Mental and Physical Predispositions to Experiencing Druglike Sound
1) We all know that one’s emotional state can affect how one feels about the sound of their system. This state can increase or decrease the likelihood of having a druglike sound experience.
2) We also know, or have read about, how alcohol and various drugs can affect how one feels about the sound of their system and can similarly increase or decrease the likelihood of having a druglike sound experience.
3) There are other things, both internal and external, that can also affect (increase) the probability of a druglike experience.
Artificially inducing strong emotions (1), like anger [got fired, for example] or exuberance [got hired], just to have a druglike sound experience seems a little on the ‘needs therapy’ side of the fence. (2) can be hard on the body and or brain cells. (3) however, if we can enumerate several relatively sane and healthy techniques, would seem to be the approach of choice.
Things that [may] affect the probability of a druglike experience:
A) Mood lighting. Bright light seems to be of no help at all, but dim light, the glow of vacuum tubes, city lights or Christmas tree lights all seem to increase the chance of a druglike sound experience
B) Comfortable seating, in my experience, does NOT affect the probability of a Druggish experience
C) Going from a good to a great quality sound / recording does increase the probability of this experience. Perhaps one can artificially arrange to closely listen to, first, a medium quality recording then a high quality one, esp. of the same music, JUST to create one of these experiences?
D) Casual chitchat during the music almost always reduces the probability to zero.
E) Being tired, but not so relaxed that you are falling asleep, in my experience, increases the probability.
F) Good company, whether friends or strangers, increases the probability. Hostile people, or just people in a bad mood, people reduces the probability to near zero.
Other things to think about: aroma, clothing, ambient temperature, time of day. Others?
Mike,
It is highly unusual for me to have a druglike experience during the daylight hours, but not impossible. I think that there may be a variety of reasons, there are less distractions in the evening hours, particularly after 10 PM when the kids are in bed, neighbors are not using leaf blowers, the ambient light is lower and maybe, just maybe, the line voltage is up and there is less EMI/RFI garbage on the electrical line. I like to turn the room lights out and switch off equipment lights to the extent possible. I will note that the EMM Labs XDS1 sounds better with the display switched off. The better the system/ the better the source material, the easier it is to achieve drugdom. The converse is that the poorer the system/ the source material, the harder it is. Again, not impossible but certainly more difficult. With respect to my system, I find that when everything is right, it is almost impossible to read a book in the same room or to have a conversation. I guess that I should also note that it is easier for me listening to superb vinyl, say Shady Dogs, Decca SXL 2000’s or 5000’s, etc. This is not to say that it cannot happen with digital, just that it is rarer. I am tempted to say that low wattage SET’s, particularly 300B’s help but in my earlier days, I was able to achieve drugdom with a highly modified Spectral DMC10 and a Richard Lees DMA100, Crosby modified Quads 63’s, a Rockport and early MIT cabling. Note that there were trade-offs but success was more often than you might think.
Hi Fred,
Re: the evening hours. Yeah, I was also thinking this, but thought instead of the ‘state of relaxation’ of the listener. At the end of the day, no matter my mountain of responsibilities, there is nothing more I can do, so that time is for me to enjoy and I can relax. But I then thought that it is more complicated than just ‘being relaxed’. Or perhaps there are so many states of stress and relaxation that ‘being relaxed’ is so vague as to be somewhat meaningless to many of us. It is definitely a good thing to have a ‘quiet time’ where we are not afraid of being interrupted by someone not sharing the Druglike Sound Experience.
“The better the system/ the better the source material, the easier it is to achieve drugdom. ”
But is this because our current home systems allow us to be more demanding? In other words, I suspect this is relative to the quality of sound that one is used to hearing.
I also cannot work or read in the same room. Conversations are invariably thrust upon me [:-)] and I usually have no choice in the matter… 😉
For me, digital and vinyl druglike effect are about equal. That might not be true if we had an LP for every CD we have, but as it is we have many albums on CD only.
Re: the olden days 🙂 I think this is also relative to the quality of sound that one is used to hearing. If you are used to listening to a system at quality X, and then play a recording or get a cable or whatever that takes the system, perhaps temporarily to a quality X + Y, then the probability of a druglike experience seems to be higher at that time. It is this observation that led me to post the original post… to see if there was a way that we can manipulate things in order in have druggish experiences more often, without having to modify our systems in any way.
Take care, Fred.
-Mike
I know this may sound too obvious, but a nice merlot 🙂 or IPA 🙂 really cranks up the magic. A little puff of fine ganja can enhance the drugesque qualities of ANY system 😉
This is how I do it anyway….. :O
MIke – Since thoroughly enjoying the Wilson Alexandria X2 optimization session at my home [Reference previous blog “We’re B…A…..C…..K”], I must add a comment to this string, first by retitling it: “Mental and Physical BARRIERS to Experiencing Drug-like Sound.” Or I might say without an ounce of smugness or disrespect of lower-budget drug-state inducing systems: “You get what you settle for.” Though I DO agree with Fred [“The better the system, the better the source material, the easier it is to achieve drugdom.] But I digress. “Barriers” you say, “How could I be so unappreciative or ungrateful after three plus days of the best Neli and Mike have to offer in system optimizing and upgrade services?” Well, on two grounds: physical and mental. Physically you substituted my Levinson 33H and No 32 Amplification system with the Ongaku; Meridian 808.3 CDP with the EMM Labs CDSD with the DCC2, and Transparent Reference XL interconnects and speaker cables with Nordost Odin ICs and Jorma Prime SCs (as well as adding Odin power cords to the new equipment). The drug-like sound was, as you mentioned, fully achieved (Haydn, Beethoven, Jethro Tull, ZZ Top, Mark Koepfler, St. Saens); OH AND WAS IT ACHIEVED!!. For the record, prior to your visit I HAD achieved drug-like effects (if not drug like sound) from the baseline system, to evidence as if we didn’t already know it, that a good but not great system CAN produce such effects. BUT you took it all back to Boulder and left me with the baseline system (except for the marvelous EDGE NR Reference Amp on loan) and the certain knowledge that the baseline system had been bested HUGELY. And therein lies the rub; after you produced and I listened to an entirely new previously unheard level of micro dynamics and harmonic resolution on any Wilson X-2 (or other speakers of Wilson) driven by Levinson, Krell, VTL, ARC amps at various So Cal show rooms, I have been MENTALLY unable to even turn the system on again for several days, fearful of the downer of going back to the sounds (congested grouped orchestral strings, lack of microdnamics and full harmonics) I had previously enjoyed during my illusionary state of belief that my system was as good as it could get. I’m reminded of Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” Maybe had I heard those great sounds at a show, or somewhere else on some other system such as at your place in Boulder, I could have and would have gone back home happily returning to the place where I had enjoyed many a drug-like exprience in my modest Media room on my somewhat high end system. But since you physically produced that state on MY system in MY room, I fear I will always be haunted, in this room, by the spectre of what might have been, or could be (unless, of course, I somehow manage to replicate the sounds you so successfully brought to it.) Is it audacious for me to be hopeful? Is change possible that I could believe in? I’ll leave that answer to you and Neli. Please be assured that I AM very grateful of the optimization exercise and appreciative of your astute blog comments on the marketing and promotion of underachieving Wilson systems. And, several days later, I have returned the system (almost) to baselne status excluding the addition, temporary thought it mahy be, of the Edge Amp, which does sound wonderful on the system and will keep me mildly high while awaiting the Ongaku and, hopefully, some additional upgrades that you and Neli have recommended. And I reiterate, I’ll get what I settle for.
Hi Jim,
🙂
When we upgrade our systems, hopefully successfully, our rational mind hears qualitative and quantitative improvements and our heart hears a greater emotional involvement. But an improvement that you won’t hear much about, assuming that one is building drug-like sounding systems, is an improved frequency of those drug-like experiences.
Yes, we can get those exaltation highs from our music on our iPods or car radios, or previous systems we have owned. But we can get those experiences much more often on a better sounding system. The goal, for me, is to be unable to prevent having one of those experiences every single time I listen to the system – no matter how much news I read that day. 😉 That the music is so powerful and so involving that it commands my attention and grounds me in what is truly important and then takes me to wonderful [and, dare I say it, sometimes strange :-)] states of mind.
Take care,
-Mike
To borrow from an Army recruitment phrase of a few years back (Army – Be all that you can be), I think I’d put it simply: Music – Hear all that you can hear!! smiley [which key on this #%&*$ computer keyboard has the little smiley???]. Whenever AWAKE and LISTENING to my systems of past or present and able, in spite of or in the absence of otherwise distracting reproduction flaws and extranneous diversions, to hear all there was to hear or suspend any disbelief to the contrary be deluded into thinking I was, and, finally, providing the music was itself sufficiently appealing to my personal taste….tlhat drug like state tended (tends) to follow. It’s why I’m thankful for talk radio in my car. High quallity car stereo/surround sound can be more dangerous than cell phones or texting! Especially when driving cross country where smokey could be hiding behind every tree or the shade under every overpass.