like that to my brother I don't think he would have been nearly as appreciative. Fake tubes/fake fins done just for looks and marketing appeal, same difference. Bugs me, but most guys just don't care about this kind of stuff anymore. So be it.

LongRanger, those old Marantz receivers get the job done. They even had decent phono stages. I've got one out in our cabin, just because I like the way it looks. I don't have a turntable hooked up out there because I don't really sit down to listen to music. I just use it for background music every now and then so I'll just hook up iPhone to the auxiliary port. If those old original Blue-Note records are still in decent shape then you've got a relative goldmine on your hands. The prices for those slipped beyond my comfort zone about 20 years ago. Consider me envious.

You know about Line 6, right? Digital modeling guitar amps? They sound like crap. Then they started doing a hybrid with a 100W tube power amp somehow thinking that would warm it up. LOLOL!

Capo is right twice. First time --The music/motorcycle analogy is a poor one and the fact that it took three WAY-long posts to explain it is proof. Second time -- Spotify. There is a bit of a learning curve, but I haven't visited my CD or iTunes library for months.

And I'd like to add one more comment... there's a lot of belittling of Millennials here. I suppose that's because of "Those Darned Kids" Syndrome. My son is a Millennial (interestingly, my daughter who is just 15 months his younger is not). He's a musician and a (retired) motorcyclist. He doesn't want fake air-fins on a motorcycle and does enjoy vinyl recordings, but not exclusively. He would say that there are many many digital recordings that sound as good or better than analog could ever do and I trust his ear. He has an IRA even though he is still in graduate school. I guess it gets my back up when people generalize about Millennials, musicians, or especially Millennial musicians. I feel the same way when someone starts in on how horrible lawyers are when my daughter is studying to become one.

I said exactly that in my [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=12164&pid=195886#pid195886]Doctoral Thesis On the Relationship of Vinyl Records to Cooling Fins:

Today digital music can sound magnificent, because all of the peculiarities and characteristics of the techniques and equipment used for analog recording (unknown and taken for granted back in the day) are very, very well understood and well-modeled in digital software. The fidelity and dynamic range is far better than any analog system can reproduce; however, hardly anyone owns the equipment to attain that fidelity nor would they be able to notice the difference anyway.

Capo is right twice. First time --The music/motorcycle analogy is a poor one and the fact that it took three WAY-long posts to explain it is proof. Second time -- Spotify. There is a bit of a learning curve, but I haven't visited my CD or iTunes library for months.

And I'd like to add one more comment... there's a lot of belittling of Millennials here. I suppose that's because of "Those Darned Kids" Syndrome. My son is a Millennial (interestingly, my daughter who is just 15 months his younger is not). He's a musician and a (retired) motorcyclist. He doesn't want fake air-fins on a motorcycle and does enjoy vinyl recordings, but not exclusively. He would say that there are many many digital recordings that sound as good or better than analog could ever do and I trust his ear. He has an IRA even though he is still in graduate school. I guess it gets my back up when people generalize about Millennials, musicians, or especially Millennial musicians. I feel the same way when someone starts in on how horrible lawyers are when my daughter is studying to become one.

That's terrific, and the exception to the rule. Smart man.