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Recommend me a good psychologist

I used to be a happy guy with a huge passion for music, especially classical music. Music was so important in my life that I almost quit my final engineering studies (electrical) to enter to the conservatory dreaming to be one day a great orchestral conductor. I realized that it was too late to continue with that dream and decided to finish the electrical engineering. I used to enjoy so much my classical music cd’s with my 70 bucks sony discman (with megabass!) that I really did not care about the perfect sound but the perfect performance. I used to be really transported by music until I accidentally met “Mr. High-End” in Internet. That was about two years ago when I finally decided to get a “dream stereo system” with a budget of $2000 (wow!!). To make this story short, I was entrapped by “Mr. High-End” and ended with a $10000 buck system after an extensive search and auditions of components. The very sad part of this story is that I enjoyed more the music with my old cheap discman than with this high-end thing. YES, the high-end system sounds much better but now I can not concentrate in the musical message but in those terms well known in the audiophile world (soundstage, microdynamics, warm, bright, transparency, focus, image, bla bla bla…). Now I find myself buying music that is well recorded and sounds good with this system and not the music that I used to love. To be honest, I would have preferred to meet Mr. High-End NEVER. Do I need to visit to the psychologist? Whom do you recommend me?
panchodde5

Showing 1 response by jaycee

jaycee
8 posts
 
When I described these very same symptoms to my therapist, I was informed that I suffered from a skewed perspective, and a consuming obsession with my equipment. This results in a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction with "the medium", which in turn, tends to distract me from "the message". It is ironic that the equipment, designed to do nothing more than deliver to us the music that our souls crave, can become the object of our passion, distancing us from, rather than bringing us closer to our muse.

What helps me when things get turned so upside-down, and I'm being completely genuine here, is to take a break from all this audiophile mania. It's hard to do once you've developed the full-blown neurosis, but it can be done with deliberate effort: Leave the audio magazines unread, give the internet a rest (this forum?), leave your system alone for a while - no upgrades or tweaking! Listen THROUGH your system, not TO your system. Listen to FM radio, where the only control you have is your choice of station. Listen to live music. Commune with nature. Get real.

If you can create some space between you and your gear, the music will return to fill the void. It works! And when you return to the "madness", as you (we) are destined to do, not much will have changed, but even it will seem fresh again, and we'll be here waiting for you.

Oh, my name's Jon, and I'm an Audiophile...
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