What are we all seeking? Are we seeking the audio equivalent of opium? A nice warm blanket that protects us from the ravages of day to day life?
I’ve always been curious if summitfi folks have had childhood trauma that they are compensating for. Maybe that’s where the addiction portion comes in. No offense as I am one of them. I have friends with great childhoods and they are more than happy with their HD650 and Schiit stack. Just wondering. Take care.
Well, my "trauma" is that I would have ideally liked to become a musician. I enjoyed playing different instruments as a kid, particularly in my teenage years. but that ambition was knee-capped very early by people in my life who believed a professional musician's life was for losers, so to speak, and not to put a fine point on it. Instead, I was encouraged to get a regular college degree first, and then go to grad school, and the rest is what has become my official adult "history".
To be fair, I was born in a part of the world where, although music itself is more valued as a "natural" part of regular daily life, actual professional careers in music are not as esteemed as others, because of reasons that arise from the cultural history of that area. It is what it is. Can't do much about so-called "traditions." Be that as it may, those prejudices (which include those of my own parents) may have helped to shape my choices in higher education and a career path, but they did not kill my passion for music itself by throttling my ambition to develop my skills in playing the instruments... I did actually play in my fair share of amateur bands in both high school and college, but not to anywhere near the degree of dedication that a full-blown career in music and performance would have required.
So I am a "frustrated musician" at heart, if that is the right expression for it (I prefer the expression "unfulfilled musician")... I hope you would not call me pretentious if I mention to you that I do not merely enjoy the music I listen to. I also have to imagine myself playing some of my favorite instruments along with the musicians in some of the pieces I listen to. I do not merely sing along or try to hum the tunes of instruments, or imitate mentally the sounds of drums and some percussion instruments in those pieces: sometimes I even conduct imaginary orchestras, by waving my arms when alone and no-one is watching. There are also times when I even feel like competing with some of my favorites composers and artists--e.g. doing an imaginary piano duel with Keith Jarrett as I listen to him play Carnegie Hall, lol. Mind such an imaginary "duel" happens in a "friendly" way, as I do not really believe I could ever out-Chopin Chopin, for example, out-Jarrett Keith Jarrett or or out-Hendrix Hendrix, or come even close to any of them . The point is that listening to music always has the potential of becoming an overly intense experience, one that involves not only states of the passive enjoyment of beautiful pieces, but also imaginary acts of creative performance that some my find a little neurotic or even "nutty."... Am I crazy? I shall leave it at that...
"Trauma"? I do not have enough expertise to diagnose this behavior as the effects of a "traumatic" stifling of skills that were not fully developed. I am sure if you were to tell those who were responsible for my upbringing that they "traumatized" me by steering me away from a possible career path in music, toward what they considered to be a more traditionally stable and "sane" form of professional life, you're going get a bunch of dirty looks and rolled eyes fin return or your efforts... I personally do not fault my parents for that, or carry any excessive baggage of bitterness on account of the way I was brought up...Still, I think my experience as an enthusiast in music shows a few marks of what one might call "overcompensation."
Are you a victim of "trauma," if your parents steered you away from something you were passionate about in you youth, such as playing football or basketball, toward a career path they considered to be more "professionally" reliable and sound, such as that of engineering or management, even if such a career was not really your "first passion?
When all is said and done, I do not think I am the only such "frustrated" or "unfulfilled musician" in the world... Far from it, although I think calling my enthusiasm for music and audiophile equipment an "addiction" is not too much of a stretch. Now if you ask me "what I am seeking," I'll answer that I'm always looking for moments of mental cleansing and thrills, for experiences of emotional elevation and psychological intoxication from my listening, the more intense the better, like everybody else
I stopped watching once he said about high power to planar magnetics was a myth !
