MrMateoHead
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2012
- Posts
- 963
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- 121
Quote:
Take it from an expert source then, Merriam and Webster: Facetious: joking or jesting often inappropriately
I was expressing an opinion and enjoying myself at the same time, is that OK in a complicated world? Sound and Sound equipment are not = Complex Automobiles. Hence inappropriateness. Yet, it was funny (to me and others I would hope).
Those that took offense are entitled to their opinions, facts, and emotions. If anything is clear to me, it is that "pure science" and "pure marketing" (of ideas and of course products), is an increasingly conflated or distorted practice which makes faith, even in fact, extremely difficult. Facts are easy to manipulate at times to serve ideas, and ideas are far more elegant constructions that are also difficult to deconstruct as some facts will support them. There is always the crisis of making a choice. I suspect it has something to do with people resisting the obvious problem that rational thought and facts will only ever get us so far. More importantly, I think that there will always be more problems in observance than there will be facts to describe or to solve them. Given my experience of head-fi, I remain skeptical of the value of burn-in. Moving on . . . ?
Your comments RE: people's ability to "avoid" reality and fact by hating on wealthier headfiers or those with listening "skills" is curiously divisive considering that there are many means of measuring performance of equipment as well as ears in an objective way. I noticed your self-professed bias for "live acoustic music" as the "only reference" of value in terms of evaluating the performance of, what . . . headphones? I hope you mean live acoustic music such as a symphony hall, and not a concert that includes mixers, amplifiers, and bright lights. There is no comparison really, and even an honest attempt to "match" the performance will fail, unless the criteria is carefully determined, isolated, and analyzed. The reductionism implicit in this process almost gaurantees that we will all be left impressed, but "wanting" for more - without doing the rational thing, like going to an actual acoustic performance.
Suddenly, the value of the crappy iPod is apparent. More music reaching more people, when they want it, how loud they want it, etc. Rather than attempt to coerce preference (by demanding they select only that which sounds closest to "real life"), we attempt to let the individual decide. As you note, perhaps the "real" benchmark should be the millions of cheap Mp3s, iPods, and skull candy buds. If that is what "the people" and by extension "the market" deem to be the reference standard for modern music, well, your preference for concert starts to seem quite particular. Yet you are critical of those people that not only "don't get it", but buy crap off the shelf rather than pouring in their learning and resource. What goes around comes around. I don't come here to debate the "facts" or to get "the facts". Forums are nothing but imperfect mediums for bringing persons with similar interests together. I consider it a social platform first, and a "fact" platform last.
But the fact is, I need to get back on a discussion of the HE-400s! I am glad I caught your attention K, but I did not start the "burn-in" digression.
If you are being facetious, then you are mocking the idea that burn-in is imaginary ?
The point here is that there is an emotional fad lately that says - subconsciously, not consciously:
It's interesting that this fad coincides with a new generation who have grown up listening to worse and worse sound quality in the form of MP3s on iPods and ear buds, and who have become entirely disconnected from any reference point of sound quality in the form of live acoustic music. At the same time, media like CNN and the New York Times have strongly encouraged people in general to express opinions on anything and everything, rather than the previous standard of only commenting on something within one's expertise.
The result is that threads like these are increasingly cluttered by people expressing opinions on things that they know absolutely nothing about, and doubling down by trying to support opinions when they are wrong.
Take it from an expert source then, Merriam and Webster: Facetious: joking or jesting often inappropriately
I was expressing an opinion and enjoying myself at the same time, is that OK in a complicated world? Sound and Sound equipment are not = Complex Automobiles. Hence inappropriateness. Yet, it was funny (to me and others I would hope).
Those that took offense are entitled to their opinions, facts, and emotions. If anything is clear to me, it is that "pure science" and "pure marketing" (of ideas and of course products), is an increasingly conflated or distorted practice which makes faith, even in fact, extremely difficult. Facts are easy to manipulate at times to serve ideas, and ideas are far more elegant constructions that are also difficult to deconstruct as some facts will support them. There is always the crisis of making a choice. I suspect it has something to do with people resisting the obvious problem that rational thought and facts will only ever get us so far. More importantly, I think that there will always be more problems in observance than there will be facts to describe or to solve them. Given my experience of head-fi, I remain skeptical of the value of burn-in. Moving on . . . ?
Your comments RE: people's ability to "avoid" reality and fact by hating on wealthier headfiers or those with listening "skills" is curiously divisive considering that there are many means of measuring performance of equipment as well as ears in an objective way. I noticed your self-professed bias for "live acoustic music" as the "only reference" of value in terms of evaluating the performance of, what . . . headphones? I hope you mean live acoustic music such as a symphony hall, and not a concert that includes mixers, amplifiers, and bright lights. There is no comparison really, and even an honest attempt to "match" the performance will fail, unless the criteria is carefully determined, isolated, and analyzed. The reductionism implicit in this process almost gaurantees that we will all be left impressed, but "wanting" for more - without doing the rational thing, like going to an actual acoustic performance.
Suddenly, the value of the crappy iPod is apparent. More music reaching more people, when they want it, how loud they want it, etc. Rather than attempt to coerce preference (by demanding they select only that which sounds closest to "real life"), we attempt to let the individual decide. As you note, perhaps the "real" benchmark should be the millions of cheap Mp3s, iPods, and skull candy buds. If that is what "the people" and by extension "the market" deem to be the reference standard for modern music, well, your preference for concert starts to seem quite particular. Yet you are critical of those people that not only "don't get it", but buy crap off the shelf rather than pouring in their learning and resource. What goes around comes around. I don't come here to debate the "facts" or to get "the facts". Forums are nothing but imperfect mediums for bringing persons with similar interests together. I consider it a social platform first, and a "fact" platform last.
But the fact is, I need to get back on a discussion of the HE-400s! I am glad I caught your attention K, but I did not start the "burn-in" digression.