On the draining of resonance.....

KN, in the Socratic tradition, your wisdom lies in not having knowledge of even one thing going forth, only to emerge with truth. I like to think so, anyway. Having little electronic knowledge, my DIY efforts have centered on the areas of room acoustics, building cables and the isolation of gear. These are product categories open for development by anyone, and it's just plain fun to achieve improvements on your own, without succumbing to the purple prose reminiscent of the Old West's traveling medicine show, where no claim is too fantastic to believe. It also helps to acquire finer new and used gear, even at reasonable cost--then the real DIY fun comes through, as you well know. Do you have some links to pics of your isolation/system?
Regards, Joe

In the Zen tradition wisdom resides in wanting what you do have and not wanting what you don't have.

Schubert, are you saying I should still be listening to my 1967 Magnavox all-in-one turntable/IA/speaker system?

Not to open a can of worms, but one of my Yoga instructors often refers to Yoga as an antidote for "spiritually deprived Westerners".

It resonates with me when stated. Not all Westerners are spiritually deprived of course and all are free to seek it out but spirituality is not a core tenet of modern Western Culture by any stretch so one has to find ways to seek it out on their own. Audiophiles included I suppose. Is teh gear teh end in of itself or a means to teh end of enjoying music, which IS often a spiritually uplifting event.

To me, music is my spirituality--it amazes, humbles and uplifts me. The system is my altar, out of which all nourishment flows. To acquire better sound is to bring a deeper reverence. It is a material pursuit in the interest of a spiritual revelation. Joseph Campbell remarked that the great cathedrals were built to render an experience of God. When you walk in, you are removed from your domesticity toward a deeper meditation. Even your local church, with the high ceiling and pipe organ, is meant to render a sense of that. And when you walk out, you are back to the pedestrian concerns of survival, etc. The goal, as he said, is to retain some sense of that meditation that transcends the more mundane concerns of life. This would also be the Zen state of being.
Anyway, let's start a new church out of our hobby. Each of our homes will be a sanctuary--we will call it Audiology, and we can all get tax breaks on our houses. We will need a high priest--anyone?
I am serious on the first part, though--I have been through a religious conversion, only to return to music as my inspiration.