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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?

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