Why Care About Good Sound

By mrgoodsound

I am sure a few readers of this post will have asked themselves at one point or another, regarding audio: "Why do I care? Is it really worth it?". For some, including myself, audio is serious business. I mean the investments made eventually become sacrifices, to where the audio lover begins to compromise other opportunities and facilities in life. Audio, as in all of life, has ups and downs. The path to good sound is not an even road, and the troughs can be cause for sometimes severe self-reflection. I have witnessed many, including friends, decide to stop the chase: selling off most or all of their equipment in an effort to downsize or quit the "hobby" altogether. Most often this happens during a low point, and not a high one. 

Why? For one, there are too many people on the path for the wrong reasons. I won't focus on them, because the end of their road is inevitable. However there are also many who simply become lost, falling victim to consumerist tendencies which lead to purchasing decisions made on the basis of a cloud of polluted information, which hangs like a fog over today's audio marketplace. Even with the purest of intentions (how many times have you heard someone say a cliché like "it's all about the music?") you can only follow winding roads so far before you realize there is no end in sight.

The traveler has to have resolve. On a long hike, your resolve comes mainly from knowing how far you've come, and how far you've yet to go. But for the field of sound reproduction, the destination is vague, considering 'gains' are theoretically infinite, the destination is always shifting in the traveler's fickle mind. Except if you are one of those very smart audio science people, in which case, you have everything figured out. 

Fairy tales aside, you have to have a strong and unwavering conception of what can be. This is not a concept of what your system can be, for someone who is interested in equipment (aren't we all?) will have an ever-changing and often never-ending evolution of that concept. The concept of what can be must be focused on your state as a listener, on what level of perception (consciously, subconsciously) you may receive music, and the convenience with which you may do so. 

As an extreme example, I have met audiophiles with very expensive systems who only engage with them in tandem with another activity, such as watching a football game or browsing the internet. For such a listener, not even their conscious is fully engaged, let alone their subconscious, and therefore it is no wonder that such an individual could one day sell all of their equipment, purchase a Bose radio, and feel like they were missing very little. Why should they care? It certainly wasn't worth it for them. And yet this extreme example is not so far off from reality for a large number of people who engage in this "hobby". Despite fleeting highs usually obtained from an endless exchange and acquisition of equipment, they are never more than one or two steps removed from just quitting. And these steps are usually more along the lines of "what will all my friends think of me?" or a sunk cost fallacy than an actual fear of returning to a lesser sound system.

I will provide a personal anecdote. Most recently I have been in a 'low': my trusted digital source, a 2008 Mac Pro computer, went on the fritz and refused to communicate with my USB/SPDIF converter. I would consider myself a tech-savvy person, and yet roughly 3 weeks of continuous troubleshooting and experimenting proved unsuccessful to fix it (as of this post, I am still trying). In the interim, I had to have music, so I started trying many different computers in its stead. Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, all of them sounded worse than the 2008 Mac. It is frustrating enough to have computers and software perform differently, but the fact that a solution I was quite content with suddenly stopped working was difficult even for my resolve to handle. I have other sources and systems to listen to music on of course, but I relied on my main system to be where I could consistently engage with music on the highest level of perception. 

What could be for me no longer was. During this low I even started contemplating selling some of my more prized equipment as the memory of 'what could be' faded further into the distance, replaced by a new normal in which I became used to engaging with music on a lower and more obscure level. After cursing myself while reinstalling the operating system on my Mac for the 6th time, I caught myself asking why do I care? Is it really worth it? 

These questions and the accompanying sour mood continued until tonight, where I stayed up to watch a film recommended by a friend, Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019). Without spoiling anything, I will attempt to explain that I had the most profound experience. The film can be described as deliberate and slow-paced, with only two pieces of music used throughout the two-hour runtime. The first, an original choral composition, is used to signify a turning point in the plot; though I was so engrossed in the movie at that time I did not think too much of it once it had passed. The second, however, comes right at the end. The presto movement from Vivaldi's Summer is used as a powerful catharsis for both the characters in the film and the audience; as the preceding 10 minutes formulate an emotional cliffhanger.

My reaction to the ending sequence was physical: my body seized, I began to feel numb in my forearms, my eyes involuntary began to well, I developed a lump in my throat. The only way I can think of to describe the experience for someone who has not seen the movie, is that for 120 seconds I felt close to God. I am not even a religious person. It was 4 AM when the movie ended and it was time to go to bed, but the effects lingered: I was alternating between giddy and nauseous, a state of laughing and crying. I realized it would be physically impossible to go sleep, the process of catharsis that the film and its music began had to be finalized with some sort of output. Almost immediately, the creative inspiration to write this (in)coherent article formed.

The clever reader is probably asking: "What are you getting at? Surely you watched this movie on a low-fidelity sound system! So are you saying high-end audio isn't a worthwhile pursuit after all, because such experiences can be had outside of it?"

Yes and no. Yes because like the characters in the film, which is set in 18th century France, you can have deep human experiences with music well outside the scope of a high-end audio system. Sometimes, I have them with my car radio. No because the experience I just described could be had at almost any time, on a consistent basis, with my home audio system (when the Mac was working!). Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered how to do that with my car stereo or $15 Koss headphones. This may sound far fetched to some. Indeed such a state of listening is generally reserved for sensitive and open-minded people, for lack of better descriptors.

So to return to the question: "Why do I care?", the answer must be that without what can be, I am truly missing the ability to have deep human experience with music on a consistent (almost on demand!) basis. If you have a lot (in your estimation) of money invested into your system and you are not getting this experience, then the question "Is it really worth it?" becomes difficult, but perhaps necessary, to answer.

The trailer for the film is linked below. If it intrigues you, and you do not mind films with more 'deliberate' pacing, I highly recommend it.