Would Like To Hear From Strain Gauge Owners

I have been following this thread with a bit of reluctant curiosity. I was, at one point, going to chime in and encourage responders to cut Raul a little slack; but only a little. Reason being that as a person for whom the English language is a second language, I understand all too well how sometimes one's statements, particularly those made in writing, can sound more severe and austere than what was really meant; due to a certain linguistic aukwardness. I can't recount how many times I have had to mediate misunderstandings between my Anglo wife and Latino mother; all due to the in-law's less than perfect command of the English language. But alas, after upwards of twenty posts, I think Raul has made his point perfectly clear; language aukwardnesses and all. While I admire anyone who is so passionate about audio as he is, I just happen to think he misses the boat. One comment he makes I think says a great deal:

"...when you play a recording that was recorded with ( before ) a non RIAA eq. standard then you heard a totally different performance of what is in the recording that comes with a different equalization curve."

Absolutely not true. It will be different as far as frequency response goes, but as we all know there is far more, and arguably far more important, to the proper (I deliberately did not use the word "accurate") reproduction of a recorded performance besides absolutely accurate frequency response. In fact, as I understand Peter's comments (and I confess to limited technical knowledge), a deliberate choice was made to make some sacrifices in absolutely accurate frequency response, in order to gain the potentially more musically significant advantages of fewer phase problems. Makes sense to me.

What doesn't make sense to me is how it is possible that one of the most prolific writers on this forum, one with such strong opinions about audio, and the reproduction of sound, one with over seven hundred responses in various threads, has not made one single contribution on the subject of MUSIC.

This is the one time that I hope that my response is deleted by the Agon censors. Simply because I think Mrjstark's post is an absolutely perfect way to end this thread.

"and the only discussion on Audiogon would be the passion of music" (Mosin)

Wouldn't that be nice? Nothing wrong with obsessing about technical perfection, as long as we don't forget that it should not be at the expense of how it all relates to the things that really matter in the music. Which takes me back to the comment I made earlier, wich may have come across as overly critical of Raul's stance on this subject: Why no references to music?

I am always a bit perplexed when I hear (read) very strong opinions on the merits, or lack thereof, of this or that product, or the merits of a particular design approach that is not accompanied by at least SOME references to MUSIC. Without SOME comment along the lines of:

"Yes, I appreciate what this design tries to accomplish, but because of inaccuracies in it's RIAA eq, every time that I play a Joni Mitchell record, her voice sounds too full in her lower range. I have heard Joni Mitchell live many times, and that is not what I remember...", or:

"That's not the sound of an oboe in that register", or:

"The Strat has never sounded so thin on every other system that I have heard this recording on", or:

"Why does the bass player sound like he can't keep up with the drummer? Never sounded like that before", or:

I rest my case.