GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: The Absolute Sound of Audio Idiocy.

Post Subject: Japanese were right about absolute soundPosted by tokyo john on: 1/5/2009

It is funny but for many years I had been intrigued by the different approach to audio by Japanese vs "the West".
"The west" here refers to Absolute Sound type (not everyone in the West is this of course) criteria of live performance.

Confession time - having been a reader of TAS as a school kid in the 80's, I thought the Japanese were crazy to aim for "my own individual sound".
Audio magazines in Japan would never really criticize a reviewed product, but merely descibe its sound characteristics. If it has a unique sound, that was seen as good and of value.

As I grew older, I thought this was cynical business motivation; do not piss off any advertizers, in other words. (and could be true to great extent)
Until recently I put it down to religious differences; Japanese can and do worship many Gods in a superficial manner (pagan idolatry?), as compared to religions like Christianity and Islam that is more absolute in the sense that they demand to be the only religion subscribed to. (I was young)
More recently, I think the Japanese are just kind of more correct about audio in the Romy sense (his comments just above). Sometimes they are lucky I guess :-)

A little digression - this search for "my own sound" means that Japanese audio critics love expensive high-end equalizers (from Accuphase etc).
I play with an FM Acoustics linearizer myself from time to time (is like a Cello Audio Pallette, I believe). My initial hope was that it would replicate some nice characteristics of FM sound. Infidels, surely!?

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