Red, I've been following the above arguments for quite a while now and I am clearly on your side of the fence. In reading the above threads I began to wonder, if any member of the "honorable opposition" ever went to live concerts REGULARLY. But then, as you suggest, they are probably mainly concerned with the science behind the equipment,less with the musical event as such. They deride us as believers and do not see, that it is they who are also caught in beliefs, beliefs in a model of the world, which they mistakingly take for the world itself. They may be bright, well trained and knowledgeable, but as far as I can see, they seem to care little about epistemology and the inherent limits to anything we know. This is probably, why the "twain will never meet". Since we on our side of the fence seem rather on a quest for a musical experience, which would come as close as possible to that elusive goal of the "absolute sound", we are always on unsure ground in as far, as that we inherently will feel, what sounds right and what not, but we will never be able to "prove" this to a critical mind, who wants facts, which would fit into a MODEL of reality. ( That in many aspects this model is real enough, is obvious, without it we could not even switch on our systems, if there were any at all)But his model falls short of all possible experience. Its just a model not the world. We also have a model, which paradoxically is as subjective (none of us hears probably absolutely alike, both in measurable, as in qualitative terms) as it is psychologically objective ( the inner quest for that elusive absolute, which we all share ). To sit in the middle of a paradox is generally a painful experience, for how will you know what is "real" and what is "imagined." On the other hand, this dilemma will keep you aurally on your toes. It hones your listening acuity, trapped between the drive for "better sound" and the flints of doubt. Our often feeble attempts to translate what we expierience into "science", must sound to a trained scientific mind like the phantasmas of the Alchemists to post-Newtonian physics. And yet, if you remove the materialistic trappings from that, what the Alchemists were after, their efforts made sense in a spritial-transcendental way. To me here lies the hint of a parallel to what we are after. The Alchemist's substrate were base materials, and they of course knew nothing of the real chemical, physical changes they effected in their retorts. They developed a highly complex descriptive terminology to what they percieved, which sounds like ghibberish to modern science. Their actual goal, apart from those charlatans, who pretended to make gold from crap, seems to have been rather the quest for an elusive absolute, like in that lovely Zen story of the Ox and the Herdsman, where the quest is more important than the goal. We are on home ground here, deeply paradoxical indeed, because without that elusive goal, there would be no quest. We are like that famous donkey, with a carrot dangling in front of its nose. We'll never get it, but we are on the move. I prefer that state to that which identifies with whatever system, in order to have a nice warm place "behind the stove". |
Jostler, apaologies, I did not mean to be offensive, I wondered that was all and I was proved to be wrong. Besides often enough you seem not to mince words either, remember those clicking of heels to consequently hear better. Mind you, that was witty, but not without its own mischief. I can live very well with the rest of your above post, in fact I liked it, as you can see. |
Craig, that was a beautiful post and I could not agree with you more. Wished I would have been able to express my own point of view so clearly and in such a straightforward fashion.
702, I was not listening simultaneously, with rapid switching inbetween, rather I was allowed to listen to the DUT in question (I did not know, which one it was of course)
as long as I wanted to, until I felt sufficiently sure to think to be able to identify it. The DUTS in question were Gryphon and Spectral and a Jadis pre. We also tried MIT and XLO speaker wires. Regards, |
Redkiwi, a most erudite, well considered post and a joy to read. Wished I had written it. A sincere thanks..and Jadem, though Jostler surely is able to defend himself, I think you are doing him an injustice. I love this forum, because all my conscious life I have not only been fascinated with audio, but also with the ways how people think, reason , percieve and argue. Whenever I've tried to cross swords with Jostler, I've not found him narrow minded nor basically intolerant about different points of view. Rather, within the precepts of what you might call a positivist philosophy,( which is a legitimate set of premises of what we can know, and what not), he seems to me on a crusade against sloppy thinking, twisted logic and muddled asumptions. He's excellent at picking out the weak spot of an argument and he aims well. I don't share his precepts, but I think I know a good mind, when I see one. I sincerely hope, he'll not get bored with us, nor we with him, even though sometimes his arguments might sting. Even if I don't agree, I find his astuteness helps to fine hone my own reasonings and to clarify better where I actually am. How can I grow in knowledge or in perceptive powers, if everyone would agree with me. I'd just become complacent and lazy. People like Jostler keep me on my toes. |
Come on Redkiwi, don't you apologise, don't be more Brits than those "back home" and please don't continue now with an "understatingingly"- polite attitude. Your posts are wonderfully written and argued and the underlying passion ( a passion we all share, be it in different shades and hues )
makes it all alive and vibrant. ( Yes this ad ad hominem with a greeting to down under ) |
Pops, you are right, it is sickening. What you forgot to mention is the audio press which also helps to keep the wheels greased. It would all grind to a halt, if consumers would no longer play along. |
702, its interesting what you say about not being able to hear simultaneously. I have not been unsuccessful in discerning between different amps or wire in rudimentary blind testing, ( no scientific aspirations here in this case) what I needed however, were longer stretches of music (female sopranos, solo violins, solo cello for voicing or big orchestral renderings for width and depth of soundstage and layering or certain string quartets for resolution and speed). In listening, I would pinpoint aural clues for myself at specific points of the score. Once I had this, it was fairly easy to differentiate between various DUTs. What I needed was familiar music, scores which I knew inside out and preferably also had heard already live. |
Steve..... ears are connected to the brain, but obviously not with everybody.... and if Garfish trusts what he hears, he, like the most of us, is having fun and he's learning something new everyday. No stale repetitions of fundamentalist RHUBARB (REDkiwi, I just love that word! )here! |
Steve, sorry, that was not me, I'm innocent on that one.
Regards, |
Eantala, thanks for pointing out Dunlavy's thoughts on this subject for us, though VERY thoughtprovoking, I find it a little biased and onesided, but then are we not all in one way or antother...and Koen thanks for your post, you should perhaps have added, that these days nobody knows anymore, inspite of CAD etc, how to make a violin, which would have a sound comparative to a Stradivari or Guarnieri for that matter. That knowledge has obviously been lost for good. |
Hello Kat, in the ecample I had in mind, we used LPs, a Spectral cartrige, made by Scantec I think, with a Goldmund Reference at the time. The amps were old Spectral 200 class A and Jadis 200 monoblocks . The Jadis preamp was easy to discern with both amps. It was much more difficult between the Spectral and the Gryphon, but after a while I could make out specific differences between the two- believe or not, by the way certain cembalo pasages in a Bach Suite were resolved in the background. The XLO excelled with the Jadis gear, the MIT with Spectral, so that part was easy. Speakers were Quads. |
702, to your question: no scientific pretentions here, it was strictly amateurish. Level matching was by ear. I don't remember the exact number of trials. We spent practically a day and we did lots of "runs". The hits were significantly higher than the misses and I remember going through a distinct learning curve. More I cannot say anymore with exactitude. Too long ago. Regards |
