Hy all

i was sharing information at AA with someone that reads this forum, and this person made a very good point, wich i would like to share here:

Recently I am trying to get some distance from this so called ''hobby" of mine (i.e., a literal addiction to perfectionism and material things in hopes of bringing about True Lasting '''Happiness''').

 I want to be a Happy person, not an addicted person whose perpetually disatisfied by material objects and psychological sensations that are the unwise subject of the minds clinging 'desire' for something from the outside world to 'bring' it satisfaction ...thus resulting in perpetual dissatisfaction. So, lately I have taken up Buddhist meditation practices and feel better about my Self and Life compared to when I was trying to 'feel' happy via amassing the 'ultimate' audio system....such a fleeting high, and one needs to keep buying things and tweeking in order to 'up the score' just to 'feel' a little more of that bygone high again, temporarily, until the next baseline is hit and dissatisfaction inevitably sets in.

 Do you know if Romy or any of us Audionuts are Truly Happy people INSIDE?

 What is the Highest purpose and Best utilization of the limited years we have here?

Distractions?

Stimulations?

Simulations?

Is it Wise to put such a large portion of ones life energies into things that are like "castles in the sand'', as the predictable tide waters of our eventual death grows closer with each passing day?

i answered him following :

hi xx

very good point you made in this email.

i start to interest abought high-end hi-fi again abought 6 month ago. i am able to put this " hobby " since the beginning in the right place. when something starts to be the most important thing in your life, ( in many cases of high-end nuts - cas it seems to be their playback system ) then this turns out to get their  " god ". it meens you search from this thing your personal fullfillness and satisfaction. Of course a playback system never will be perfect, and never give u ultimate satisfaction and happyness . I am a born again christian, and the most important in my life, and in my heart is Jesus Christ. He is the only one that can give real peace in our hart, real happyness , because he reveald himself to us to be the son of God, who loves us so much, that he came to this world , and gave his life at the cross,  to die for me, for you, for all of us,  because of our sins, to save us from hell , and give us forever life.  he paid at the cross for our sins, instead that we would have to pay for them at eternity in hell. buddha, mohamed, and other founders of religions died, but jesus ressurrected after 3 days, and lives forever and can help each one of us, that comes to him in prayer. please do not missunderstand me wrong, i just wanted to testify to you abought my experience . if you want to know more abought this, i like very much these cartoons of chick publications.

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0001/0001_01.asp

drdna wrote:

So perhaps audio can be a door to exploring spirituality?

Of course it is but what it has to do with happiness? Exploring spirituality is about exploring the relationship between own reflections and own perception.  The happiness in other hand is a gratification of perception. I see no connections between spirituality and happiness. Sure, people would like this connection to exist but I find that the desire to observe this connection has purely self-serving purpose.

The quantum physics and spirituality? Well, unquestionably it is how it perceived in …. modern audio.

music can bring us moments of  relax, goodfeeling, enjoy, and has certainly to do with spirituality and happyness. 
we forget what god had created music for : to praise him.

  1 Chronicles 15:16 
David told the chief Levites to appoint their brethren the singers with instruments of music--harps, lyres, and cymbals--to play loudly and lift up their voices with joy.
 
that's why we sing in the church : to praise god.

exploring spirituality is : get in touch with god in prayer , have community with the lord, and live with god.

angelo

drdna wrote:

I would say we all commune with our spirituality through music.  What Roman describes as the reproduction of sound without an emotional component sounds more like a description of the study of acoustics more than a way of talking about music. Yes, music has been a big aspect of the devotional part of spirituality throughout the ages, from the ragas of India to the chorals of Byrd.  I would say that music can be a component of one's spirituality without being religious or inspiring one to proselytize.  It simply brings peace, joy, and happiness.  Why else would we all devote so much time to our stereo systems if it was not a joyous experience for us?  This is something I thought Romy would agree with since he so often derides the audio-morons who have lost their way and seek only the statistics, THD, and measurements, all the while with the horrible soulless squawking of terrible sounding components.

I would agree and disagree. My disagreement is not with the nature of subject but with the application of subject. Let me to explain.

As I expressed before and I’m continuing to insist Audio is self-contained and in a way made up field. If people feel that this approach to sound reproduction reminds them study of acoustics then I have no problems with it. Audio is very specific, very narrow and very determined field of human studies. Does Audio exclude Music? From many perspectives it does and, at its highest end, Audio is absolutely free from Music and of course it has nothing to do with THD or the rest Hi-Fi thighs. Unquestionably Music is a large ingredient of Audio practice but AFTER RECOGNIZING AND ACCEPTING THIS fact I still would vote for complete disassociation between Audio and Music. Let see why.

By binding Audio and Music intellectually we conceive a notion that Audio has some value in Music. I completely disagree with this view. Music has “no knowledge” about Audio values. A person with a developed listening culture is completely disassociated from audio needs. To listen Music a personally does not need Audio at all, and in many instances the “crappy table radios” are absolutely sufficient tools to “get” musicality at it’s highest scale. Inn fact, I might report that the most powerful moments of my personal experience listening “reproduced sound” took place in context of incredibly poor audio. Therefore, I do not feel that a perception that has need to consume musical spiritualism might be benefited by Audio advances. On another side of the argument – any single example that I have seen of stating the opposite – “Music could be enriched by Audio” – people end up with self-serving self-deception and chasing the completely unnecessary windmills.

I see it again and again as the feeble minds prostitute themselves by stating that Chaliapin, Cariso or Kreisler “could not be really heard” on anything else then 78s. What do they mean “really heard”? The notion that 78s (that is unquestionably the most superior Audio) offers any advances for understanding the art of Kreisler is incorrect. Better Audio offers itself ONLY as better Audio but not as better musical experience.

The common thing that we accustomed to heard from audio people usually sounds like this: “The given peace of equipment was so good that I was completely blown away by du Pre playing Edgar!” When I hear it I always feel: what I cheep and primituve BS!!!! The du Pre’s Edgar is a very powerful peace and it “blows” REGARDLESS OF AUDIO INGREDIENTS THAT WERE USED. Know the peace, know the performance, have a very high compression MP3 file, the most horrible speakers in the world and it will be all that you need to listen the performance because the forth of  THE performance will shine through…

So, my feeling that the people who go for that PURELY SHOWY MIX Audio and Music do not advance nether Audio nor Music. It would be possible to assess the depth of the “du Pre blowing” inflicted to a listener by use of different audio method. However in the today’s audio, dominated by the ignorant impressionable fools, people do not use Audio to leverage Music it and no one has methodologically proper approach HOW to do it.  Nevertheless, when a person’s listening awareness is capable to operate at the level of OBJECTIVE AUDIO ASSESSMENT BY MUSICAL MEANS then the person recognizes that perceiving audio expressionism ONLY AS THE AUDIO and nothing else DOES NOT INSULT OR OFFENSE AUDIO.  Unfortunately I do not see in audio public a lot of understanding of the proper Audio Assessment framework and the only thing that I see are blind mental substitution Audio by Music or vise versa, but still without ability to get a unity of Audio and Music in a correct mental perspective. This is one of the reasons why I deny recognizing the unity, insisting that Audio is completely self-contained entity. I will be denying it unto the point what person recognizes that in denying that unity there is nothing heretical.

I have no problems to see Audio and Music as completely separate creature. By dealing with most of audio people it helps to keep a healthy mental perspective. Audio “might need Music but Music does not give a damn about Audio. I personally do not belie in fact that Audio needs Music. A marketing of Audio needs Music. However, in the world of REAL AUDIO there is no “Audio without Music” and therefore the people who operate at the levels of REAL AUDIO perfectly can afford to discard Music in Audio and perceive Audio as self-centric entry.

The caT

If you juts generally hungry and has no idea what you would like to eat then you go from resonant to resonant convincing yourself that that meal was better then other meal. However, when you have exact sense what precisely you would like to eat then how important for you would be the debate about advantages of vegetarianism?

Romy the Cat wrote:

In fact, I might report that the most powerful moments of my personal experience listening “reproduced sound” took place in context of incredibly poor audio. Therefore, I do not feel that a perception that has need to consume musical spiritualism might be benefited by Audio advances. On another side of the argument – any single example that I have seen of stating the opposite – “Music could be enriched by Audio” – people end up with self-serving self-deception and chasing the completely unnecessary windmills.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The du Pre’s Edgar ... “blows” REGARDLESS OF AUDIO INGREDIENTS THAT WERE USED.  It would be possible to assess the depth of the “du Pre blowing” inflicted to a listener by use of different audio method.

Romy the Cat wrote:

If you juts generally hungry and has no idea what you would like to eat then you go from resonant to resonant convincing yourself that that meal was better then other meal. However, when you have exact sense what precisely you would like to eat then how important for you would be the debate about advantages of vegetarianism?