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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Audio critique – open your mind!
Post Subject: It is how YOU screw yourself up.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 7/25/2007

 person wrote:
“… this is our new flagman speaker and if I let you to listen it then you shell not comment on it for one year.”

 person wrote:
“… you can listen it but you have not say about it to anyone.”

 person wrote:
“… but if you think the unit is unspeakable garbage I prefer you don't put that on your website.”

I hear these types of requests again and again. Surely I understand where people are coming from and surely I respect the rules of engagement, if I decided to proceed. I have many occasions when some dealers, distributors or manufacturers exposed me to something with at prohibition to express my public opinion about that “something”. Many “stature of limitations” on these agreements are up and I free to say whatever I wish but irony is that possible negative or positive judgment about a product, a company, a topology or about a specific installation attempt is not what interests me. In fact I find that it is extremely unpleasant and hugely ungratifying to express negative or critical comments about audio components or installations. And the reason for that is, not that I do not like to do it but extremely antagonistic  and near-idiotic perception of majority of audio public to any critical feedback. Pay attention I said critical feedback, not negative feedback!

It is astonishes and annoys me how audio-fools accept criticism. If you have a house with and leaky roof and someone told you is that a roof building techniques where not appropriate for the amount of precipitation in your region than most likely you will not hold personal grudge against the person but a rather begin to EDUCATE YOURSELF on the subject of a roof fixing. With Audio everything works differently. A person who stepped into a big puddle of water on your floor and the person who pointed you at a wet spot at your ceiling become not a trigger for you to assess (or reassess) the state of your perception but rather at a personal enemy who violently trespassed your little backyard. Talking about me. The irony is that I do not ever remember that I ever passed any negative judgment or just negative perception without trying to justify or rationalize the events (unless the collaborator is a cretin that makes me to become economical and do not waste my time). Those rationalizations attempts, acknowledgment of negative consequences to Sound, recognition of the patterns are actually it is the most interesting and gratifying thing for me in my negative remarks. I learn on the mistakes of others very much as I learn on my mistakes. I'm sure everybody else do the same, so I wonder why everybody else in Audio just afraid to acknowledge the sightlessness of their pursue and stop to treat mistakes as failures.

Why audio people are so driven by fear? If those people have just business motivations (and I would perfectly understand and respect it) then why do they care to expose their products to such people like me: It is known that I don't give a shit their about business interests or agendas. If they are interested to a pure sonic evaluation of their products than why do they afraid of any criticism? If they in insist me to keep my position public doesn't mean that they have at premonition or confidence that their products supposed to be underperforming sonically?

Well, I do not want to sound that I am overly dummy and that I do not understand the situation, surely anyone who reads it understands it as well. However, behind all that “understanding” I think laying a huge shotgun with which the audio people should themselves in own leg. I think the Real Audio self-education starts with elimination of fear, openness and ability to recognize and exchange assessments or compare notes honestly and unconditionally. Certainly honesty is not something which prevents from critique mistakes; still the Truth never exists in “conclusions” but rather in conditions and circumstances. That elimination, bleaching, and abolition of fine nuances of conditions and circumstances is something that I feel is terminally lost when audio people do not practice to criticize audio and do not practice to exchange their criticism publicly. I would wish more people will share my views as I know it would lead to better Sound in the peoples listening rooms and also it would lead to the less amount of Moronity among audio public.

Rgs, Romy the CaT

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