Schroder sq and the new talea

Hello Ralph. Yes, thought is necessarily dualistic and temporally bounded, but I truly believe that there is correspondence between your designing mind and the mind that listens, and I think it can be more than a simulcrum of your original intent, or vision. I know this in your case because I have conducted the empiric injunctive of listening to your preamps. Their musical-ity (defined here as the ability to catalyze the mind to deeper symmetries of perception of meaning), I would kindly submit, is not a random occurence. The MP-1 is one of my favorites, for many reasons; some of them to be explained in words, some of them ineffable.

True, from a mechanical perspective, the creation of technology, or tools, is nothing more that the manipulation of matter into various forms, and it is certainly a tough row to hoe to embue the creative mind within that material creation...and yet, you keep on.

Funny how that happens...

M-

Asa, I was not saying that trans-cognitive knowledge stems from a failure of knowledge. Rather, in literary terms at least, there is merely a caution that any attempt to rationalize full absorption of the Other contains inevitably parasite potential that indicates "a crack" in the original notion of perfect symmetry. With respect to gladius, its quality(sharpness, hardness) cannot be entirely separated from its value or purpose in the context of its use in the service of imperialism. Similarly(but without the martial implication)a tonearm's quality cannot be separated from its value or purpose as a transcriptor. However, unlike the Gladius, there is enough deviation in theory, design, execution & measurement of tonearms(unlike the simple kill-shot of Gladius) to mostly confuse distinctions between quality and value, and to relegate judgment to opinion. For example, while debate continues regarding long vs. short pivot arms and even shorter linear arms, there has really been no success in ranking all of the variables of these divergent designs. As there is no reasonable prospect of synthesis, there is probably no possibility for a sine qua non of tonearms. And yet audiophiles yearn for this convergence, probably from the false assumption that these are at bottom simple devices.

To The O.P. Vertigo.Has your question been answered ????

Before I studied electronics, I used to wonder why no one had adopted the strategy of building a perfect circuit using perfect parts, so there could be no doubt among end users that the product was "perfect". Now that I know something about electronics, I fully realize that there is a large number of ways in which to design a potentially great phono stage. And once that's done, the choice of parts with which to build said phono stage constitutes yet another determinant of the outcome. There can never be any such thing as a perfect anything in audio, as is true of our other very earthly pursuits. Because this is the way I think about it, I may appear dismissive, when I say that the Talea and the Schroeder are just tonearms, albeit very fine examples of the tool. For that matter, the Gladius was just a sword. (By the way, my perception was that the gladius was a factor in Roman dominance in part because its short length, relative to the battle swords of the opposition, allowed it to be particularly maneuverable and therefore lethal in hand to hand combat, not per se because of superior metallurgy.)

As to what my brain is doing when I am not thinking. I can't know, but I do know that it is doing its most important work on unsolved problems, when I am thinking about something other than those problems. That mysterious process must have been at work for Schroeder and Durand when they conceived their respective products and probably still goes on for them. For any of us in creative pursuits, it is always going on.

Dgarr. Thank you for your response. This is, of course, the problem when we try to bound ourselves in literary terms; as in, the linguistic, academic regression that has occurred over the few last decades.

On this literary bug up our brain: Using the thinking mind to dissect metaphor/symbol/sign, etc. can certainly yield interesting sights and can point in some directions, as it has. But considering the moribund state of philosophy as a discipline, much less a search path, I think what we might actually might have been learning lately, collectively, is that this deconstruction is attempting to tell us to have the courage and creativity to move on to the next little road.

Of course, it does make for lots of nice, little published journal articles... ;0)

Lewn, nice post. But, you know, you can know. Your "mysterious" is not as far away from your waking world as you might, well, think.

Atmasph: I glanced at your post again, really like it. The intent thing is interesting. Heidegger looked at a painting of some old shoes by Van Gogh and was sure it was a proletariat-tinged in meaning, but Vincent's letters (to his brother Theo, I can't quit remember) show that it his intent was something else.

When I look at a painting, I first see its composition, the brushstrokes. This is when my cognitive processes are most engaged and I see its meaning in more objective terms. This is the same that we do with our stereos; we look for detail and value the objective when we first sit down (and which is the level that produces our audio language). As we sit and listen and our thinking mind calms its waters - as our waking day, prey-predator oscillating attachment to cognitive control fades - we experience the musical meaning from a deeper, but not separate, symmetry. And still, deeper, as the thought currents become relatively still, from another.

Atmasph, a submission for your consideration: perhaps Heidegger got it objectively wrong on the meaning at the shallower levels of perception, but, perhaps, the meaning at the deeper levels was wholly translated to him? When you create a preamp-tool-art, perhaps the objective intents that you envision are never quite translated in just the way you saw them, but perhaps the ineffable that you embue in that matter/energy contrivance does become more wholly translated. Perhaps, the deeper you go in perception, the more of meaning is translated? Of course, the thinking mind doesn't like this idea. I mean, the sum structure of your ideas about the world, the egoic structure, wants to be everything, right?

Atmasph, I would submit that the experience that makes your preamps like the Van Gogh painting is the meaning that is more wholly translated by it (not to consciousness, but in an event with it) at the deeper symmetries. Maybe this is why people want it but can't say exactly why.

Goldenguy: yes, you have a point...but its a big sandbox.

M-