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There is an editorial in the July issue of Stereophile I thought worthy of discussion. It's titled, Life, Love, and the Big Ahh and it's by Jason Victor Serinus. The topic as I make it out, is that all the tweaking and little hardware tweakery are all in search of:
"The Big Ahh-the place where the distinct communicative eloquence of music lifts us out of our private dramas and connects us with something far bigger than ourselves. These musical epiphanies reveal truths far more exalted and profound than those most of us experience while commuting to work or doing the dishes. They are moments of ecstacy, bursts of unexpected joy that transcend the temporal.
"This for me is what being an audiophile is about. The more I feel connected with beauty and oneness, the more I am transported when listening to music in the relative comfort of my living room, the more grateful I am for all those wires and tubes and boxes that sit immobile before me and the reviewers whose insights have helped guide my choices."
These are the last two paragraphs of a full page editorial, and many aspects are covered. But I felt the last two summed it all up as they get to the issue of how he feels listening to live performances and why he has spwent the time and money to try and create that same feeling in his home.
Now, speaking as a music lover, and long time hi-fi addict, this seems to me to be a lttle over-the-top. I have to admit I'm something of a hardware freak, but I do like my music, and most of the time I do play my system strictly for enjoyment. Like the Audiophiles that Serinus defends, I've spent a great deal of time on my hobby (ask my wife), but not a huge amount of money. However, I can't ever recall the ecstacy that he describes listening to music, live or recorded.
The editorial seems to me to be a defence of the cost, the obsessiveness, and the hyperbole that I think of when I hear "audiophile". And yes, it also includes the apparent gullibility and suspension of critical thinking when presented with the new, the better, the wonderful. And I also see the mindless equating of higher cost with higher quality and belief that newer is better; and the unscrupulous taking of advantage of those beliefs to make unreasonable profit and to keep the same customer coming back again and again for "upgrades".
I don't have the attribution, I wish I did, but someone once said: "Since recreating a live performance in the home is impossible, the best we can hope to do is create the aesthetic equivalent". "Audiophile or hobbyist, that's the reality; and I don't think it takes tens of thousands of dollars to achieve that.
Perhaps, I'm too much the engineer or the physicist, too analytical, too dispassionate to feel what he describes; but perhaps, what he says is just rhetoric designed to further the cause against the detractors.
What say you?
Jerry
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