How much money do you want to waste?

hmmm... the argurment I previously posted wasn't mine. It's Asa's arguement in simplified form.

I never really attempted to reduce human technology from a linear progressism to a circular attachment. I rather think the two goes hand in hand. On the same note, I deduce it's impossible for people such as audiogon members to listen to hi-fi without their objective goggles on: this isn't a symptom of technological attachment, but it is their intrinsic want to improve their system to result in a no objective goggle-needed enjoyment so long as hi-fi is limited and inferior to reality.

Asa seems to bring up many intersting points tho, not just about audio, but about the overall faults in human nature as concluded by the Buddha and Lao Tzu: Buddha claims human cause pain to themselves when they require attachment to materialism, and Lao Tzu wants us to reduce our objectivity to nothing, wu-wei.

I often thought audio is some sort of western technology meets eastern philosphy type of soup.

First of all, one must agree that no cables in the world can make your system sound better. You pick the cable that can least degrade the sound coming out of your system.
On that basis, different cable design should sound differently in your system. How well you like each difference is entirely judge by your taste of sound, like cooking, some like it sweeter, some like it more salty. Since all cables are subject to electrical reactions, the same cable can sound different in your systems than in another system. Try connecting the same interconnects in different positions in your system, you will appreciate what I have just said. If you hear no difference at all, then, you are one of the luckiers ones who don't need to spend or shouldn't be spending anything on cables !

My point - without saying it - was that you, Viggen, mistated my argument. Thank you for your reasoned response. Yes, there is a relationship between the open-ness advocated in eastern philosophies and the receptivity, "letting go" to objective attachment, that I discussed regarding music listening (or any apprehension of "beauty"). They are the same things. I agree with you that our technology of stereo equipment will never approximate "Reality" (ignoring the fact that no-thing escapes from reality) in the sense that we will never, in an objective sense, copy music playing with a stereo rendition. However - and this is also an objectivist's bias - this contains another implicit assumption, namely, that it is impossible to replicate the EXPERIENCE subjectively. In other words, we should not only be trying to reproduce sound in an objective sense (sound), but also reproduce the dynamic of cognitive fading (receptivity)that occurs both in stereo listening and "real" (music) listening. When one accepts blindly the assumption that objective cues are most important then one, by default, assumes that the dynamic subjective experience can not be approximated to a greater and greater degree that exceeds the objective level's ability to approximate. I am saying that, yes, objective qualities are important - Science is important, objective thinking is important - but an attachment to believing that that is more important than the cognitive fading dynamic is irrational because it denies the nature of the experience in one's own mind as one listens to music. When the thinking-attached deny other potential experiences of reality because they are not objectively derived, they effectively deny the evidence of the listening experience that they themselves are engaged in. This is a denial of their own potential to listen deeper into the music, and into "Reality."

Oh yea, for those of you who just HATE this kind of talk, I will, on your behalf, rename this thread, "How much time do you want to waste?" :)

Yes, it goes without saying that nothing can recreate "experience", and, as Zen would explain, any attempts to reconstruct retrospective phenomenon is further from reality:

I think audiophiles have often experienced a temporal sense of accomplishment where they've reached a point where they think their system is perfect until the next better cd player, speaker or cable comes along. Our subjectiveness is often fooled into thinking how much more real or better our system sounds by a tweak or an upgrade, but, like I said, it is only temporal. I would explain that their image of reality is projected onto their system rather than the system recreating reality. And we only realize this when we compare to a better system or live music.

This doesn't mean our enjoyment is diluted because it is not a perfect copy of the original live performance. However, we have intrinsic want to achieve the ability to replicate that live "experience".

Yes, the need to upgrade and the end result of an audiophile's achievements are nothing objective. However, in achieving this goal, the actions and science are purely objective.