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Posted by Romy the Cat on
10-31-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Recently I was traveling and
spoke with an audio guy. He advised that I need to stop by to listen his
playback. I ask why he thinks his playback is worthy to listen. He gave me a
long list of expensive and industry-reputed component that formed his installation.
In his mind it was some kind of assurance of "audio quality" that he presumably
is able to demonstrate. Listening his
bombastic recite of his audio investments and without hearing any evidence that
he is able to express any sensible or valuable to me audio or musical thoughts
I desisted that to visit him does not worth my time. The sad thing in this story is that the pure
guy's feeling about himself is very typical in audio community.
Audio is kind of fucked up
field with many completely corrupted definitions. For instance I have horrible
ski techniques. Not just horrible. I was using skis just a few hours in my life
and it was a disaster. As a result I am absolutely not able to ski. However, if
I use high-end audio interaction paradigm and willing to ski then I would buy some
kind of expensive and prestigieuse slalom skiing equipment and then I would
behave like I do dally jumps over Lauberhorn's Hundschopf. The point is that in
skiing even a fool understands that sine I have no skiing skills then no amount
or quality of sophisticated skiing equipment would be able to rectify it or
make me less capable on a slope. Furthermore, since I am absolutely ignorant in
skiing I shall not bale able even to recognize or differentiate any bad skiing
tools from better skiing tool. I might use a common sense but since I am not practicing
skier then my opinion can't be put in use and worth nothing. The very same
logic in most of cased would be applicable to most fields of human activity but
is NOT something that we see in high-end audio.
In high end audio a presence
of expensive toys is almost a self contained target. It is not about a pride of
ownership or price per se but rather a need for a typical audio moron to build
an association between himself, audio industry and the rest audio Morons using
a given peace of audio gear as some kind of bounding devise. So, in a way for
most of typical audio simpletons an amplifier, a speaker of the proverbial
cable elevation act as some kind of physiological decoy that cures whatever mental,
cultural or physiological challenges they have. The audio industry in this direction
acts no different than another ugliest industry – the pharmaceutical. As pharmaceutical
industry invents new ways to incentivize a consumer to buy their products the
audio industry do identically the same. If you look at ALL audio reviews that
were written during the last let say 20 years then you will see that they were
product centric but not the consumer need-centric. In this environment it is
not secret why most of audio products, regardless of price, do not provide any predictable
benefits to audio consumers.
So, what happed to my guy above?
He is the person who has no-well formed listening objectives. It happens that
he did not buy a boating, golfing or any another "hobby" magazine but
it was some kind of audio magazine. The person
clearly has issuers of self-identification and in his week mind to get $300K
audio is one of the ways to deal with self-appraisal. I certainly do not blame him,
in the end it is better to brainlessly polish TT platter than shot heroin, drink
vodka, beat wife or join Nazi party. However, the pursuit of those people in audio
unfortunately is totally irrelevant. Furthermore it is not difficult to evaluate
the capacity of 99.9% high-end audio industry that is explicitly structured to satisfy
the demands of the people who has irrelevant audio pursuits. What would you exact
from high-end ski maker who design equipment for use by a person who not only unable
to ski but who even goes for skiing trips ONLY because he loves to remount his
snow tires on his BMW? Can we truly care about ski-makers idea about ski profiles
if the only thing that ski consumers care in the whole skiing episode is how
the consumer's new pneumatic tools help him to mount those winter tires? The metaphor
is not as detached from reality as you think....
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Posted by rowuk on
10-31-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Just for the sake of digging a bit deeper.........
If we are sick, we go to a doctor (well some of us do....)
If we have trouble relating, we go tho a psychologist
If our house is on fire, we call the fire department.
In times of strife, many discover religion
We read magazines to get recommendations on what snow tires to put on our BMWs
Why in hell should it be different with audio?
Did the doctor solve our sickness, offer a bandaid or give us information to change our lives to minimise sickness?
Did the psychologist help us grab foot in society again - or just accompany our misery?
Did the fire department just use brute force to put the fire out or try and minimise damage
Do all of our religious leaders lead us to a better life or is it yet another opportunistic situation to build a power base?
After an accident in the winter can we say that we got the "best" snow tires for our BMW?
Why in hell should it be different with audio?
I know that it is hard to look at some poor guy that just invested 300 grand and has no idea what to do with it and feel so sorry that we try to help them, but do we lose an opportunity by not trying or picking a strategy guaranteed not to work? Who are the really fortunate ones on earth - those that prove ignorance is bliss or those that are in the eternal hell of being "surrounded by incompetence" (thank you Elmer Fudd). To be honest, I am not sure anymore, but sure am happy that when I listen to my audio playback in "music" mode, that no issues of cable, phase or frequency response spoil the fun..........
If I were travelling, and seated next to you and started talking about audio, I probably would also invite you to listen to my playback. The reasons would be to share some of my favorite recordings with someone who obviously knows a lot more about audio than I do. The visit would not be just audio however, there are many other great reasons to visit someone than the music room. My playback may not be worthy of illustre audience, but then again.................
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