This is very interesting subject and my position about it very much not orthodox. Yes from certain perspective high end are there might be observed in context of evolved music listening experiences. In my view it is very surface point of view. I have plenty of people with whom we interact about very deep music listening experiences but over the years I never even ask them what playback they have, I do not even know if they practice audio in any sense. What is particular interesting that when I stress some specific points which might be observed only from a perspective of high-end audio they are completely with me or at least understand what I'm talking about. 

I am not elso in a complete agreement with that position above that it has something to do with love of technology. It of course might be, but not necessaraly necessary. 

I certainly not to pretend that my position would be some kind of universal and this is strongly my take on subject. I would point out to you my signature from the Friedrich. Before typewriter invention he was writing his work by the hands but when typewriter come to the existence he begin to type. In few years he observed by act of typing in the structured format, which typewriter demands, change the way how he began to think. There is his quote come from. I think it is very similar, at least to me, in regards of audio and music. I have an interest in certain musical expressionism and for me audio  is an invention of that proverbial typewriter, in order my thoughts be developed in a format that I approve. It is sort of a reverse engineering of my own consciousness and rendered by the means of application of audio algorithms.

I am at the point where I have gotten so much Music from The Loudspeakers that I am wondering how much one can possibly get from “just stereo”, generically speaking. Naturally, I keep DPoLS in mind as I move my speakers (and myself) around, and lately I can hear significant differences with very small movements, both the speakers and myself as the listener. Yesterday I got a big increase in the sound field, along with a little less “sense of clarity” of the Musical notes. I have observed (and mentioned) in the past that I have experienced different iterations of the sense of clarity, including times when “clearer” did not mean more intelligible. Most recently I was focused on Wand/BPO, Bruckner 4 more than the system, so hard to say much about “the nature of the clarity” then, other than what I have previously observed. Can’t say why I have put off making it easier to slide The Loudspeakers around , although recent procrastination on that front was to first decide if and how much I want to tilt the speakers. I think I will just go ahead with basic sliders and do that so it’s as easy as possible to raise and lower the front of the speaker cabinets. Of course, “easy” is a relative term here, since each speaker weighs about 235 lbs. Back to just stereo (with DPoLS), I am very curious to find what happens if/when I “get the most from stereo”, how much will be Music, how much will be sound effects, and how much these overlap and interact.

Paul S

Paul S wrote:

I am at the point where I have gotten so much Music from The Loudspeakers that I am wondering how much one can possibly get from “just stereo”, generically speaking. Naturally, I keep DPoLS in mind as I move my speakers (and myself) around, and lately I can hear significant differences with very small movements, both the speakers and myself as the listener. Yesterday I got a big increase in the sound field, along with a little less “sense of clarity” of the Musical notes. I have observed (and mentioned) in the past that I have experienced different iterations of the sense of clarity, including times when “clearer” did not mean more intelligible. Most recently I was focused on Wand/BPO, Bruckner 4 more than the system, so hard to say much about “the nature of the clarity” then, other than what I have previously observed. Can’t say why I have put off making it easier to slide The Loudspeakers around , although recent procrastination on that front was to first decide if and how much I want to tilt the speakers. I think I will just go ahead with basic sliders and do that so it’s as easy as possible to raise and lower the front of the speaker cabinets. Of course, “easy” is a relative term here, since each speaker weighs about 235 lbs. Back to just stereo (with DPoLS), I am very curious to find what happens if/when I “get the most from stereo”, how much will be Music, how much will be sound effects, and how much these overlap and interact. Paul S

For quite a while I have been spinning the idea of “ambience”, broadly speaking, as it relates to hi-fi. One closely related idea I am stuck on is “how much of what sort of ambience is correct” for given music that is “played back”? It has seemed to me that if there is ambience encoded in a CD or LP, then it is what it is, in terms of frequencies and how loud these cues are relative to the other relevant information “encoded in the disc” that is played back by one’s system during a given encoded musical performance. However, as many have discovered, different systems produce different sounds when playing the same source material, and differences certainly include ambience. One thing brought home to me recently is that LF ambience might not be all that loud compared to other aural cues, and any attempts to “bring up” ambience cues can interfere with the Musical Exposition as a whole, for any of several reasons, including a system’s topological limitations. Likewise with any attempts to “elevate details”, including audiophile efforts to create or enhance transparency or “soundstage”, which efforts are generally accomplished by messing with relative frequencies SPL and/or playing with “phase” in order to create something regardless of what is or is not “encoded in the recording in question”. In my own case, the presence of LF ambience at any time means to me the “the system will do it”. From there, for myself, it becomes a matter of enabling best case recordings and living with recordings that - for whatever reason – do not have “good ambience”.>>

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Romy the Cat wrote:

It is as if I were a sculptor: when I see a granite block, I already see the delicate sculpture that my consciousness wants to reveal. The amount of material that must be removed from that granite block in order for the internal sculpture to materialize — that is what music and audio are really about. I know this is a very different concept than what most people would feel comfortable with, but I do not seek to convince anyone of anything. To understand this properly, we must do exactly what quantum mechanics has taught us to do: learn to enjoy ambiguity.

MLP04326-BWV_582.pdf" title="Bach BWV 582 Score" href="https://imslp.org/wiki/FileMLP04326-BWV_582.pdf" title="Bach BWV 582 Score">http://tempuri.org/tempuri.html

It is depends of what do you see in 582. At certain level, your or my agreement or disagreement in specific interpretation or even in Bach's interpretation itself become absolutely irrelevant. Think in terms of Bach composing it, he did not mean any specific interpretations or sonics. Ironically, As he composed it, his own interpretation stop to be relevant. if to have a proper acuity to any performance then it is not difficult to subtract interpretation out of intrinsic chromatic archetypes.

Actually, the conversation is only now becoming interesting.

Let’s accept everything you said before your final conclusions, and pretend that the entire ceremony has fully materialized — that everything you believed should happen has already happened.

What comes next?

Was that the ultimate objective,

or was it merely a means — a doorway into the discovery of something else?

Because if you follow this line of thought deeply enough down the rabbit hole, you begin to encounter a startling observation:audio might be applied superbly effectively in this journey but audio based upon

a completely different set of principles...

It would be an entirely different form of high-end audio.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I read carefully what was expressed here, and I very much disagree with it. This has nothing to do with being “right” or “wrong”; I am absolutely not thinking in those categories. What you suggest is that an audio experience adds consciousness to a person, or that experiencing art or music is an acquisitional event for the individual. My present convictions are the opposite. I recognize that a musical event — whether live or recorded — is a subtractive experience. We spend an enormous amount of effort trying to make music serve us with realizations, and suddenly we begin to feel that the effort itself becomes the means of Truth. We worship talent and breakthrough, but we fail to recognize that these are merely ingredients of the soup — and we worship the soup instead of truly appreciating the peace that consuming the soup provides. The purpose of music and audio is not to create new consciousness, but to destroy existing consciousness. The observation and destruction of the existent, the known, and the comfortable consciousness is, in my current view, the true strategic objective of musical experience. It is as if I were a sculptor: when I see a granite block, I already see the delicate sculpture that my consciousness wants to reveal. The amount of material that must be removed from that granite block in order for the internal sculpture to materialize — that is what music and audio are really about. I know this is a very different concept than what most people would feel comfortable with, but I do not seek to convince anyone of anything. To understand this properly, we must do exactly what quantum mechanics has taught us to do: learn to enjoy ambiguity. I will probably make an effort to explain how I understand audio today, but I must first consider how to present it, because it is not easily accessible. To be an irreverent and prolific asshole I will give you a very cryptic but possibly indicative key: In all my studies, I have discovered a musical work that holds encrypted keys to everything. It is BWV 582, specifically the second part — the fugue. There are many great interpretations, but I am particularly fond of Simon Preston’s performance on the gorgeously sounding organ of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Waltrop, Germany. In my view, this music encodes something that even poor cables and bad elevators cannot compromise — if the entire listening ritual is properly organized, not from the standpoint of audible quality, but from the standpoint of conscious readiness.