How does one know what sound one really, really, really wants?

The questions posed in the last post are difficult questions… well, the answers are difficult, anyway.

But there are a few guiding principles we think one can use to navigate the process of system evaluation and upgrades:

1. Recognize the absolute failure of magazine reviews and online forum consensus to consistantly recommend components of a high quality.

There are a lot of reasons behind these failures… we mentioned a few a couple of posts back.

2. Most components are good at ‘something’ – just make sure you know what that something is and how it relates to #3

3. Understand your personal preferences and trade-offs – and understand that they will change both with life maturity and as the number of your audiophile experiences increase.

Nobody is rich enough to buy the perfect system. No, even hiring a live bands won’t give one a ‘perfect sound’ [for example, Jimi and Mozart just ain’t gonna be able to make it that early in the day, sorry].

So there ARE going to be tradeoffs – things that you will have to accept which are not going to be perfect. Know which things are OK for you personally if they aren’t top-notch.

.
.
.
.
.

How does one know what sound one really, really, really wants?

Saying it is the absolute sound (of a live acoustic instrument) is a cop out. For one, many of us like amplified music – which often sounds ‘better’ in our homes than it ever did live. Second – where are we sitting at this acoustic event? A close-mic’d recording would have us sitting in Yo Yo Mah’s lap.

Besides, do we even like Cello music? At what time of day? Do we like it as loud as it is live? Louder? Do we want the player to play with experience or with passion? Do we want them to play without mistakes – or do we want to feel like the player is extending themselves and makes a few mistakes in order to reach heretofore unheard of heights of skill with their instrument?

But all this is perhaps irrelevent.

What we really want in a sound is governed by how we want it to impact us.

Sometimes we want it to stir up the adrenaline – to make us feel bold and powerful.

Sometimes we want it to remind us of the beauty that still exists in this world.

Sometimes we want it to surprise us.

Sometimes just to entertain us.

Always to make us FEEL SOMETHING.

What do we want to feel? How can we tell? Is it like food – do we need a well-balanced diet of musically-induced emotional / psychological experiences? How do these interact with /affect / get affected by / replace feelings we get from other experiences in life?

I’ll say one thing – musically-induced experiences seem to have a higher quality, a more aesthetically pleasing as well as a ‘higher consciousness’ if you will, about them than the everyday events in our lives. Well, I find that to be true in my life anyway 🙂

[It is my opinion that most high-end systems and components target the listeners who they think want to be impressed by the technical aspects of an audio reproduction system – so that often a system does not induce any deep, complex responses in the listener at all – nothing except an appreciation of the technical wizardry of 21st Century humans and a latent feeling of annoyance with a dash of mild headache].