do not get confused there are many people who truly love music and not high end audio equipment like us.
I know a few folks like that. My friend David is an ardent fant of music--all types--and every time I visit he has a new CD or record to play for me of something that is just AMAZING but I've never heard of.
However, he has absolutely NO interest in the high-end gear, at least no interest in owning any of it. I've tried to convince him to at least get some good speakers and a more powerful receiver, but he doesn't seem to be interested. I've had him over to listen to my rig, and even taken some of my gear over to play in his setup, and although he says he CAN hear the difference, and my rig DOES sound more "real" than his, he's just no interested in putting the time or money into a more musical sounding setup.
He also goes to a LOT of concerts, and takes in a lot of live music, and I think this may be why he feels the way he does. I know a LOT of musicians and live-music fans who have heard their favorite music performed in person time and time again, and many of them have systems that, by most of our standards, are frightful...
I believe that their memories make up for the deficiencies in their systems. People who hear live music all the time have amassed a tremendous memory bank of how their favorite music is SUPPOSED to sound, and when they hear it on systems that are not "audiophile" quality, the amazing power of the human brain can often "fill in the blanks" and smooth over the rough sonic edges. (I guess this explains Lou Lipnick's opinions, from when he used to write for Stereophile back in the '80's and 90's...:think: )
Such "filling in the blanks" when sensory data is missing or incorrect is a common phenomenon, and has been proven to occur for most of the senses--hearing, sight, reading, even smell. This is something, I think, that is an unfortunate side-effect of "civilization"--we become so trained to take in and process information quickly, and under such pressure, that our brains have learned that it's OK to make stuff up in order to furnish us with a "complete picture" of a given event, even if that internal impression of the "complete picture" is wrong. This "filling in the blanks" is not a phenomenon that is common among aboriginal peoples, or peoples who's very survival DEPENDS on accurate, truthful interpretation of their sensory surroundings. After all, if we read a headline with a typo and perceive it as being correctly spelled, it just makes us intellectually lazy. If an Inuit hunter perceived those three black dots in a snow bank as rocks (and not a hungry polar bear) he may end up as dinner rather than the diner...
I also believe that part of the "audiophile mentality" is training our brains to NOT do this--to return to a more "primative" way of processing sensory information so that we actually are perceiving EXACTLY what we hear. Some people can do this naturally. Some have to learn it. Some never can acquire this skill.
This, I believe, is one of the major differences between audiophiles and music lovers who are just perfectly happy with "consumer grade" gear. The majority of music consumers out there are essentially "sonically domesticated", whereas we, as audiophiles, somehow display some sort of retrogressive survival trait when it comes to processing sonic information, either through genetic inheritance, or intellectual training and cultivation of the skill.
That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it...
--Richard