You've just put a CD in the player, or switched on a live concert on the radio, or settled down to a session with Spotify, maybe even an LP or a download from iTunes.
Your carefully chosen system is sounding fine and the music is transporting/relaxing/exciting you, repaying the time and money you spent to get it all right.
But is it really all right? Is there fiction lurking in the facsimile? You shake it off. Yes of course there is some. No recording process is perfect and no system is perfect. Live music will vary wildly between venues and studio music is but a layer of artifice atop the analogue (all at the whim of an engineer and the band). It sounds great, so what's the problem?
One problem is that somewhere back there, 'sounding right' turned into 'sounding great'. Another problem is that you went on the internet to seek wisdom on the matter! Before you had even formulated a question, a thousand strident voices had not only screamed their answers, but their owners had either taken sides against you or allied with you. Something about the way you said 'hello' maybe?
Somewhere, there in amongst the wall of noise, you can discern two overarching themes.
Either...
1) Accuracy is the goal, no matter how much or how little it might be at variance to what you find pleasurable about music. All else but measured accuracy is just fool's gold. You must only listen to what is measurably accurate and send your ears and brain to be 'politically rehabilitated' if they are reeling from the sudden absence of bourgeois pleasures (like warmth or deep bass or 'silky highs'). Anything but measured accuracy is 'subjective twaddle' whether you enjoy it or not. If some recordings sound awful then that's how it's supposed to be. Live with it or listen to something better recorded.
Or...
2) Choosing a system that portrays your chosen music in the way you like to hear it, by mixing and matching components and choosing speakers that flatter the acoustic properties of the room they are playing in and give you the warmth or edginess or silkiness (or whatever) you desire. Seeking the 'synergy' between music, system, room and you. No political rehabilitation required. You can be as 'bourgeois' as you like and to the limit you can afford. You can even care about what it all looks like (!) and care about the build/fit/finish to enhance your pride of ownership or to match your decor.
So do you enjoy a little 'fiction' when replaying music, or should it be eliminated - wherever possible - as a bourgeois lie?
Your carefully chosen system is sounding fine and the music is transporting/relaxing/exciting you, repaying the time and money you spent to get it all right.
But is it really all right? Is there fiction lurking in the facsimile? You shake it off. Yes of course there is some. No recording process is perfect and no system is perfect. Live music will vary wildly between venues and studio music is but a layer of artifice atop the analogue (all at the whim of an engineer and the band). It sounds great, so what's the problem?
One problem is that somewhere back there, 'sounding right' turned into 'sounding great'. Another problem is that you went on the internet to seek wisdom on the matter! Before you had even formulated a question, a thousand strident voices had not only screamed their answers, but their owners had either taken sides against you or allied with you. Something about the way you said 'hello' maybe?
Somewhere, there in amongst the wall of noise, you can discern two overarching themes.
Either...
1) Accuracy is the goal, no matter how much or how little it might be at variance to what you find pleasurable about music. All else but measured accuracy is just fool's gold. You must only listen to what is measurably accurate and send your ears and brain to be 'politically rehabilitated' if they are reeling from the sudden absence of bourgeois pleasures (like warmth or deep bass or 'silky highs'). Anything but measured accuracy is 'subjective twaddle' whether you enjoy it or not. If some recordings sound awful then that's how it's supposed to be. Live with it or listen to something better recorded.
Or...
2) Choosing a system that portrays your chosen music in the way you like to hear it, by mixing and matching components and choosing speakers that flatter the acoustic properties of the room they are playing in and give you the warmth or edginess or silkiness (or whatever) you desire. Seeking the 'synergy' between music, system, room and you. No political rehabilitation required. You can be as 'bourgeois' as you like and to the limit you can afford. You can even care about what it all looks like (!) and care about the build/fit/finish to enhance your pride of ownership or to match your decor.
So do you enjoy a little 'fiction' when replaying music, or should it be eliminated - wherever possible - as a bourgeois lie?
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