Paul McGowan writes ......
My son Scott loves music; perhaps more than I. He’s willing to listen even if the recording is awful and is able to turn off the rejection mechanism so ingrained in my head as an Audiophile. Part of me wishes I was just as able to be that selective – because I’d get a lot more music on my plate than I do now – but then …..
What’s interesting to me is that as a budding Audiophile himself, he fully appreciates the wonder of a great musical performance AND a great sound presented on a proper system – yet he can toggle between the two modes.
For me, if the music is good enough and I object to the recording quality, I simply put it on my portable music system and listen when I go for a morning run. On the ear buds I can listen to almost any quality of recording and enjoy the music without prejudice because of the recording – but put it on the big system and I reach for the eject button.
“Back in the day” when I got started with high end audio, it was every person’s dream to have a “kick ass” stereo system and a huge collection of records – so much so that many of us had not much else to our names – there was the stereo, the records, perhaps a water bed and a smattering of furniture. We listened to everything and only criticized the music itself as being worthy of our time or not.
As I got older and my system got better, I started demanding more: good sound AND a good performance.
I am not willing to give up either at this point and so I spend time searching out better equipment and great performances that I haven’t heard. I am pretty convinced it’s not a bad thing – I wonder how close my experience relates to your own?
