Sean, i have been gone a few days and have missed many posts. I enjoyed your 4/11 post. I have always thought you to give an honest opinion as you see it. I believe as you that we have more in common because of our love of music. I think your people skills are just fine. I could take a few lessons from you. You are correct that we both share the same passions. How come you didn't invite for a drink?
Asa, I have really enjoyed you posts. Some go a bit over my head at times but i guess that is to be expected. You and Rcrump have added much to this thread. Thanks to both of you.
Albertporter, you made me hurt something from laughing so hard. Agree or disagree I have enjoyed this thread and all who contributed very much. But Sean did hurt my feelings not inviting me for a drink. |
Unsound: Welcome to the "club". Glad to see that i'm not the only "knucklhead". At least you don't make it as obvious or as often as i do : ) Sean
> |
Unsound: silence is not an "it"
Sean: my head hurts this morning too...On "will depend on perspective". 6ch, while saying that there are many answers says there is One; yes, there are infinite ways to the top of the mountain, but same view for everyone when you get there/ realize you are there.
Suburu: thanks for the laugh!
Nealhood: hello, I don't think I've seen you before. So, its the "indirect" part of any connectivity that really gets to you? And so, we need - well, a few "others" need this, of course, not yourself - need an editor, as in, someone to control the others, limit their dialogue?
Yes, yes, when we don't like what is said, we want someone, usually a patriarchical daddy to stop what we hear, make the others conform to "direct" connectivity, to only what we want to hear.
Hmmm.
There are plenty of threads to go around without calls for content censorship. I think your last sentence is most operative towards that sentiment.
Shubert: You are about six months behind. If I can find the info, I will let you know. BTW, its not a small thing in academic circles, quite significant. Actually, I even think NOVA did a special on it last week on PBS. I'll look around when I get the time (busy today) |
Sean, thanks. Sometimes I can be such knucklehead. |
Well, after all that, how do y'all think this combo would sound: Cary Audio SLP-74 mated to a Musical Fidelity A3cr power amp? I'm thinking about trying this. My speakers are Soliloquy 5.3s. |
There seem to be a few individuals on this forum that just go way off on tangents and then hammer their keyboards defending their viewpoint. While there is some indirect connectivity to these posts and, the writings are for the most part beautifully composed and written, they just veer much too far from the immediate topics and questions at hand. This is a result of not have an editor to keep the dialog on track and to the point. These guys need to make a concerted effort to concentrate and focus their talents at reviewing equipment or issues at hand and not expounding philosophical viewpoints. Of course the subject line of this thread probably did not help in starting things off. |
I read this thread backwards. Oh my.... |
sean, you just can't get enough of thi can you?:] i follow your posts with great interest, your writing is superior to much of the drivel i read in stereophile and tas and more important you do not seem to take yourself to seriously as do many on this thread. keep on keeping on. by the by, have you noticed tha not many posters mention the music they listen to in order to give us an idea hove how they arrived at their opinions on all things audio. i think the equipment is just a means to the end unless your a techie who listens to gear. |
Unsound: I think that 6chac was trying to say that there really are no answers, only more questions to be asked. How one asks or responds to those questions will depend on their perspective : ) Sean
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6chac, once again I am at a loss, when it comes to your questions. Do you always answer questions with questions? Happy holiday to you too. |
Hello Sean, :-)
You seem to know much about about mathematics, calculations, measurements. Here the questions for you.
How wide is your room from wall to wall?
Is it the result (measurement) from wall to wall, or is it the "space" between them (walls)?
I got "F" in calculus, by the way. :-)
Fill a bottle with water; do you say volume of the bottle? Or volume of the water?
Unsound, If you are not speeding (drive); why worrying about getting a speeding ...? ;-)
Unsound, if I die today, my family probably cry for a couple day; I will be remembered for a couple years. 100 years later, who really cares of who or what am I? But we all remember the "Easter" holiday, aren't we?
Happy Easter |
Asa: sorry I have been participating lately but I have been out of town. As far as the realm of the universe, it is only in spiral galaxies that they cannot account for the missing mass, however in very recent research, they can account for all the mass in elliptical galaxies, they do not need an ad hoc solution like dark matter. So I am almost skeptical about dark matter. Dark energy though is a different idea. Recent research does suggest that the galaxies are receding from each other at a faster rate. And the data comes from very reliable Supernova 1a measurements.
Nothing is ever set in stone in cosmology, astrophysics, or astronomy, but it is very enlightening none the least.
One question: are you a strong or weak anthropic principle
advocate? Or is that another can of worms? :^) |
YOW !!! I'm sticking to reading "The Far Side" or "Dilbert" and laughing. All of this other stuff makes my head hurt too much.... Sean
> |
Eyes see, mind clicks; Ears hear mind clicks; Tongue tastes mind clicks; skin senes mind clicks; nose smell, mind clicks; receptions (ideas) mind clicks. (6 senses)
eyes see?, or mind sees?
Eyes see? one is a dumb.
Mind sees? blackness. (Like closing your eyes, blind).
But the idea is; it is not inside, not outside, not everywhere, not anywhere...(fill in the blank)
Interesting, heh? :-)
Bye |
Asa, I ask this only philosophicaly. Why not just kill yourself now? Is it the death or the dying you seek? Are you seeking or escaping? If life is only vanity, why bother? I see this life as an ever moving journey and science as my vehicle. My being in the being. The silence, if its truly exists, may be inevitable. Its more likely to find me than the other way around. 6chac, I must be the "barnyard animal" because your metaphors continue to escape me, I suppose you attribute that to the din of me mascicating my materialism. |
No perciever, no percieved, only perciev-ing.
Just like when you are deeply listening to music, or anything beautiful. We already know "it".
Yes, personal proximity would be nice...
Have a nice wkend everyone. (rising, jubilant, near delirious cheers from the gallery!! :0) |
Unsound, don't answer! I was just joking with ya. I don't think anyone can answer that, so do I. I just happened to steal them from an old book of mine. Yes, there is answer to that. But I like to be keep in a more personal level. Beside, Me no "Barn yard animal" bro! :-).
Have a nice weekend, everyone. |
Unsound, wonderful question.
This is difficult because the "answer" is paradoxical to the thinking mind; dualism can not encompass it. So, the best I can do is try to point.
Yes, it is a journey. But when you end you are at the beginning, yet you also see that there is no end or beginning. Confusing, eh?!
Well, you can use your mind to find out about things and all kinds of things about things, and this is good because you are then kept warm in a house-box and can eat without worrying about a cougar over your shoulder and can listen to stereo-boxes. Not bad. But if you want to know your true nature - which also turns out to be at the end the nature of everything that you've been examining - then you have to turn towards your interior - and only you can do it.
Interestingly, this turn is precipitated when thinking itself finally comes to the end of its powers and turns upon itself, deconstructing itself by seeing the limitations of thought. Perhaps, at that point, you can't see beyond that power of thought, but you know that further meaning must be found somewhere and you only have beyond it to go.
However, some people at this point don't take a step into the dark beyond just thought-based knowledge, as St. John of the Cross put it, and instead do one of two things, both of which are recoils from where you might go: the first is to turn back and hold unto the thinking mind regardless, telling yourself that the thoughts you have gotten from others are the only truth (the attachment to scientific truth is actually, deeper, a recoil from moving beyond it). The second is to see the way ahead without thought-power as only a dark expanse, of Nothingness. This is what nihilism is; a look beyond thought and an assumption of groundless-ness. In this second way, paradoxically, although the mind does not go back to just thought based knowledge, it still defines what might be beyond thought in terms of its absense; the mind still defines what might be in terms of thought as a reference.
And, of course, this is where we are, as a species: oscillating between an attachment to thinking (and scientific thinking because it is the most powerful we have evolved over matter) and an attachment to groundless-ness. Yet, interestingly, both are two sides of the same coin: they are both recoils from what may be beyond thought.
So, if you continue to turn your mind's eye to see the interior of what you are - simply conducting the next experiement in our long evolution - what do you find?
You can not see below thinking by using thinking, so that becomes problematic, and you soon learn that you "see" more, both within and without, from this place of silence, which is your being and true nature. Even more ineterstingly, you find that the view inwards is also a concurrent one outwards. In other words, awareness expands like the rings of a tree both inwards and outwards at once. In fact, you see that inward/outward is one movement; you begin to "see" the silence as the ground of both your self and all the environment. This movement produces progressive empathic identification with the other, who is seen as less and less as the other.
This expansion in awareness can produce a quickening in thought agility, but since thought is no longer the axis point upon which the self turns, it does not become a pole for identification.
As your awareness expands, it does so based upon "burning off" karma, or past acts and thoughts and their prey/predator essences, through your watching the thinking mind and not going into those thoughts pull of reactivity (meditation or watching while waking). The burning off of instinctual reactivity is concurrent with seeing deeper outside.
When the ring of awareness expands to a certain point you begin to see both the meaning in thought and the meaning beyond thought at the same time; they are not exclusive perceptions, but integrated; power of thought, in letting go of its instinctual remnants attached towards power (predator past) or fear of power (prey past), transcends itself and becomes integrated with a "seeing" that occurs prior to thought. It is this "seeing" which becomes the predominant mode of perception, but never exclusionary of the use of thought.
You see the beginning of silence is in you, as you, and all things, now. Beginning is end; end is beginning.
Silence = silence = silence = silence
That is enough, here.
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6chac, I don't understand. What is it thats looking? |
Unsound,
- Where there is no beginning, there is no end.
- Within you (part of you), how come it doesn't see your lungs, stomachs, etc...
- Without (outside of you not part of you); how come it doesn't see your face.
So where is it now? |
6chac, backward, forward, cyclic, its all a matter of perspective. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. With in us and with out us. Where does begin? Where does it end? Can we truly seperate? Or is seperation just a convient concept? BTW, whats up with all the computer graffiti? Asa, I actually agree with your point of our differing points of view. Furthermore, I agree with your critisim of my point of view. But I see my point of view as a journey not as an end. Perhaps I'm wrong, but your point of view seems to aim for an end. Is an end a possbility or is it just the extension of the journey? |
Well said, Asa
To add to that of Asa's;
When one don't need; a particle of dust is not to have ((no)thing).
When one need to use; the whole world is available.
Walk in the house, walk out the house; freely I say. :-) |
Mghcan, very perceptive. Do you think the spinning is intentionally wrought? When the mind spins so fast and oscillates as its assumptions are deconstructed, at the point where it stops, when it must stop, then, at that point of silence, where are "you"?
The space where the mind stops = silence
The space-of-mind where deep music is listened to = silence
The place before the Big Bang = silence
Below thoughts, the sound of your truer nature, the sound of being = silence
Silence = silence = silence = silence
0 + -0 = +/- 0 = 0
Where are you?
An old Zen saying, "The game is not to become someone, but to become no one". Yes, Unsound, all arises from the silence of "(no)thing" |
Unsound, this is the basic disagreement between us - which doesn't, in fact, effect how I respect you, because I don't experience you as just a quantitative sum of your thoughts.
The difference is one, as I said, of materialism. You believe that the mind can be completely explained by scientific means of examining the matter of the brain and the interactions between the various matter centers of the brain. I agree that brain physiology, MacLean's Triune Theory, Right/Left hemispheric studies, and even how networking happens in the brain in terms of matter change, etc. are all important and can tell us many things. The difference is that I do not think that consciousness is limited to the intra-actions of matter and is, in fact, primary to matter. I can not prove to you how I know this, because reality has it rigged that you have to perform that interior examination upon yourself, but I can show you the incongruencies in the exclusive position of science - which should, even from a scientific position, lead you to investigate what may be beyond science/matter.
The default to not doing this is, of course, the position that science doesn't know everything yet but it will eventually - which is a position that is hardly rigorous in a systematic scientific way, but more indicative of...faith. And in this sense, while noting the partiality of the scientific orientation to reality, I have tried to show that science itself is merely the next exclusionary ideology to be transcended as a mode of apprehension. Since every previous ideological perception through evolution has been transcended, I would say that the product of that evolutionary experiment is fairly clear by now. That science ascends itself as the end point of knowledge - even to the point of asserting that it will find what mind "is" even though it doesn't know now, or can't show why they will other than the assumption that adding more blocks together will show the way - is inconsistent with what all evolution has already shown us. Science asserts exclusivity of knowledge and denies its partiality. That is irrationality by definition, even by science's definition...
Consider this: Last week it was announced by the astro-physicists that they have finally identified the "missing mass" in the universe, even though they don't know what it is, as in its nature. They have been arguing for about twenty years whether the universe will keep expanding forever (not enough mass to produce enough gravity to then pull it back upon itself down the road) or eventually collapse into, assumably, a singularity once more (the so-caled Big Crunch, opposed to the Big Bang). So, they have these wild measurements that seem to indicate that there is much more mass in the universe than they can see or even add up (even with all the conjectured neutrinos added in), so they've been looking for "dark matter" which is dark because they can't see it. So, they now say that they've found not only the dark matter but also another type of trans-matter force that, while not matter it seems, seems to be the propulsion to the outwrds expansion, and which for nor seems to bolster Einstein's speculation of a cosmological constant (an assumption he came up with to make his theories work correctly, but one he could never quite accept, calling it his "worst blunder"). They are calling this force "vacuum energy". They have no idea what it is but know that it was first to come out of the Big Bang and assumably caused the significant inflation of the universe at about 10 (-39) seconds after emergence of the "force".
Hmmm, energy that is not energy that underlies all matter, and that constitutes the emergence of dimension...
Is dimension-force a thing, or does it simply have to be so, so one can then keep believing in the assumption that all will become clear from an examination of matter?
Hmmm... |
"...That the mind is (at least in part) the product of enviornmental stimulous that produces an electro/chemical energy response within the matter that is the brain, "A state of matter"."
Unsound, are you walking backward, bro? :-0)
You drive the car; the car is a product of brain/mind/your/our/we/science/technologies... Sound familiar Shubert? |
Dammit you guys, I think my head's going to explode. And I was looking forward to a relaxing long weekend (Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays for many up here in the Great White North), but now this stuff is going to be running around my mind as I try to understand... ;-)
Exceedingly intersting discussion BTW. |
Asa, your perception was right on. I was fatigued and tired during my last post. As to how smart I am, thank you, but, I do realize that I am uneducated and ignorant. Science by the very need of its continuing existance is ignorant. That does not trap science into seperating/ignoring the mind from matter. That the mind is (at least in part) the product of enviornmental stimulous that produces an electro/chemical energy response within the matter that is the brain, "A state of matter". As such even an erroeneous concept is a state of matter, and a thing. I suspect what/how the mind is/works will probably be better understood in the next 50 years or so. For better or worse after that, the enviornmental stimulous up to and including cultural bias upon a genetic predispostion will be better understood and on some level may even be predicted. Art may be subject to a new paradigm. |
Unsound, I forgot to respond to you. Everyone is dualist, because we all think. But then if you believe that you are only your thinking, then you are dualistically attached. In this sense, you only believe that comparative rationality - the cognitive tool science uses to implement empiric method BTW - is a way to the truth. You think: I think, therefore I am; rather than, I sometimes think an sometimes I don't, because I am. A person who believes this, in operation, inverts being and cognition. And if someone is really attached to the power of their thinking mind, then they even go so far as to say that thinking about matter is the only way to truth, and that the mind doesn't exist except as matter, ie a computer of matter, and that it is meaningless to discuss mind, thereby, in doing that, effectively preventing themselves from ever examining their own attachment to dualistic thinking, and attachment to the power of that thinking, and the attachment to that will towards power...
Sound like anyone we've heard from lately.
Actually, I don't know Unsound how dualistically attached you are on a continuum of attachment. You are smart and I like mixing it up with you, as a foil, so to speak. Sometimes I'm speaking directly at you, but many times I am not (hence, pulling TOK out of his closet with the bear trap, which, by your answer, you saw, even though you didn't enjoy it perhaps...). I try to make this instances clear, but I will try to be clearer in the future. Actually, I enjoy your mind very much, dualism or not. That's the thing you should know. |
Oh TOK, just when I had hope for you...
So, you say thinking (thinking, because you can't have language without it!) about the mind is a dead-end because language is too imprecise to encompass (even while you yourself use it...), and so, therefore, it has no meaning, and thus, somehow, we are only left with scientific thinking about the mind to show us the way. This is scientific materialism.
So, after misunderstanding Aristotle, Nietzche, embracing lierary deconstrucion as worn out justification for radical relativism of metaphysical language (which, er, then would also make scientific language without a ground of meaning, because, er, "science" doesn't monlithically exist "out there" as a thing, but is thought also, confirmed by peer review through, er, language...), and after ignoring the partiality of scientific methodology (scientific thought) revealed by Popper, Kuhn, Freyerabend, et al, you end up with the statement that we experience music through the "will towards meaning."
Well, then let me ask you something: if only scientific knowledge gives truth about mind (thought), and thinking about thinking is without meaning (even though, once again, you commit a performative error when you offer your own thought as truer, contradicting yourself even as the words, er, thoughts, come out of your mouth...), then how can science (which, er, as I've said is also only thinking, simply the kind you are attached to and, thereby, want to say is the only worthwhile one...) tell us anything about your "will towards meaning"? And since you only believe in science-thinking to tell us which way to go, yet science can't say anything about "meaning", then how can you?
Your answer to my question (once more, arguing "metaphysiacally" even while you say it can't be answered through such dialogue...) is to invoke another materialist assumption: namely, that the mind is only matter. That was the Bear Trap.
You, my friend, are a closet scientific materialist! Which, er, was one of my points. Your attachment to "scientific thinking" and reduction of all other thinking into meaninglessness IS an attachment to the matter that scientific thinking looks at, and which is a power over matter. If vyou are attached to scientific thinking, then, per se, you are attached to its power. It is attachment to a power over matter. Fundamentally, underneath, it is an attachment to a will towards power.
Congrats on coming out of the closet... |
Asa, language is too imprecise to really express correctly or solve the problem you pose about being and the mind's existance. There is a point at which science has to solve the problem.
Language and philosophy are not terribly good problem solvers. At least not for problems better directed at Science. The big problem is the imprecision of language. Words themselves are built upon a foundation that intertwine our life experiences which are intertwined with our cultural experience. Words themselves have diferent meanings to different people. Ultimate translation even within the same language of ideas is well... next to impossible. MEANING: For someone to hear the same sentence or read the same sentence as another person, both would take it to mean the EXACT same thing if their were perfect translation. Even with set defined terms... Terms are defined by other terms... which are defined by other terms... And eventually a full circle in term definition happens. Try defining the term 'is'. Clinton sure had fun with it, heh heh. We all think we have command of our native tongue, but most people sadly are mistaken. Many people do not really realize that for every term we think we know, our idea of that term is encompassed by that term and ITS OPPOSITE. This critical concept of know a thing and its opposite at the same time gives us the amazing ability to close our eyes and envision our reality differently. Knowing what the term 'is' means is knowing what being & not being is at the exact same time.
Aristotle seperated the physical from the metaphysical in his lectures of the Physics and the Metaphysics. He seperated the two because there is something that distinctly seperates a live person/animal from a dead person/animal. When something dies there seems to be a transition of the Metaphysical. Physics does not really enter the picture. What drove man for Aristotle was the desire to partake in the devine as much as possible.
Now progressing to more modern philosophy (Nietzsche), thought that all we could be sure of was our will to power. Thus, when it really got down to it, our metaphysical aspects for Nietzsche was a simple will to influece the world.
What does this all this Philosophy mumbo jumbo have to do with Audio?
Well, the world we live in is both subjective and objective for us at precisely the same time. Our mind through our senses translates our subjective view of the world, but at the same time it holds the idea that this is a translation of some sort of objective perspective. The rational mind knows that when you close your eyes the entire world does not disappear even though it does for us on the subjective level. Hearing music projected by an audio system is working to understand the the music sonic representation and the performance on a subjective level as well as realizeing that there is an objective perspective to what is being heard. We may never truely realize this objective perspective, but we can at least try to realize it to the best of our abilities. Why? Because we have the will to do it. For us this task seems to have meaning. We want to take part in the devine to our greatest extent, and music for us seems like part of the devine. We try to realize music through experience through our senses. Just as a scientist tries to realize the nature of the universe through experience with scientific methodology and experiments.
This gets us back to the question of the mind seemingly being and not being at the same time in existence. This is a question that cannot be answered by the crude language we posess. It is for science to come up with a likely story to explain the mind.
A personal answer to the question would be that the minds can be compared to a computer. From a physics standpoint a computer has form and exists. However, inside a computer there exists perfect ones and zeroes that the computer interprets. These ones and zeroes are part of a whole that has some sort of meaning or purpose. What happens when we unplug a computer? What happens when we die? There is a level of existance or being that seemingly transcends simple physics. Because simple physics cannot describe why humans really do anything that is not just to sustain a person's life. Is it simply will to power? Or do we want to take part in some sort of divine? When we open our minds, we find perfect ideas we never see in reality. Where did we ever come up with the idea of equality or the unit? We gave computers seemingly perfect ones and zeros and now they can beat most humans at Chess. Science one day I think is going to figure this out and answer your question Asa. Philosphers have tried and have not been too successful.
KF |
Ok, I'll carry the dualism tag you so often like to pin. If sound is not a thing then it's (no)thing. Then this entire forum is much to do about nothing. |
"See" the Artist's mind, see the artist's mind in his works, "see" being/form, see all at once...
I am fine, 6ch. Thank you for asking. Paddling along...Hope you are well too. |
Hello Asa, how are you? Hope you well. |
A P.S. for Unsound: Does a "reaction" make something per se matter itself? How can an event be energy/matter? What is gravity, another thing (and, no, gravitons are not here yet...), or a reaction between things? How can causation between things somehow, suddenly, become the forms themselves? A bear trap, beeee careful...
6ch ddamn it! you are posting so fast I didn't get my PS in there!!
Hello 6ch. :0) |
See the artist's mind through his arts. :-) |
If being in physical reality makes one a thing, even if only a wave-thing/wave-form, then what is mind, because isn't my mind in physical reality right now, as I say this, or is it?
then, if...
If mind/being is not a thing, yet existing in physical reality makes all in existence into form/things, then where is my being/mind?
Sorry, I couldn't resist...:0) |
Sound is the reaction of matter to energy, ergo sound is a state of matter. This can be taken to an organic level, where sound is the reaction of energy on the grey matter most of us carry around. With in us and with out us, sound is a thing. As to how I percieve sound/music. It all depends. If I'm startled by it, I may first react by trying to localize it, if I predetermine to let go of my guard, I may let it enter into another state of being. 6chac, a thing is not a thing untill it's recognized. Thank you for the two early birthday presents. You really shouldn't have. |
Shubertmaniac,
Those great scientists must had known something about the "no-limit"...
Have some "tea" Schubert; you want it in the "cup" or ... in "music"... |
Unsound, since you know sound is a thing, wave (form/trans-matter form) is a thing. Here's a question for you. What is not a thing?
Happy Birthday, Unsound. :-) |
Sound is a wave, not coalesced matter. That it can be quantified with scientific technology - not the mind directly as when listening to music - does not change this fact. That is what I meant by "thing". In the context in which I offered it - which should dictate any response to it - a mind can not experience sound in an objectified way DURING THE LISTENING.
So, the question then arises: can the mind objectify a wave while listening? Or, can I use my thinking to identify a sound projection as I listen to it?
Question: when you are in a church listening to a solo singer, and you "notice" the location of the sound's origins - say, with eyes closed - do you do so with your objectifying cognition (thinking), or do you "see" the sound before placing that into thought? I would argue that identification by thought is, well, an after-thought, in the sense that you first "identify" the wave-thing without thought, and only later think about what you percieved, at which point the objective attached mind of thinking thinks that it identified the sound projection, when it was actually secondary in cause.
You can think about a sound projection later, or even measure the displacement or energy of a wave front with technology, later, but you can not "objectify" a sound wave through thinking WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING/BEING RECEPTIVE.
Thinking later about beauty, while a valid pursuit (what we are doing right now...) is not the same as experiencing it, directly, yourself, your own mind, no tool intervening confusing you that you have experienced a sound-thing.
Perhaps, I should reiterate: it is not necessarily the objectifying of thinking that is "bad" per se - obviously we here do a lot of it - but that an ATTACHMENT to it while listening to music, and, thus, a progressive attachment to progressively turn the soundwave into a more identifiable object (it is the progression that is symptomatic of this attachment, not thinking itself) prevents deeper experiences of musical meaning. And this is because the actual progression is one of progressive RECEPTIVITY, not the activity of the scanning thinking mind comparatively searching for more objects to dualistically compare.
Let science continue to tell us about the material plane, and let us use that information to go into our future and help us see what it and we could be, but don't confuse the measurement of sound as an object with the experience of music that is, by its nature, prior and beyond the desire to turn music into sound, and then sound into objects. |
Unsound, since you know that sound is a thing. Here's the question for you. What's not a thing?
Happy Birthday, Unsound. :-) |
Asa, here we go again. At the risk of appearing petty, and not to risk the of continuance of important scientific research. Sound is most certainly a "thing". A quantifiable thing. That sound can have an effect on us that is yet to be accurately or reliably quantifiable is also true. |
Yes, wanting to see the sounds as things to watch. In turn, this orientation is reflective of a desire to objectify sound. However, since sound is not a thing, much less musicality (which is an event between mind and musical creation), treating it like a thing is, um, ultimately self-limiting...and, thereby, system-limiting. |
Asa, call a spade a spade, the Valhalla is set up for those audiophiles that are into watching tennis matches....This goes for the speaker wire and SE interconnects..... |
TOK, there is a continuum of this "lack" in the Nordost iterations from SPM onwards, and particularly with the IC's versus the spkr cables. Yes, it feels like "something" is being "filtered," as in removed, or ommitted. Valhalla is better with air infusion in source, but still pull towrds bias of source over void space. Also, earlier lines were more dominant upon upstream components in this existential, spatial and harmonic filtering; as line proceeds it has less tendancy to impose and pass through, but the "filtering" regarding dimension remains. I think its a great SS cable by and large, although not for more harmonically complete SS amps like the Ayre and Pass units.
I haven't heard the newest Jena's, so can't say for sure, of course, but the purist design and reports from others are very close to my impressions of the Walker-distributed Mapleshade Omega Micro Planar copper spkr wire (not IC's). I have heard some very good things about the Jena from some very good systems and ears, mostly running the Valykrie, now yours included with the Symphony. I think you would find some things to like in the Omega Micro too.
Good move from the Nordost to Jena. |
Asa, I agree with your Nordost opinion. I ran Nordost QF for around 2 years, and did not make this realization until I tried other ICs. I do not think that I could state as eloquently as what you said about Nordost. I tend to describe the QF as having the effect of filtering music/signal. This filtration does make the end signal sound perhaps a bit cleaner (MP3 is effectively a filter as well that makes CD digital sound cleaner, as well as the CD medium itself is a filter for analogue sampling the wave at 44khz or so), but there is obviously detail that is missing from the QF when compared to other ICs. I have not tried the Valhalla IC, so I have no opinion of it. After hearing the Valhalla SC, however, I can imagine that the Valhalla IC is very good. My personal favorite IC now is the Jena Labs Symphony. The Jena Labs is no nonsense ultra ultra pure copper which is cryoed with no gimmicks. It has a transparency and a naturalness of sound that I have not heard in any IC that I have tried in it's price range ($1100/3' retail). Even at full retail, I think the Jena is worth every penny.
KF |
sean, even a dummy like me understood asa's last post.:] |
Sean, yes, I use Nordost as an analogy and example often because people know it and it was one of the first IC's to create an interesting dilemna. I was a reviewer at the time so had all the Nordost I wanted (Reynolds at Nordost is a very nice guy)so I could fool around with it a bit.
Nordost is like many of the most recent SS pre's: it reduces distortive artifacts to the point that you believe - your thinking listening mind beleives - that all is finally taken care of. But, somehow, something is not right, and you usually discover this over time. It creeps up on you. You can't point to any-thing that is accurately wrong because you are looking for things, accurate sound-sources. It takes a while because what is ommitted are the existential qualities I cited above: Nordost reduces mechanical artifacts in source while rendering a void space, producing, in the mind, a propensity to focus on the source as if it is an object. Its a source/space incongruency, yet one effected by ommission. Because ommision (the thinking mind is active and has a harder time noticing what is absent) and because what is absent is percieved predominantly in the non-thinking listening mind, what is wrong doesn't come to you right away. At first, in shallower listening levels, when you first sit down, you are impressed with the "clean-ness" of reduced distortive artifacts, vanishingly low in fact. But then, living with it, you notice a "tonal imbalance", which, perhaps, is due to harmonic lean-ness itself due to a lack of space WITHIN the source itself. Then, after a longer time, you realize that its just not "musical", which as I've asserted in an objective way means an ommission of rendering an existentially correct space.
If the IC can't translate the existential qualities "from" the tube pre, you can not blame the tube pre for the apparently percieved flaw.
Its always been frustrating for me to see someone move to a good tube pre but keep the less existentially correct IC and then only hear what is left in the tube pre's rendition, which is then precieved and argued as being euphonic. The spatially inadequate IC may be fine with a SS system, and appropriate in that context, but becomes a significant impediment when the transition from SS to tube is attempted. It leads to misperception, mistakenly atrributed to the newly inserted tube pre. |
Asa: I was able to follow along with your last post 100% : ) I have to say that i agree with the points that you were making and found one point particularly interesting. That is, your comments about Nordost cabling.
The little bit of Nordost that i've tried did sound very "accurate" i.e. very detailed, fast, clean, etc..., but a large portion of the "magic" or "musicality" seemed to be knocked out of the system at the same time. Part of this might have been due to the lack of bass weight & warmth / shift in tonal balance that i experienced. The funny thing is that, according to most High End reviewers, the expensive Nordost stuff is the cream of the crop. My guess is that many of us have very different priorities & goals for our systems and this is just further evidence of that point.
Kind of funny how there are SO many variables that can be affected at one time by one component or cable change. Sean
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