General Asylum

General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

Re: It's time to open our eyes and close our wallets!

Posted by Todd A. on October 3, 2003 at 13:07:16:
Perhaps the answer lies in making the distinction between recreating a live performance in your living room, and simply creating an illusion that you, as an audio hobbyist, find adequate to allow you to forget the equipment and become absorbed in the performance. When you refer to live performances, you must be referring to live acoustic, because I've heard plenty of live jazz bands that used "pro-audio" equipment, (Peavey, Bose, etc.), that sounded far worse in many ways than my home system. When I heard George Winston live, I heard an incredibly irritating thumping that I thought must be a very poorly set up sound reinforcement system, but it turned out he was banging his heel on the stage as he played, and the sound was resonating through the auditorium. On the other hand, I was privileged the other day to hear a young virtuoso (19) play the Canon in D Minor on a piano carelessly pushed to the side of a large auditorium. There was no stage, and it ranks as one of the best musical experiences I ever had.
In any event, it seems that the pursuit of audio nirvana is little different than the quest for contentment in any other area of life. You can choose to place your focus on what you have not, and what your system doesn't do, or you can marvel at the illusion it's capable of creating. "Like you say, get a glass of wine and chill out and look at your system for what it is." Good advice, but I'd change "look at" to "enjoy". Many of us remember listening to music via transistor radios and enjoying it. Compared to that, even a very modest system by today's standards is a marvel, and as John pointed out, Mozart isn't likely to drop in for a jam session.
Be well,
Todd