Hifi, why bother?

[ppppenguin]

The examples that Mark gives, show that audiophilia is more akin to religion than engineering. If people are buying this stuff then they are willing to put serious amounts of money down in pursuit of their particular grails. In a previous post I wondered about the types of engineers who design this stuff. You also wonder about the people who market the kit. Are they also true believers, who actually believe what they write, or hucksters who want to extract large amounts of money from people who are then giving it willingly. This latter is akin to some of the less reputable religious groups, where the leaders enrich themsleves greatly.

The professionals who are recording and/or broadcasting all the sound are generally a sensible lot. They only have to go from the control room to the studio to hear the actual sound. Though in the case of some music there isn't really anythng that could be defined as original. The recording IS the original sound. Lesser deception is also common. Apparently the late Little Richard didn't play the piano on all his recordings, though we are led to believe he did.

I go to live classical concerts (used to go, when will we be able to do so again?) which provide a reference point. Though the sound isn't always good. At a Prom last year I was in a poor seat at the Albert Hall. The balance between cello soloist and orchestra was probably much better in the BBC broadcast than what I heard live.

I've also been to live concerts which have used amplification and where the audible experience was horrible. An example a few years ago was a Turkish folk band playing at the Maltings, Snape. In the first half the sound operator had the belief that louder is better. It was painfully awful. Half the audience walked out. Those of us who stayed for part 2 actually heard the band. Somebody must have had a word with the sound guy. In that acoustically efficient space only the smallest amount of amplification was needed to tweak the balance.