some stark changes happening in me...i am seeing myself veering away from being a hardcore audiophile towards a much more serious musicphile (i was already serious before), thanks largely to my recent involvement in my audiophile CD project.
gone are the days where i look forward to house-to-house visits to listen to others' systems and spend countless hours at the mamak stalls talking about nothing but hifi. such activities are still fun, once in a while, and with the right crowd, but i no longer yearn for it. there are many reasons for that. chief of all is the politics behind this hobby. it is not really my character to take the mickey out of someone's system and offer quick-fix solutions to whatever perceived shortcomings in his system. many audiophiles revel in such activities but that's not really the most intellectual part about this hobby, for me at least.
making my first album makes me realize that hifi is nothing but a conduit, some neatly assembled hardware to produce the kind of sound that i want. ultimately, it is the music that touches my soul and moves me. now that i have found the hifi sound that i desire, i am going to concentrate on discovering more good music, or better still, make music that i like, and hopefully other people would like.
which is not to say i am not going to upgrade or dabble in hifi anymore. far from it. i am going to be much more critical in selecting hifi components from now onwards cos i now know the process of music-making and i have better understanding of the oft-abused term "musicality". i have witnessed the difference in roger wang's guitaring, based on his moods, health conditions and feel for the music. musicality is such an abstract thing that it has to be heard to believe.
and the wonderful thing is, now when i sit in my sweet spot with my system on, i am less anal (well, a leopard cannot change its spots overnight ;-) about the little blemishes here and there. instead, i just get drown in the music.
and if that little ipod or MP3 player can give you the same vibes without spending the kind of money that i spent, you are indeed very lucky ;-)
infrequent updates
8 years ago
5 comments:
Re: It Is The Music
Good for you. May I suggest 陳建年(Taiwanese folk), 林一峰 (HK indie Pop), 洪啟(China folk).
Modern-folk Fan
You are far behind me but I am still glad you found music more enjoyable than hifi.
The last time I have this hifi upgraditis bug was over a year ago when I started to complain about everything....the high is not pristine enough, the mid wasn't meaty enough, the bass isn't defined enough, the speed is too slow etc. I switched everything off for 6 months and when I came back and switched on my hifi and I was saying to myself....hey, this isn't half bad and I realized I was playing with the equipments instead of listening to music before. Never looked back since and the only 'down-grade' is to replace the more expensive KCAG i/c to a no-name copper that cost a fraction of that. I am at peace now and so have you.
And having said that, I still attend KLAV shows for the fun of it. Not because of upgraditis.
i have reviewed two chet lam (林一峰) albums before. search under music review or music preview ;-)
Leslie,
Go find/buy Mike Stern's PLAY album. Put the CD in your CD player. Hit Play. Go do your things... But u can't do your things bcos u'll be drawn in by THE MUSIC. U'll want to sit down and listen to it. ... It's that good. Mike Stern - Play.
glysinn,
write a review then and give us some samplers to try ;-)
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