I was listening to the music. I wasn’t concerned with imaging, sound stage, tonal quality, wasn’t even thinking about it. I was listening to the music. It engaged me, I was lost in it. But then, I caught myself and started thinking about why it engaged me.
Its called audiophilia nervosa. Its a thing. We start out wanting a better system to enjoy listening to music even more. Well, some of us. There's a bunch who seem to never have cared about anything but tech. They can go do their thing. I'm not talking about them.
So we go looking for better sound and maybe its so the guitar sounds better, and maybe its electric guitar, maybe its acoustic. Maybe its the tambourine. Maybe its all of it. One thing leads to another and we're listening and comparing every little detail. A lot of the crap we were fed turns out to be BS, it really does sound better one way than another, and next thing you know you're never really happy until that one certain record late at night when everything's just right. Maybe not even then.
I went through it. Got to where I would call and make an appointment to audition an amp, tell the guy leave it on over night, or it'll be cold, don't want to hear no cold amp, then get there and of course he's just turning it on... argh! Only this time its a McCormack DNA1 and once it does warm up it has me toe tapping and forgetting my auditory checklist and that's when I know this is the one.
I actually had to stop and give it a break for a while. Well it had gotten to the point I was hearing the difference between brass, stainless steel and mild steel studs used to hold the Cones to the speaker. Right. Let that one sink in.
The good news, once you're aware of this, you can if you want learn to turn it off. Not perfectly. The mind does tend to wander, and you never can quite be sure to where. But more than enough to enjoy the music. More than ever.
