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Although I have mentioned “mining” Music many times
before, I think I have not elaborated on it, despite this practice is the
reason for most of the major changes I have worked on my audio system over many
years. The Loudspeakers are case and point. They were specifically meant to open
up Big Music (Bruckner, in particular) for better, more complete access, and they
have in fact facilitated mining plenty of Music in addition to Bruckner. By
“mining” I do not mean factory strip or open pit mining, etc., rather I refer to
opening my awareness to the Music with the loosely held idea of “opening fully”
to the experience. This is for me a case where I am having a rarified Musical
experience, since “parts of a live performance are missing”, perforce. As “value”
is personal, the practice of mining Music also has an important (arguably
all-important) personal aspect concerning both what is realized and what is
made of the experience. In the case where hi-fi is a means for transporting and
delivering Sound, the audio system used for Music mining must itself be
something l can “work with”, as it is only in the junction/interface between
the Sound and the listener (in this case, moi) that the audible and therefore
discernable Music exists. I hope it can be determined from this that the system
is not a direct part of the Sound/Listener interface but the audio system
itself must effectively “get out of the way”, along with any “obstructions” or
“distractions”, including all the problems with recordings and playback that we
have had waved in front of us for so long. My own working version of Jacques
Derrida’s “Play of Differences” keeps the parts of something (anything)
distinct from “something else”, and in the best cases this means subtle
differences between parts are available in addition to profound differences,
apropos. One might say the differences here come from “good dynamics”, since they
do in audio terms. But this definition
is stilted in the sense that we are not listening to Music if we are hearing
dynamics, per se. One might include pitch, tone, timbre, texture, on and on. If
these audiophile touchstones cannot be expressed in terms of Music as assayed
by the Listener, then they may actually interfere with Music appreciation, by
degrees or in total. Anyone might get
off on the wrong foot and eff up their own Music playback with any hi-fi
component or components that might be named. In my own case, speaking about The
Loudspeakers, they ”can do Bruckner” for me, using my sources and amps, and I
am now regularly mining Bruckner performances I have heard many times. The original
hi-fi strategy was to get a wide range of Musical Sounds and “values” such that
the sound field conveys the Music to me without limitations or a signature that
obscure(s) “The Message conveyed by The Music”.
The rote process might be called “Music in Sound”, and the final test of
the system is (broadly speaking) the variety of Music the system delivers.Paul, I do not know how to respond to your post. Before 2025, I would have taken a very strong and highly supportive position regarding what you said. However, right now I have a completely different understanding of how the interface between music, humans, and machines takes place. Or perhaps it is only the illusion of such an understanding. Still, if truth is anything that gives a person meaning, I am comfortable with all the charades I have invented in my mind. Why now? I feel that although what you are saying is very accurate, it is not truly applicable to my current understanding of audio. To give you a clue, pay attention to what I am doing. I discarded what was objectively better by every imaginable evaluation system and drifted toward something absolutely inferior — not only from an audiophile perspective, but from every technical perspective with which I am deeply familiar. I do not feel like a victim of some psychological or metaphysical crisis. Rather, I recognize this as a very deliberate and intentional change of objectives, the means to accomplish them, and the integration of the results. In my current perspective, what you are describing is not a set of questions that require answers, because in my present understanding of how audio works, there are no answers to those questions in the realm of audio as we know it today.
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