Why high-fidelity?… its not the music. It's The Music
No doubt if I understood the mathematics of music better, or the history of music better, or knew all the different performances of great classical music, or knew extensive details about musical instrument construction [say how great pianos, or violins, are made and what they sound like as a function of the woods used and year they were made], that these would also given me greater appreciation of the music – beyond just the music itself.
But, I think that the ability to see into the music itself, to see the notes, and harmonics and the spaces created – that this ability can lend itself to something more natural and deeper, more brain expanding and more emotionally relevant than what is provided by the added context of being a card-holding member of these other learned professions.
This something is The Music [capitalized]. Audiophiles can see The Music better than non-audiophiles.
You might think that being a musician would give one an even greater appreciation of music.
But, no. Musicians hear all the mistakes and imperfections – making it potentially even harder for them to experience The Music than non-musicians.
What is The Music? The Music is the quintessentially perfect analog to what we hear as ordinary music. For each note and harmony we hear in the music – the same note or harmony is also found in The Music – but perfect. Every composition can be heard as music… and Music – so wonderful it is [almost?] too beautiful to bear – if you listen ‘just right’.
The Music is what musicians are TRYING to play. It is what we are TRYING to hear.
It is a communication from the souls of the players to the souls of the listeners.
High-end audio makes for a higher bandwidth for that communication. Lo-Fi is like looking at a Michelangelo through mud. Mid-Fi is like looking at a Michelangelo through Oktoberfest beer. Hi-Fi is like looking at a Michelangelo through clear Rocky Mountain spring water. [OK. Stupid analogy. But what is one of our posts here without at least one analogy that is a wee little bit forced].
Even through mud, there is some outline of The Music that people hear when listening to music. This is why we all can listen to and enjoy music. The Music is like sex. Never the same twice, always the best it has ever been and ever can be, and for a while it makes life seem like it just may be worth living after all.
This somewhat isomorphic mapping of the music we hear to an ethereal, idealized The Music is an abstract, perhaps even spiritual , interpretation of the more technical perspective, which we have examined several times, that looks at the various complex patterns found in the music we hear and how these patterns affect our minds in various ways.
