Shadrone, Love your summary. It's been said before though. To no avial, unfortunately.
IMHO, the reality is that a lot of folks need to reinforce their personal observations/beliefs so they make a polorizing statement to find support from like believers. A human condition that defies any rational cure. After they have found their counterparts they form a gang and attack all others as non-believers.
It all starts with the title of the thread. If anyone thinks that any particular format has 'soul' they are listening to the wrong thing. Any 'soul' to be found is found in the music, and it can be heard live or over boom boxes by those who have an open mind and ears, those who are not just obsessed with the quality of sound reproduction.
Interestingly the self-proclaimed 'music lovers' who decry and avoid any one particular format because of its inability to convey the soul of music, have no real interest in music. It is just a vehicle for the sound. What they worship is the sound.
One of my favorite performances of Mussorgsky's Pictures is a 1956 recording of a live performance by Richter. I have it on both LP and CD. It is a terrible recording! In either format! But, IMHO, no better performance has ever been recorded. I suspect many audiophiles, in particular, but especially format freaks, would never 'hear' its greatness, or even listen to it, because of recording issues.
Its OK to focus on sound quality, after all it is the foundation of this hobby, but lets not get sanctimonious and pretentious about format preferences having 'soul' or being able to convey 'soul'. That is nothing more, or less, than a bumper crop of crap, being farmed by a bunch of past, present, or future merchants. IMHO of course.
If 'soul' is something to be discussed, why don't we just start a new thread about which religion best portrays or encoumpasses 'soul'. Now that would really be fun!
Rant over. :-)
IMHO, the reality is that a lot of folks need to reinforce their personal observations/beliefs so they make a polorizing statement to find support from like believers. A human condition that defies any rational cure. After they have found their counterparts they form a gang and attack all others as non-believers.
It all starts with the title of the thread. If anyone thinks that any particular format has 'soul' they are listening to the wrong thing. Any 'soul' to be found is found in the music, and it can be heard live or over boom boxes by those who have an open mind and ears, those who are not just obsessed with the quality of sound reproduction.
Interestingly the self-proclaimed 'music lovers' who decry and avoid any one particular format because of its inability to convey the soul of music, have no real interest in music. It is just a vehicle for the sound. What they worship is the sound.
One of my favorite performances of Mussorgsky's Pictures is a 1956 recording of a live performance by Richter. I have it on both LP and CD. It is a terrible recording! In either format! But, IMHO, no better performance has ever been recorded. I suspect many audiophiles, in particular, but especially format freaks, would never 'hear' its greatness, or even listen to it, because of recording issues.
Its OK to focus on sound quality, after all it is the foundation of this hobby, but lets not get sanctimonious and pretentious about format preferences having 'soul' or being able to convey 'soul'. That is nothing more, or less, than a bumper crop of crap, being farmed by a bunch of past, present, or future merchants. IMHO of course.
If 'soul' is something to be discussed, why don't we just start a new thread about which religion best portrays or encoumpasses 'soul'. Now that would really be fun!
Rant over. :-)
