Axiom to remember

"The journey of a thousand albums begins with one turntable." - Confucius

"We see what is behind our eyes, not what is in front of them" Unknown

@rvpiano

It’s not how the music shows off your sound system, but how your system shows off the music.

I see a couple of problems with this "axiom".

First of all, the 2 ways of listening to one’s system are not mutually exclusive.

For the vast majority of my listening sessions, I am almost completely ignoring the gear, and I am fully engrossed with the music. In other words, I am a "music first audiophile".

But there are other times, maybe a couple of hours every few weeks or so, I can have a hell of a lot of fun just listening to the gear, playing only "audiophile approved" recordings, making small changes to my speaker placement or room treatment just to evaluate the sonic differences without being that involved with the music.

Or have a friend over, just to get deeply into evaluating the gear with the best recordings.

Second, if someone loves listening to their gear just because of how real it sounds, and they don’t even get into the music itself that much (a very tiny percentage of audiophiles I suspect), why should anyone begrudge them their way of enjoying their audio system?

@simonmoon 

I agree there are two ways to listen to an audio system.  And if you’re able to differentiate between the two (as you are,) it’s the best of both worlds.  However, I disagree with you on the percentages.  I think that a great  many audiophiles can’t make that differentiation and are in a constant state of unrest due to the conflation of the two.

Man, talk about complicating a simple (axiom, maxim, quote, whatever).

To me it meant simply; Listen to the music, not the gear.