[Audio_Empire[_2_]]

On Monday, August 5, 2013 1:32:20 PM UTC-7, Andrew Haley wrote:
Scott wrote:

On Monday, August 5, 2013 11:47:17 AM UTC-7, Andrew Haley wrote:

We're listening to people, not fiddles, and emotional communication
is the point.

You might be listening to people, I'm listening to '"fiddles".
That's what I go to concerts to hear. If I want to listen to
people, I can stay home and listen to a recording of Jascha
Heifetz playing the Sibelius violin concerto on SACD. 8^)

And emotional communication suffers serious loss through bad sound
or with a bad view. Our emotional connection comes via what we hear
and what we see.
Isn't that why we are all audiophiles?

To obsess about the sound quality at the expense of everything else.
To miss out on great performances because we don't like the PA System
/ hall / whatever. To value recalibrating our hearing of "real music"
over communicating with musicians. Hell, no!

I don't "communicate with musicians" at a concert, I listen to them.
And no, I won't lower my standards just because the rest of the
world lowers theirs.

To better connect with the recordings of the music we love through
better sound. That certainly is why I'm in it. Music is an aesthetic
experience so better aesthetics makes for a better experience.

And who'd deny that? It's a question of which is to be the master,
that's all. And I'm still appalled that Mr. Empire would miss out on
a great musical experience because he doesn't like PA systems.

You are just going to have to remain appalled, I'm afraid. I consider
listening to a PA system to be slightly lower on the scale of event
speciality than listening to a live concert via radio at home (I have
better amps and speakers than PA systems have) and far below listening
to a performance unamplified. Yes, I love music, but I love the SOUND
of music equally. One is as important as the other to me.