As an academic who reads and sometimes writes scholarly articles on aesthetics, I can say that for a work of philosophy this one is FUN. It's easy to tell that the author is just as interested in audiophile culture as in 21st century aesthetic theory, and he clearly had a good time writing it. If you're not used to reading academic essays it might seem a bit stiff, but I have no doubt that this was a labor of love. He writes as an insider (a 'Goner?) and his references (Steve Guttenberg! Bill Evans!) will be more familiar to us on this forum than to his colleagues in philosophy. Best of all, he is asking the same questions that get asked out here all the time: what acoustics are we listening for when we do critical listening? Is the platonic ideal of sound a live performance or a brilliant recording or what we concoct with our systems for our own ears? what gives us pleasure as audiophiles? What is the role of subjectivity in our listening? And what DO we mean by transparency? Boiled down, this is Audiogon on academic steroids--and why not?? Thanks for posting it, lukemaximus!
Philosophy of Audiophile Aesthetics
For audiophiles who like reading philosophy: attached below is a 12 page article about the philosophy of audiophile aesthetics.
In short the author questions the validity of transparency as a metric and suggests instead the production and appreciation of sonic art as the metric for audiophile aesthetics.
Perhaps this appeal to reason will once and for all quell the spurious debates on audiophile forums between the relative merits of snake oil and measurements.