Audio and Music: four levels of unity and separation or… ...or a short and slightly dipped into Dostoevsky essay about Audio inevitability in case of …an Audio progress.

Kакие б чувства ни таились
Тогда во мне - теперь их нет:
Oни прошли иль изменились…
Mир вам, тревоги прошлых лет!

Пушкин "Oнегин, путешествия..."

Audio comes to our lives first. Audio comes to us as a wonder of an intellectual achievement, as a man-made heresy, as the Melquiades’ ice, as an enigmatic paradox that unexpectedly is fully under our control. For us, the people who were born after Audio become a dally commodity, Audio always comes first. When we just notice Audio existence (actually when we just discover Audio it is not Audio but only the Sounds Reproduction) we do not acknowledge Music. At this premature level Audio exists as ”a result producing”, or as self-detachable entity of a Sounds Reproductive entertainment. People who operate at this level have no interest in Musically and use Music and an unavoidable residue of Audio. Approximately 65% of people in Audio are operateting at this sub-classified level of the most primitive understanding of relativity between Audio and Music. Those people - mostly have the barbarian result producing and horribly sounding playback systems; are absolutely clueless about their own Audio sense of actions; are numbed about own sense of motivation and directions; and are pretty much the hostages, main targets and subjects of abuse by the notorious, well-oiled Audio industry. Those Level#0-people consider that Audio is thier hobby and they are at sub-classified #0 level of comprehension of unity and separation between Audio and Music.

Along with am individual’s cultural intensification a person begin to sense a unity between Audio and Musicality. At this new level Audio serves as Musicality’s media, and Music serves as an ultimate evaluation essence of Audio’s successes and failures. This is a First level of comprehensions of unity and separation of Audio and Music and at this level Audio and Musicality are combined within a listener’s awareness. At this level a listener perception builds various “bridges” and various cognizant shortcuts in order to convince itself that there is no differentiation between a perceived Audio and perceived Music. No mater what we do, but our perception unavoidably finds a subjective delta between Audio and Music and uses the rationalized delta as a tool for the Audio evaluations. Those evaluations are primary based upon “comparing sound” and acknowledgment of the “auditably executable contrasts”. In Audio, approximately 30% of all participants are operating at this First Level. They have a lot of respect to thier own feelings of unity of Audio and Musicality. Those people generally have somewhere OK Audio installations and thier systems with more or less high level of rightnessness reproduce Musical performances. The people of the First Level call Audio as their way of thinking and consider that Audio helps them to recognize and to browse human experiences.

A further evolvement of an individual into the intensity of Audio capacities and into a depth of Musical appreciation creates within a person an observation that Audio’s and Music’s successes and failures are not necessary related. Eventually it brings to a person a feeling of a separation between Audio and Musicality. The events in the world of Audio and the events in the world of Musicality stop to relate to each other, and the most important is that they begin to run by totally different roads and with totally different accelerations. At this, the Second Level, Audio stops to be transportation for Musicality and the faithfulness and authenticity of Audio begin to loose any substance and meaning. A person begins to realize that conceived Music, performed Music and by any means reproduced Music are inherently the subjects of the same source and they all deliver the very same beneficial purposes. At this level a listener is loosing interest to Audio and if people still continue thier drift in the Audio then they do it without any objectives to accomplish  “a better Audio” but juts due to a nature of habits. In Audio approximately 1%-2% people are functioning at the Second Level. Many of those people cashed out their playback systems or dumped them in storages and they are listening the cheap $100 worth table radios. The most important that thy do thier “table radios” without any significant deterioration of Musical perception. The Audio people of Second Level distinct themselves form the rest of Audio crowd by their phenomenal taste, in-depth knowledge of the entire recorded material, evolved understanding of Musical culture and it’s expressive methods. Those people consider Audio as an extremely important phenomena of human self-awareness, however they themselves, have no intentions or desire to participate in this movement.

The real “dangers” things begin at the Their Level of understanding of Audio’s and Music’s unity and separation and the people who comprehend Audio at sub-classified or at First Level are disabled to understand or even remotely imagine the level of that “danger”.  A Third-level person suddenly again gains an interest in Audio and the Audio’s unity with Musicality. However, now the person (after passing the first Two Levels) motivated not by Music but by Audio. At this level the listening of all those  “subjective bridges” and ”auditable contrasts” suspended and the person’s internal divine composite resonance takes over his or her Audio subjectivism. At this level all artificially-foolish notions about sound: resolution, micro-dynamic, soundstage, macro-dynamic, imaging, spaceal allocations and so on… receive totally new meanings and gain for a listener the deeply sensed definitions. Those meanings - are directly associated and invariably linked to the person’s concrete realizations and those definitions  - are direct and tangible reflection of person introvertial world. When a Third-Level person talks about Audio with people of the First Two Levels then they got totally confused or even afraid. The people of the sub-classified #0 level when the deal with Their Level people feel that they being catapulted from another planet as there are completely no common grounds or even a mutually understood vocabulary for those collaborations. The radicalism of views and judgments at the Third Level is extremely high. What is interesting is that with a certain level honesty with themselves and within a lack of any agenda the people of the Third Level are able to facilitate a phenomenal level of exactness and objectively within thier Audio observations. At this level a person expresses interest in the performance and interpretive capacity deliberately-inducing Audio reproducing methods and the person utilizes Audio as a creative tool (and it is after being at the Second Level!) In Audio there are very few people who are capable to operate at this level. Thos people might have very different playback systems and thier playback installations “sound” very “bizarre” for the ears and brains of the sub-Third Level listeners. The sound of the third-level-people’s systems it is a manuscripts of the owners perceptions of life and thier playback systems are not something that brings Music to their homes but rather something, that help to the system owners to create own Musicality of their lives. Those systems do not reproduce the “whole Music” but just fill the wills and conducting intentions of the systems creators. It would not be advisable for the people of the First and Second level to approach or to try to assess the Third Level playback installations without a comprehensive understanding of reasons, motivations, goals and the internal objectives that the Their Level people had while they created thier installations. The people who operate at the third level of understanding the unity and separation of Audio and Music are able to let this own awareness rollercoaster across entire Audio and Music as well as across many other areas of art or engineering. They are capable to find absolutely imposable (for the First and Second Levels people) associations and connections, discovering unity within absolutely irrelevant subjects and to surmise deep-seated Audio observation upon observing of the very ordinary results. The third-level people consider Audio as “one of the tools”. If you meet such a person and s/he suggests that Audio is not “one of many tools” but “the tool” then you deal not with a Third-Level person but with a person who understand the unity and separation of Audio and Music at the sub-classified #0 level

At the Four Level Audio, once again, loose it’s unity with Music and this is a final division. Due to some pedagogical (and due to some other reasons) I would not go into the explanation of what going on at the Four Level.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Antonio, I understand your pain but I have my reasons do not divulge what is going on at the fourth level. However, my principles might be easily defeated if you post a receipt indicating that you have contributed money, service or efforts to my beloved pussies

The Cat

Axel wrote:

I think, I mentioned it before, if your system works (for you) you listen to music ONLY, MOSTLY anyway, and all this definition stuff feels more and more like mind-fucking, that takes you away from the real thing -- the music, what it's all about. It’s a bit like you want to go for a joy ride and the person in the seat next to you keeps on about the tire pressure in

OK, maybe it needs a bit more detail ,or say perspective as regards to this audio-cooking effort. NO QUESTION, we first have to look after the object before we joy-ride, or joye-feast, oh yes!
I mentioned quality and caring somewhere just a short while ago, and how tools/objects may acquire 'soul'...
If I talk about 0.1 bar tire pressure differential, it is EQUAL to moving my head 5cm this or that way... that's mind-fucking to me, period.
And it is this kill-joy that is OFTEN practiced by some audio-friends that just now missed this french-horn in the second last row clearing his spit-valve.
That's NOT what I come for when I want to hear e.g. Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra  (which I have done just now - by myself).
I have been training as a chef (I couldn't take it...) but I do know ALL about 'Hell's Kitchen', and can appreciate it --- no mind-fucking in this effort
AT ALL, but KNOWING, UNDERSTANDING, EXECUTING, with best possible effectiveness. QUALITY performance, oh yes.
But NOT mind-fucking just another word for BS as far as my vocabulary is concerned. Maybe HvK was giving his Berliner's a tough time so
I can enjoy his Beethoven reditions, that does not mean I want to listen to it on a Transistor-radio - it at all possible :-)

Amir,

so, you proposed the 4 levels of hierarchy:

1)      Immediate level
2)      Long-term level
3)      Musical level
4)      Transcendentally-submissive level

Sound reasonable to me but with some cretinism. The first two levels are more about the “endurance” of experiences the second two are about use of gratification that experience offer. I do not see them related. The level #4 might kick in without respect to levels one or two. The whole idea of attempts to make up an artificial structure of perceptional hierarchy is that it offers an option for reversed debugging. What you propose is legitimate but in my view is not useful as in your hierarchy a triumph at higher lever does not automatically presume that lower levels when successful.