just curious: is there anyone here who doesn’t care all that much about music BUT either (1) loves to design, build or tinker with gear (I assume there are plenty of serious "a-philes" who fit this category); or more interesting question (2) loves to buy, trade, tweak, and try to improve their system (but doesn’t really do any more than minimal repair/work on that system, and again isn’t all that interested in music). (I assume that in the case of car enthusiasts, there are plenty of car-nuts who would fit both categories: you work on your '56 Chevy [or you buy one] primarily to take it to auto-shows, not to go for drives in the country). |
@fuzztone Why do you answer or read "dopey" questions? Maybe it's not as dopey as you think. I took time to word the question carefully and I'm not inclined to waste people's time. So, please just refrain from answering my OP's if you think they're dopey. Kindly avoid insulting me, is what I'm saying. |
Because it is for most. More than "some."
Yet another dopey rhetorical question around here.
Most of them are. |
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Because they are stupid .
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I like the car analogy, but I will extend it to books. I enjoy reading, I enjoy collecting and sometimes I amuse myself with writing.
I have read many of the books that I have collected, but not in every case. Sometimes I collect book-ish things like ephemera and pamphlets that I find interesting. There are books that I have loved that I do not own, and there are some books that I own and love, but aren't collectible per se (Ellery Queen late edition hardcovers pre-1950) because they are getting harder to find.
If someone told me they read primarily on a Kindle my reaction wouldn't be, "You're not a book lover!". I'd want to know what they like and discuss.
Or if someone collects books because of their interest and value, it doesn't mean they can't have a meaningful opinion about an author or literature, and I would want to engage them on their knowledge and perspective.
My lifetime ratio of books read to books collected is probably 20:1. If someone told me that I am not a booklover as a result I one, wouldn't care, and two, I would discount everything that person had to say about the subject and give them a wide berth in the future.
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Are you a tourist or a traveler?
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I don't know that the music is any more important than the gear- or the other way around. How could it be? As Robert Harley explains in his so excellent it should be required reading The Complete Guide to High End Audio, music is unique among communications in that the medium and the message are inseparable. Music can be written on a page but it is much more than a string of notes. Systems that are better are literally playing different music than lesser systems.
Everyone knows this. Its one of the most common things people say with a good upgrade, they are hearing new things, things they never noticed before, etc.
Recently four audiophiles drove up from Portland to hear my system. The whole time I'm asking them what do you want to hear? Finally at the end one asked me to play my one special show off the system recording. I was actually kind of flummoxed. If the system is good enough its no longer the system you are showing off. The job of the system is to reproduce music. Not make. Reproduce. The whole idea of showing off like that, well think about it. Its like Arnold posing. He's showing off his muscles. But there is a lot more to Arnold than big muscles. Proved it by becoming a movie star and governor. I could play Bela Fleck Flight of the Cosmic Hippos, show off awesome bass. Not a lot of music content. Might as well be playing test tones. Flex, look at my guns! (Anchorman.)
Of course music not gear is the ultimate end. How can anyone be so dense as to not see this? The ultimate goal is a system that disappears leaving only the music. Which cannot happen without a really good system. So of course the system is the ultimate end. How can anyone be so dense as to not see this?
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I got 5 minutes to do everything I can. This is how it’s gonna play out..
The vinyl, 3 pictures, the dog, the bunny, the wife, and my hat, kinda in that order. Insurance will have to fix the rest...
You can have every car on the planet.
because I want a chauffeur and a Roller. Back seat please.
With a very nice stereo, that plays RtR, Vinyl and anything else I want. gosh I can dream...
After the mess got have some tunes, might as well have some nice one. Onward James..
WAR "Born in a Hurricane", that will do...
Regards |
I have no dog in this fight either and I have seen pictures of the insides of amplifiers with people saying things like look at those beautiful mosfets or those beautiful toroids.
I suspect that many people are so afraid that the music is going to get lost that they make it the only or exclusive thing that is valued in the equation... but function and design are part of it too. At least for me. |
I have no dog in this fight, as my live and let live position is that how you enjoy a hobby and why you enjoy it is so very personal.
Some people fish for the sport, others for the eating, others to get away from people. I'm not here to judge them either.
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People do sit, stare, and look at cars, not running.
Imagine who sits and looks at their audio gear, turned off, and not playing music. Who wants to admit to that, hahah :)
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I was going to use the car analogy, but @berner99 beat me to it.
What is the purpose of cars? To get from A to B? To go fast? To tackle a curvy mountain road?
Are cars sitting in a garage/warehouse and never driven an obscenity? Are they the equivalent of the guy who has a store's worth of audio equipment in his house and only owns 5 carefully selected audiophile LPs? |
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Great story.
It's the actual music that stirs emotions. Not the gear, cables, etc. You do see threads that appear to contradict my opinion though.
If it came down to it, I would listen to a clock radio and be fine. I'm grateful having the opportunity to hear music thru "better" equipment.
One other thing, as a longtime sufferer of tinnitus and hearing loss, everyone needs to be more conscious of their hearing health. I love loud R&R, but RARELY ever push the volume these days. |
I like the car analogy. Made me remember the old "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (Pirsig) which showed that the technology of the motorcycle and its maintenance were not mere means to the rides, but they too were also ends. All these ends were related without reduction and part of a whole. The need to split things apart -- into "means" and "end" -- and then to elevate one above the other is our Western cultural inheritance, but it is not the final and only truth, that book suggested.
Some analogies (or dis-analogies, perhaps) where a process is not just the means to the end:
Some who cook love the process as much as the plated food. The "slow food movement" adds in the local region as part of that larger process.
Some baseball players love the game as much as the end score. There is an "art" to the game, which is the pitching, catching, strategy, etc. (Might one not see this in the equipment we use, discuss, in audio?)
Etc.
Without music equipment is worthless, roberjerman points out. I see the point. But a stack of records with nothing to play them on doesn’t seem much better.
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If you use the analogy of cars plenty of people (well perhaps mainly men) love cars for cars own sake and not just as a means of getting places. OTOH I paint, and for many, watercolor painting supplies are just a means to paint—though to be sure, there are people who are just as into painting supplies as many are into stereo equipment. |
Why do some think "music" (not gear, trading, etc.) is the ultimate end?
Ok, how could one not think that music is the whole point?
I had a chance to figure out for real, one time, if it was music, or the gear.
A house fire next door, was about to remove my 3rd story apartment in an old victorian house...from the surface of the planet.
I had seconds to decide. I was also fairly poor at the time. I could lose the music, the crates of records,
or the belles 450 power amp, thorens TD125mk2 table, with the sme arm and the ortofon mc30 super..and the modded out ps audio 5.0 preamp. speakers at the time, for that moment, was...the Monitor audio 952 and a pair of NHT’s that I was playing with.
I only had, I figured, enough time to move one component or aspect, before the fire took it all.
I was also half asleep, groggy, staggering, as someone had awoken me by banging on the door down below, really hard. One of the crowd that had gathered..was banging on the downstairs door..to inform anyone inside...that the house next door was on fire.
I went for the records. save the records. save the music. to hell with the hard won equipment, I could always, somehow, get more. Save the music. Music first.
I found out for real, with an actual gun pointed at my head with an actual forced binary question and answer set.
We can talk and talk..but who really gets in the actual sights of it, with the barrel stuck to their temple in a real world situation... and has to make a real choice? At a literal snap of the fingers?
Until then, it’s just talk.
Music first. the rest is the bone of contention, but again, the map is not the territory. The attitude and the talk is not the war itself. the battle is about the music.
Things are definitely conflated but one is not actually the other. It’s about the music, music first. Serve the music with the gear, but never lose track of that, and you’ll be fine.
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Without music equipment is worthless! I can add an observer with a functioning ear or two to complete the equation! |
