I had quite a few visitors lately, who stopped by to listen my audio. Most of them, with rare exceptions, were quite boring meetings, however I played for the “special” people different music and conducted some my own experiments with listening perception.

During those listening sessions I become kind of radical and was trying to assess the level of my visitors Audio Moronity using explicitly Beethoven recordings. The conclusion that I have reached was following: by playing to a listener a different Beethoven repertoire and the different performances it is possible to nail down the exact performing complexity that the listener can handle/afford. Form there, is it very simple to built a direct bridge to the audio level where the given person is capable to operate.

Try it and you learn a lot, perhaps about yourselves.
Romy the Cat

clarkjohnsen wrote:

...The trick is always to find an individual's music appreciation level first, then hit the audio.

Hmmm. I would argue it. Not because I have any firmed opinion about it but because my personal experience does no support it.

Hi-Fi, as we accept it today, came to my life very early, somewhere when I was nine years old, and I remember as I was doing some tricks at that time to my “playback” that my father allowed me to use. So, I was doing Audio all my life, in one way or another, as well I had the “music appreciation” in one way or another all my life. However, the fact of “music appreciation” itself is completely irrelevant. I am sure any single person would say about own “music appreciation”, so what? I think it is not about the “music appreciation” itself but the relationship between the “music appreciation” and the applications of that “appreciation”. The applications of the appreciation and the relationship between the appreciation and other things that the person does/feels is the key….

For instance I sincerely feel that I was very much crewless in the sensibility of my “real music appreciation” before the relatively recent times. Some lucky people “got” the real music at their childhood. I was not one of them and since my childhood I was doing other things. The real undressing of the “music appreciation” came to me somewhere in the 1997-1998 and ironically it came to me FROM audio. At that time I was looking for higher purpose of audio and was trying to define for myself some rationale of my audio peruse, the rationale that would sound to my own consciousness reasonable and noble. Searching the higher definition in audio I inadvertently found higher definition of musicality. I would not advocate some kind of musical success of my mind but I do feel quite comfortable today with my musical sensibility in relation to the composite consciousness of musical culture….

So, the proposed by you necessity “to find an individual's music appreciation level first, then hit the audio” is not necessary the rule as it should not come first. In fact I think that your “rule” would be an aberration as if a person do found a music appreciation FIRST then he would hardly be able to seriously consider audio and a serious expressive tool.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Hi Romy,

I've met musicians who understand music to a far greater degree than (I suspect) you or I ever would. I wouldn't however necessarily trust their judgement on matters relating to good playback. Some of them use quite appalling systems and yet are quite satisfied with them.

On a separate although related issue can you explain how a string quartet playing in my living room would sound any more real if they were playing complex 'content loaded' music as opposed to maybe tuning their instruments or playing extremely simple music badly?

May I also withdraw any positive comments I've ever made regarding the competence of audio manufacturers. Having just visited the London show (with one or two exceptions) this was the worst array of overpriced under achieving garbage I've ever seen/heard gathered in one place. Even including CES! I thought of you particularly when I experienced Ken Kessler's 'pick of the show' system. That really was quite something,

best regards,

Guy