Munich show report by a guy who doesn't get it

[Soundproof]

Here's another interesting perspective - has music really become that boring that this writer has ditched her whole CD collection and now only listens to streams on her laptop?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/music-died-cds-listen-laptop

Again, one has to posit that reading comprehension maybe should be part of the curriculum again?

Excerpt:

Looking back, I wonder if I was trying to make a dramatic gesture. I didn't even really mean to wipe everything out, not like the artist Michael Landy, who destroyed all his worldly goods in 2001, using the empty C&A shop on Oxford Street to perform the act in public over a couple of weeks. "It felt like I was attending my own funeral," he said afterwards, "and I became obsessed with the thought that I was witnessing my own death." And why was it so hard? What was the final thing that he destroyed? The thing that he dreaded killing off most of all? His record collection, of course.

I realise, as I write this, that maybe I did it on purpose. Maybe, during a rough couple of years, I wanted to shut down that deeper emotional life. Well, things aren't rough any more, and I want my feelings back. So I'm off to look for a boombox that twists my melons and permeates my soul.

 

[Bill Hart]

One of the reasons many of us come to this forum is to sift through the hype and get to the gear, set-up and ancillaries that deliver the best performance in real world conditions. We tend to discount what we see and hear at shows given the compromised conditions and the variables. Many of us are also often skeptical of some bling new product at a stratospheric price point- recognizing that sometimes it's gonna cost some coin to get the highest levels of performance, but we're not just gonna roll over because of the pretty chrome and grand engineering or technical claims.
Having said that, most of the folks who are enthusiasts are not the idle rich as far as I know- they are just people crazy enough to spend a lot of disposal income on this hobby (pick any hobby- same deal, unless you are collecting vintage Ferraris or Vermeers, in which case the price of entry requires you to be rich).
Even the author admitted that he got some insight into why the hi-priced spread sounds better. His closing note- how to democratize this for the masses - is something that has puzzled some of the world's greatest thinkers. Even Neil Young.

 

[nirodha]

It is easy and justifiable to call anybody with an obsessive hobby a fool or snob. Including myself haha. The human male is a funny piece of work

 

[Shaffer]

Great post!

Agree.

A few weeks ago my wife came down to the music room while I was doing a cartridge set up with the various screwdrivers, alignment protractor, digital scale, magnification loupe, etc. She may still be laughing. Talk about "getting your nerd on"!

[Please forgive me for using your comment as a launching pad for a complimentary idea.]

We're a culture of the shallow. Extreme expertise is either dismissed by society as complicated rhetoric with zero applicability to one's daily existence, or we get the "nerd" designation as a marker of some sort of knowledge. Pathetic, isn't it? For reasons we can discuss in another thread, it's the "average" individual, the crest of the bell curve, is who'll make it in this world and whose desires drive and form the market. We're sitting a bit further to the right and we talk like fags:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkPGlVqqEP0

What is it that we have in common with the writer, other than functioning as carbon life forms?

Edit: The guy listens to Toto. It's that bell curve again.