Most of us on this forum talk and obsess about our listening experiences and what we do to try to enhance them. It seems to me that while we use many of the same words, we each experience a uniquely individual sensory and emotional total experience that goes way beyond our equipment and source material.
During the past 2 years my life has been changed radically by the introduction of my girlfriend Ginny and her yellow lab Myrtle into my life. During this time, Myrt became very attached to me, essentially adopting me as her father, and thus the three of us spent a lot of time together, engaged in many collective activities. Since both Ginny and I have music on in our homes essentially all of the time, music became part of our collective three-way experience.
As part of the resulting life change by their becoming part of my life, my connection with my audio system and how I experience music has also changed, for the better. I focus more on the overall experience, whether playing discs, music server or TV, and care less about my system, as long as it is “engaging”. My sense of what is “engaging” has evolved, helping me focus more on the overall experience than what to buy next or how to tweak what I already have.
Since Myrt was so attached to me, she rarely would allow herself to be more than 2-3 feet from me whenever I sat down, and frequently had to be touching me. Since my single most common place to sit in home is my “listening chair”, Myrt spent a lot of time listening with me, and actually became part of my overall listening experience. While she never commented on the music or the quality of my system unless it was too loud, the only time when she would bark until I lowered the volume, I now realize she always had an impact on how I experienced my interaction with the system and the source material. The only thing that made listening better with Myrt was when Ginny was also sitting in my lap while listening.
Myrtle was 11 when she died three days ago from an aggressive tumor that was diagnosed about 4 months ago. Unlike most cancers, the quality of her life was essentially unaltered as the cancer spread, allowing her to be her happy loving self until the moment she died. Knowing she was going to die soon, Ginny and I made the conscious decision to try to insure that no minute was wasted and tried to enjoy our threesome as much as possible. This decision made me focus more on Myrt’s and my listening experiences and what really mattered.
Now that Myrtle is gone, naturally Ginny and I are devastated, as most dog lovers are when their “best friend” dies. Like all major life changes, many aspects of one’s life are altered, although frequently many of these changes go unnoticed due to distractions like grief or because the linkage was subliminal.
During the last three days Myrt has not been with me when I sit in my listening chair, regardless of whether my system is on or off. It is just not the same because something is missing. Even though my system sounds better than it ever has and gives me great joy because of how it contributes to my involvement with the source material, it is not the same.
Something critical is missing and it cannot be bought and inserted into the components. I have a new Shunyata Sigma Digital PC that I was eager to plug into my DAC on the day that Myrt died after 3 weeks of burn in on a fan. It is still on the fan. As has happened more than 20 times during the past couple of years of essentially non-stop Shunyata PC and distribution burn-ins and upgrades, I could not wait to get home to add the next piece to the puzzle and evaluate the changes and experience being closer to the music. Somehow it did not matter when I returned home Wednesday night.
No doubt the Sigma Digital PC will make a very positive difference because Caelin is a wizard and both Marty and Steve have already done this experiment and have shared their experiences with me and raved elsewhere on this forum. But the part of the experience I am missing, will still be absent.
So why am I making this post on WBF? No doubt I am writing this partially because it is helping me with my grieving Myrt’s passing, and also to share the reminder that the experience is more important than the components.
If your system is amazing, share it with someone you care about, even if it is your dog!
