Judesonics: lucid reply, compelling. It makes me want to hear these amps. Thank you.
Zaikes: what I say to you is not "philosophy".
also, an "anarchist" is defined by what he is against, not what he is going towards. |
Zaikes, I loved the "(this month)"!!
All reviewers look for that component that they can splash on everyone. Mostly, this springs from a genuine desire to share your enthusiasm. Knowing Harry, limited as I do, I would honestly expect, in this particular instance, that this is the case. The manufacturer is certainly not ARC-level and the price is not stratospheric, so there seems to be no ulterior motive that is readily apparent. In fact, just the opposite.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Harry cheerleader (at least not anymore....), but I do respect him (even though he doesn't think so...) and you have give him his due and concede that he is stepping out on a limb here. Is that dangling modifier on the cap issue at the end of the article a case of the all too familiar built-in deniability? (hey, what happened to those Wisdom speakers anyway...?) Is the amp just a foil for him to talk about his next idea on "continuous-ness" and he got carried away on that account? Who knows, but I do know that Harry did tell us about the ARC SP-9 Mk I way back when - and I know that certainly didn't help advert dollars!
Harry likes big sound (KT 88's)and has heard alot of gear. When you hear a lot of gear sometimes a little something in a component that gets something right that you have, just at that point in your listening evolution, been looking for, makes you jump for joy. If he has jumped too high too soon, time will tell.
I'm not a high-watt-KT88-kinda-guy, but I would be very interested what others who get this amp have to say. |
Zaikes, loved your response!! Thank you, especially "...surprise, intoxication, confusion, ennui." Very funny and good writing BTW. I think you said it all there, not just accurately, but with..."communion", if you know what I mean. :0)
Yes, I knew you meant wistfully, not so volitionally. What followed were my views. I should have been clearer to avoid the implication. Oh, and you are hardly a novice, although I appreciate the gesture of feigned humility, really. You wouldn't "feel" this if that was so. As I said somewhere, can't remember where, this all becomes less of an accumulation of accuracy after awhile, and more of a...quest, for lack of a better word (mystic-haters can go back into the closet now, although, if it makes them feel better, they can yell "Stone the Witch!! a few times before they go back in). When that happens, when your means of percieving what is happening becomes more than a sum of its collected parts, becoming integrative of the parts, then you start "feeling" these things. It happens in every area of knowledge, but it is difficult to explain to those still caught in the accumulated web of ideas, in this case coming from a King, or, er, Audio Guru. Its like you can sense some underlying current to what's going on, right, like about these amps? We all know the end-point truth is in the pudding, but reading the mags, at some level, becomes more of an art of seeing between the words, through them. It still has value, relatively speaking, but you are more on your own (as you always were...). We all want someone to tell us what is what or who to be - we want the King as father - but sometimes, to go farther on the quest, as opposed to rotely following each word in conformism, you have to look ahead yourself.
On these amps? I know what Zaikes is saying, and he has said it compellingly, but the "convergence thing" is happening with TAS and he is getting older. If he finds a nice amp for a nice price in a world of greed, and he now favors to an even greater degree full bass structure as a bias, that's OK with me. As for whether just another KT88-based amp has suddenly hit the levels of "continuousness" that Harry has been looking for, is another matter [I mean, if he didn't appreciate it in SE's - saying that he considered their popularity attributable to a harmonic band-aid to the digitally bound (an accurate statement in some places, but certainly not exclusive), then how could he suddenly see it now in some KT88's, and not even NOS Lions at that?].
I think ASL makes some nice stuff and I appreciate their effort to bring their nearly-kit-like amps (remember, SF started out with kits, and McCormack was a mod guy at first)to a higher level, allowing those who have harder to drive speakers, or need more power to assure a more wall-of-sound foundation for more energized works (rock and classical), yet can not afford the behemoth, exorbitantly priced tube amps to power them, to go to the next level. In that context, and considering all the other really bad bull that is passed on in mags, its a "good" thing.
On the other hand, when those KT88's start going in two years or so, and guys don't want to retube the set, and the cache of Harry's most recent incarnation has faded from memory once more, and the amps start hitting the market, I hope that the people who chose to take a chance - and it may very well be a good chance if they know what is - then I hope they are still happy with the music, regardless of who said what, or even what I say right now... |
A "nihil-ist" is a label in reference to the emotive reaction to what is being reacted against, in this case, reaction of alienation to perception that reality has no ground, ie if reality has no ground, then all is without meaning. In this case, the "I" becomes its own God because, without ground, it is its only ground.
An anarchist is someone focused on societal structures, in this case an assumption that an absense of strucuture is "good", itself based upon an assumption that all hierachies, pathological or not, are "bad" and inherently coersive. In this sense, the "I" of the anarchist is defined by the authority he is against, rather than being predominantly orientated towards formulating a solution beyond structure. But this is not what the anarchist does - look for solutions - because his recoil is directed towards authority rather than its transcending; he defines himself by what he against, and that action of thge mind prevents him, in its operation, from looking to what we all could be. Do you know any anarchists who pose evolutionary solutions that lead towards the world of other-to-other that they say they want to go towards, or is it just bitching? It is not utopian if a movement towards a utopia is not made.
On reaction, I think you are responding to what I said on the other thread where we are talking. Please refer there. |
Zaikes, a pattern: every time you and I get to the point of discussing the nature of the silence of the mind as ground to perception, even in the context of musical perception (the concept that not all knowledge is your thinking, which, in turn, constitutes your "I"), as on the other thread, or begin addressing a solution past bitching, as here, you recoil and quit, and each time you leave in a way that seeks to characterize the discussion at that point - and, hence, the ideas approached - in a negative light, ie bitching.
You assert that you are, effectively, an anarchist, then concede that all anarchy may be bitching, but then, rather than look beyond that bitching, instead characterize the conversation that might lead you there as itself bitching - which is, of course, a convenient way of never discussing anything on ground itself, which itself is a logically strained means of trying to stay with the assumptions that you maintain, your "core values". Turning away from a discussion of ground, which, in your mind, operates as a denial of ground (remember, nihilism?) - tell me, how can that ever be "utopian"?
I know, I know, everything you said before was relevant to the thread, but now, I'm just getting toooo abstract and off the topic, and you are too busy being the one who listens to the music to really bother and you just now have to get back to that, and for the sake of everyone else listening...my, my. |
Zaikes,
OK. Thank you for you well thought out response.
Yes, I know that I pushed you pretty hard this week. But I've always thought you could take it, know that you can, and we both know cognitive agility is not the issue.
As you know, Zaikes, there are always minds that you can find in ally, like 914Nut, who will say all kind of things to keep from taking just that extra step, the one that looks at the source of the music, or Music. Their "I" will cite irelevancy, impatience, disrespect to others reading, obfuscation (non-sequitor), lawyer reference, moi reference, magnanimous posture, retreat but not retreat, misunderstanding, ideas not worth effort, why care, you ruin life-fun and its only fun (is that really true?), and on and on, all negative energy directed back as you leave.
All that I asked you - Socratically moving you to where you could find none of the above excuses not to answer - was what is the nature of the silence in the mind where we hear deep musical meaning from?
What could be more relevant?
I know you are not quitting, you have a ferocious heart, but I will tell you as you go (back to where?) that I never considered you a "losing proposition". That's why I stay with you so long. It was always "communion"...
Take care,
Mark |
I looked back through HP's Hurricane review last night - admittedly I only skimmed it last week - and I am beginning to see what you all are saying as to the unbridled conviction. Stronger than I thought in toto, and particularly up front in the text. Did anyone notice that the review started out, almost starting out too much, with the "philosophy" angle, as if it was what was being talked about and not the amp?
A theory too much in search of an empiric result?
I told HP about these ideas ten years ago concerning envelopes of dimensional space carrying varying energies, and, hence, experienced by the listener differently in a dynamic sense (and, in conjunction with discontinuousness - lack of "symmetry" as I put it at the time, in print for galley, but strangely not published...), so I know what he is try-ing to get at ten years later. I just wonder whether the observation has more to do with the mind's try-ing rather than what that mind is able to perceive...
So, boys, is that "entertaining" enough? |
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Zaikes, you don't know how accurate you are, and, even worse than that...The ability to structure a paragraph has little to do with it...
On Scull, didn't know the guy - he blew out of TAS (an action familiar to many people) - and heard the history there rewritten, assumably, about him, but I always liked his reviews (except for the Griffin episode)because he seemed to still love the Music.
You have to understand, at Scull's "level", or JV's, the incentive to reduce it all to a Machiavellian game is very high. At the several magazines I worked for, I have had ideas, er, "lifted" from me (and its still happening...), had BIG reviewers from other magazines slander me with accusations of criminal behavior in an attempt to prevent me from reviewing gear they wanted to review and that I had (and whose attorneys told them to issue me a written apology - I don't put up with that crap from there either), seen gear not get reviewed because someone didn't kiss the ring enough, seen gear maligned tangentially (oh, its always tangentially, to let the "offending" manufacturer the opportunity to redress his political error later)if not enough accomodation was forthcoming, etc etc. and on and on. In this queen cat fight, therefore, I always am willing to overlook someone who has to mention he lives in a New York loft and is married to a french woman because, assumably, he can't get over that he didn't get picked for the dodge ball team in sixth grade, if, if, he still lets, on occasion, the love of Music shine through the accumulated skein.
I thought Scull did a fair job on the AudioPrism Mana amps (now the Rosebud ref amps.... for, somehow, $10K more...)and I thought he got Cary down pretty good. And I also appreciated him continuing to stick his neck out on M'Pingo disc type stuff when the "convergence" at Stereophile started, and then quickened.
Morpheus in The Matrix: "Welcome to the Real World..."
So, do you take the blue pill or the red pill? |
