I am new here. Actually, not so new as I have been an audiophile for the last 45 years. I stopped following the hifi scene in the mid-1990s and stopped reading the subjectivist hifi rags and online review sites, most importantly the American ones.
I never stopped listening to music. I just stopped listening to music as an audiophile. After well-nigh two decades or more hiatus from the audiophile scene, I cracked open the pages of the rags and they blew me away with brands I hadn't heard of before with outsized price tags and outlandish claims to match. USD40K for a 3m pair of speaker cables? USD28K for a power cord? USD100K for a preamp? What have these guys been smoking? It is no longer hifi; it is now a market of Veblen goods, desired for their price tags and unaffordability to the masses than for their function. The function was only a pretence to justify their being. Pride comes from owning them and looking at them than from listening to MUSIC with them.
During my time away, I lost my audiophile credentials. I stopped listening as an audiophile: Out went soundstage layering, imaging dimensionality, height, breadth, depth, frequency extensions, bass slam or what have you, sonic holography, transparency, resolution, et alia, buzzwords of the subjectivist press. I learnt to listen naively as a non-audiophile music lover does. And what does a music lover listen for? A music lover listens for musically relevant parameters of music reproduction: pace, rhythm, timing, how tightly a group of musicians plays together, the subtle microdynamic shadings of a voice or instrument, the pluck of a string, the strike of a hammer, the ride of a cymbal, the purity of a note...the emotional content of music "cut of one cloth". Good live music performance carries us to a state of sublime consciousness, a state of lucid dreaming. And good music reproduction carries us to these same states. It is the reason why many non-audiophile music lovers can listen to a JBL or Marshall all-in-one and sing and dance to the tunes. The company that licensed the Marshall guitar amplifier brand name to create a series of Marshall all-in-one box sets sold so well that it owns Marshall the guitar amplifier company today. I have heard them: stripped away of all the audiophile pretensions and I heard the soul of music. And that is as it should be.
I was invited to a house of a very rich dude recently. He has a close to a million dollar price tag or more system that he was very proud of. He was not an audiophile per se but rather a consumer of Veblen goods: I don't know what is good so give me what is the most expensive in its class. I shan't name the brands of the equipment but you would all recognise the marques if you follow Stereophile and The Absolute Sound and are casual readers of The Robb Report.
I was blown away by the sonic energy that came out of the system. Gobsmacked. Listen to the treble. Feel the rumble of the bass. Listen to the tympani in the back row of the orchestra. Listen to where the violinist is placed on the soundstage. Listen to the sound pressure as the orchestra hits the crescendo. It was a hifi sonic spectacular in the worst sense of the word. But where was the music? Perhaps my plebeian ears are not suited to goods of such rarity. I thought I enjoyed my music more out of a Marshall Wotan.
I met an old friend from the days when hifi was about music reproduction, not an affectation of lifestyle. He still has his old Linn LP12 circa 1985-not the stupefyingly priced Linn LP12 of today-Naim NAC72, NAP140, Epos 14, NACA5 cables. He spun a few discs. And damn, there was that old familiar swing again, the foot-tapping singalong moment where you forget about hifi and revel in the music. Good hifi need not be the latest gear and need not cost a lot of money.
That was when I had my Damascene moment, an awakening, an epiphany: we have been misled by the American subjectivist press and their acolytes to assess and value the wrong parameters and the industry has responded in kind making equipment that fulfill those parameters. We, as consumers, have followed along agog, like sheep to the slaughterhouse. The thing is this: we can take this back. When we reward manufacturers of gear that reproduce musically relevant parameters and eschew those who don't, the industry would either respond or die away. Forget the class of manufacturers that cater for the consumers of Veblen goods. They are not into hifi but into conspicuous consumption. They cater for a different Robb Report reading crowd whose needs do not gel with ours. Let them continue to eat marbled steak just because...The rest of us owe it to ourselves and other music lovers to seek out equipment that convey the emotion and intellect of music. Yes, I am aware that there are audiophiles who pride sonics and hifi spectaculars over music. But let us not confuse them for music lovers.
This is going to sound like a plug: I was intrigued by the Naim Nait 50 and hauled my arse over to the local Naim dealer. A simple system of Harbeth SHL5 Plus speakers fronted by a Rega Planar something-sorry, not up to speed on my Regaplanarology. Mine, oh mine! It was that old magic. One that engages me with the music on the platter. The magic that puts you into the sublimated state of consciousness. The Naim Nait 50 isn't cheap by today's money-neither were the Harbeths nor Rega Planar something- but it sure is a whole lot cheaper than many of the vulgar totems of consumerism passing off as hifi that I have heard. And no, it may not get any better when you move up the Naim hierarchy either. Even Naim have fallen into this hole of manufacturing Veblen goods. But there remains a glimmer of hope that perhaps someone at Naim is quietly in some rebel corner of the factory up in arms against this trend and producing a line of Naim classics as they used to be under Julian Vereker.
Good hifi equipment is still out there. Affordable ones, too, that don't require breaking the bank. We just need to know where to look for them prioritising musically relevant parameters and eschewing the misguided cant of the subjectivist hifi press. We need to talk about what those parameters are. A source could be mono, a one speaker hifi; as long as musically relevant parameters are reproduced, you can and do enjoy the music. On this note, I recall the sorely missed and misunderstood Rehdeko loudspeakers of France.
I think we need to listen anew, form our own manifesto and say No to the subjectivist press for they are grossly misleading music lovers with their cant.
Over to you.
I never stopped listening to music. I just stopped listening to music as an audiophile. After well-nigh two decades or more hiatus from the audiophile scene, I cracked open the pages of the rags and they blew me away with brands I hadn't heard of before with outsized price tags and outlandish claims to match. USD40K for a 3m pair of speaker cables? USD28K for a power cord? USD100K for a preamp? What have these guys been smoking? It is no longer hifi; it is now a market of Veblen goods, desired for their price tags and unaffordability to the masses than for their function. The function was only a pretence to justify their being. Pride comes from owning them and looking at them than from listening to MUSIC with them.
During my time away, I lost my audiophile credentials. I stopped listening as an audiophile: Out went soundstage layering, imaging dimensionality, height, breadth, depth, frequency extensions, bass slam or what have you, sonic holography, transparency, resolution, et alia, buzzwords of the subjectivist press. I learnt to listen naively as a non-audiophile music lover does. And what does a music lover listen for? A music lover listens for musically relevant parameters of music reproduction: pace, rhythm, timing, how tightly a group of musicians plays together, the subtle microdynamic shadings of a voice or instrument, the pluck of a string, the strike of a hammer, the ride of a cymbal, the purity of a note...the emotional content of music "cut of one cloth". Good live music performance carries us to a state of sublime consciousness, a state of lucid dreaming. And good music reproduction carries us to these same states. It is the reason why many non-audiophile music lovers can listen to a JBL or Marshall all-in-one and sing and dance to the tunes. The company that licensed the Marshall guitar amplifier brand name to create a series of Marshall all-in-one box sets sold so well that it owns Marshall the guitar amplifier company today. I have heard them: stripped away of all the audiophile pretensions and I heard the soul of music. And that is as it should be.
I was invited to a house of a very rich dude recently. He has a close to a million dollar price tag or more system that he was very proud of. He was not an audiophile per se but rather a consumer of Veblen goods: I don't know what is good so give me what is the most expensive in its class. I shan't name the brands of the equipment but you would all recognise the marques if you follow Stereophile and The Absolute Sound and are casual readers of The Robb Report.
I was blown away by the sonic energy that came out of the system. Gobsmacked. Listen to the treble. Feel the rumble of the bass. Listen to the tympani in the back row of the orchestra. Listen to where the violinist is placed on the soundstage. Listen to the sound pressure as the orchestra hits the crescendo. It was a hifi sonic spectacular in the worst sense of the word. But where was the music? Perhaps my plebeian ears are not suited to goods of such rarity. I thought I enjoyed my music more out of a Marshall Wotan.
I met an old friend from the days when hifi was about music reproduction, not an affectation of lifestyle. He still has his old Linn LP12 circa 1985-not the stupefyingly priced Linn LP12 of today-Naim NAC72, NAP140, Epos 14, NACA5 cables. He spun a few discs. And damn, there was that old familiar swing again, the foot-tapping singalong moment where you forget about hifi and revel in the music. Good hifi need not be the latest gear and need not cost a lot of money.
That was when I had my Damascene moment, an awakening, an epiphany: we have been misled by the American subjectivist press and their acolytes to assess and value the wrong parameters and the industry has responded in kind making equipment that fulfill those parameters. We, as consumers, have followed along agog, like sheep to the slaughterhouse. The thing is this: we can take this back. When we reward manufacturers of gear that reproduce musically relevant parameters and eschew those who don't, the industry would either respond or die away. Forget the class of manufacturers that cater for the consumers of Veblen goods. They are not into hifi but into conspicuous consumption. They cater for a different Robb Report reading crowd whose needs do not gel with ours. Let them continue to eat marbled steak just because...The rest of us owe it to ourselves and other music lovers to seek out equipment that convey the emotion and intellect of music. Yes, I am aware that there are audiophiles who pride sonics and hifi spectaculars over music. But let us not confuse them for music lovers.
This is going to sound like a plug: I was intrigued by the Naim Nait 50 and hauled my arse over to the local Naim dealer. A simple system of Harbeth SHL5 Plus speakers fronted by a Rega Planar something-sorry, not up to speed on my Regaplanarology. Mine, oh mine! It was that old magic. One that engages me with the music on the platter. The magic that puts you into the sublimated state of consciousness. The Naim Nait 50 isn't cheap by today's money-neither were the Harbeths nor Rega Planar something- but it sure is a whole lot cheaper than many of the vulgar totems of consumerism passing off as hifi that I have heard. And no, it may not get any better when you move up the Naim hierarchy either. Even Naim have fallen into this hole of manufacturing Veblen goods. But there remains a glimmer of hope that perhaps someone at Naim is quietly in some rebel corner of the factory up in arms against this trend and producing a line of Naim classics as they used to be under Julian Vereker.
Good hifi equipment is still out there. Affordable ones, too, that don't require breaking the bank. We just need to know where to look for them prioritising musically relevant parameters and eschewing the misguided cant of the subjectivist hifi press. We need to talk about what those parameters are. A source could be mono, a one speaker hifi; as long as musically relevant parameters are reproduced, you can and do enjoy the music. On this note, I recall the sorely missed and misunderstood Rehdeko loudspeakers of France.
I think we need to listen anew, form our own manifesto and say No to the subjectivist press for they are grossly misleading music lovers with their cant.
Over to you.
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