Frantz, I'm with you a 100% that the high end isn't the last bastion of music, that music began at the start of civilisation and will be there at the end no matter what the medium is. But there is also value to some of us in passing on the experience of recorded music heritage as well to those that come. The seeds of every future ultimately lie in its past.
Also not just the means of transmission but the content as well. My mum took me to my first opera when I was young, coincidentally Madame Butterfly. I am in debt to her for this (as well as a whole heap of other things). If someone in my family had Magnepans when I was growing up I'd have gotten to where I am much earlier as well. For the generations that come, fast food and fast music may be their inherited diets. But passing on other values is for some of us, at least a part of the journey.
S of T
High End Audio values have changed significantly. Just to make sure we are clear on a few things. I read on this WBF that some eminent people of the High End community, a recording Engineer and electronics designer prefered the sound of a R2R to the live feed!!! and it seems that quite a few agreed with him. microstrip can better help me recall who wrote that. Once you get to that notion of preferences you are no longer transmitting the content but an edited version of it... And these days more than ever High End Audio is about preferences not faithful reproduction.
I was raised in a family where music was played every day, 98.8567%
) ) Western Classical music. I made sure to rebel against it, some, listening to a lot of Jazz and Progressive Rock. I must say that I began listening to more recorded music than live at an early age. I was taken however around 10 to live concerts and it was a shock to me to see how far Live was to the recorded... Later in life around my twenties I went back to Western Classical , understanding its beauty, its complexity and its elegance. Mostly in Live settings while in NYC. Then the Internet came and I was exposed to different Classical Music, especially Indian and Balinese and they are as good and often to my mind more captivating than Western Classical Music... it wasn't through High End Audio that I got to be exposed to those musics and their beauty. It was through lowly 128 kbps mp3 on Internet Radio.. Granted the experience is heightened by better recordings but again it is not through High End Audio .. it is through Spotify and these days for me, Tidal.
The notion of "fast music" is demeaning. There is nothing "fast" about the production and the creative process in today's music. Artists just don't drop in recording studios and come out with music. They work and hard and the creative process is the same it has been for Western or Oriental Classical music. They suffer to provide us with Music. THey work a lot. We may not like their music and even find it offensive .. So did many to Wagner ways or Mahler's or Stravinsky's or Stockhausen's or Jazz which is mostly considered now an elite musical genre ... the Irony...
Fast food doesn't elevate our health... That we can quickly find whatever we like and listen to it anywhere doesn't diminish the value of the music.. All the contrary IMO.
