I have a couple of friends who have had very successful careers as Classical musicians, who could well afford high end gear, and who are perfectly happy with dreck. They tell me that their brains probably fill in the missing stuff. So no, @waytoomuchstuff , it isn’t you.
How Has Your Finely Tuned Audiophile Dexterity Helped You in Your "Other" Life?
Listening. Observing. Trying. Failing. Perceiving the nuances. And, sledge hammer impacts. Developing a new vocubulary. (As well as using very familiar terms when things don’t go as expected), Sorting through tons of data. Skillfully differentiating between the things that matter, and things that don’t. To us, anyway.
So, how have these skills (and, being a generally good person) helped you in life? Or, others?
Here’s one to start:
Wine Pouring:
My wife and I like to drink wine. Landing a enjoyable wine in the single digits (after all discounts applied) is a big win for us. Our evening of wine allocation and enjoyment generally takes on the following cadence: Pour One. Pour two (making sure to save just a little in the bottle). Then, the highly anticipated "desperation pour". The last 2 sips for each poured from the bottle. This way we take a pause, and take the time to fully appreciate those last two sips. Silly, but it’s what we do.
Frankly, I’ve gotten pretty good at this wine allocation thing. Equal pours, every time. For a while there, I thought I was just "lucky" and timed it just right. But, recently, I’ve concluded it’s something more. My "finely tuned audiophile" dexterity.
As we have all observed, when you fill a vessel with liquid, the frequency of the sound changes as the space in the vessel becomes occupied with more liquid. I was unaware that I was paying attention to those frequencies and my brain remembered the frequency at the conclusion of the last pour. So, when filling the second glass, I just listened and stopped when the frequency of the last pour was matched. Seems to work for me (within a tolerance of a few Hz/Mls). This doens’t help when you’re camping in near darkness and miss the glass completely, but has worked for us in a workable domestic sense for quite some time. Now I thank Sal Marantz, Frank McIntosh, and others after those (nearly) perfect pours.
Showing 3 responses by mahler123
It sounds like we have the same experiences, @tomcarr . It’s nice to have a site such as this to virtually meet fellow enthusiasts.
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Regrettably it hasn’t helped me at all. Sometimes I try to communicate my love of well reproduced music and I can measure the amount of time for the listeners eyes to glaze over with a stopwatch. Occasionally someone will listen tome and then start enthusing about the soundbar they purchased from Best Buy, which they probably haven’t listened to in years, and it is an effort for me not to pull the audio snob face and really be a major bore. I’ve learned not to discuss it at all. |