An interesting range of responses.
Let's review (EOD (equal opportunity disparagement) --Trust, and wait until the end):
Elizabeth and Fin1bxn in the very high percentage camp, IrvRobinson who thinks "reproducing piano is almost too easy", the down-to-physics pragmatic science perspective of Br3098, Depotec who, while recording, compared one ear in headphones to one ear listening live (finding they were "VERY close") [which, the ears?], Elviukai who has calculated the cost of authentic sounding transducers to exceed NASA's budget in the 1960s, an invocation of a long-dead audio design star's opinion, Fin1bxn,a proponent of (relatively) modest priced electrostatics that feel like live music, and someone whose stratospheric spending, nor his friends' drastically irrational outlay get "sad to say [do you suppose so?] not even close to the real thing."
They --we-- all have differing perspectives on this question.
Does this cast a few things in high relief for you, as it does for me?
With 'authenticity of reproduction to live music' scores running the gamut from very low single digits to over 100 per cent ("sometimes ..recorded music can be more enjoyable than live"),
*Is it conceivable that people experience live music differently from one another?*
If you don't agree with that, at least I can better understand, now, why the audio-purchasing public supports so many products, particularly at the high end. (and why Audiogon does a booming business)
This thread --thank you, Peter Provocateur-- points up another thing: we expend a lot of energy talking, writing and socializing about music: all Thought Process, conducted between the ears. Coincidentally, that is where we hear every single nuance of live music, if or when we listen to The Reference, or accept it as such.
From the very broad spectrum of responses here (philosophical, economic, comparative (live to recorded in the same room), scientific, and deductive) it occurs to me that 1) when we're talking or writing or thinking about this enterprise, be it about equipment, recordings, comparison to live music, We Are Not Listening (sound like an Audio Club meeting?); 2) we are a group with *tremendous* imagination.
Use your imagination to listen Into the Music. And beyond the equipment. I'm still trying to learn it. And mood comes into it just as much --perhaps more-- than room treatment.
Make time for Listening. Not just to music, but to the quiet in your room BEFORE you turn on your equipment. Then CHOOSE to allow the music to transport you.
Life asks us, occasionally, to be a skeptic, someone who Jax2 a different drummer: often they, like the court jester, have something important to say. When you listen to music, turn out the lights, take off your glasses, make room in your mind for the same imagination that lets the written word leap alive from the page.
When you make this choice, the Muse-ic will be there to greet you, reward you, and expand your soul. It's in there. Just stop listening to the equipment. Put your skeptical, analytic mind aside and let the music rush in. The price or configuration of your system has naught to do with satisfaction: your decision to enjoy music is where the power lies.
After that choice, everything is play...
Thank you for your patience. The very best to you, and Happy Holidays!
David Kellogg
