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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: The “Inverted High End Audio” ™
Post Subject: The part played by the "Inversion" of language itselfPosted by Paul S on: 10/13/2006
Well, this sounds pretty much like consumer society as a whole, where the consumer is fed only what he pays for many times over, and marketers chase their own tails looking for the next hot item, or at least the next popular catch phrase with which to move another slightly different version of the same old crap  "upmarket".
   In the case of audio, it seems like the language of music became music-ish somehow melded with electronic-ish, which has somehow been hijacked and morphed into a sort of industry-specific doublespeak that the "educated" consumer deciphers in order to pre-determine whether a given product is for him.  Ironically, this is also the "language" of the high end (not to be confused with High Art).  And it's long since lost the meaning it had when it was novel and just beginning to explore its subject.
   But I think this is the reason that art tries constantly to re-invent itself, in order to free itself from the clutches of Philistines and their debasement of its meaning.
   Do I understand you to say that you propose an actual commercial cure for this problem?  Because I think that if there is a cure then we are potentially the seeds of it (or not), if only because of your refusal to keep putting the information back into the "accepted" context, whereupon it would certainly be transposed and fed back to you as some sort of barely-recognizable product.   While the result of the process you describe as a possible cure is just that , a process, I have always felt a romantic attraction to the idea of a society that consisted of people who both liked and cared about their callings, and I have actually encountered a few isuch people in my lifetime.
   One of my own weaknesses, I think, is to be satisfied, or at least placated, with whatever "works", as though the world were some vast scrapyard to pick over.  I may have the oft-reinforced notion that there are already "good things" out there, if only one knows where and how to look.
   Except for phono stages.  All of those extant suck!

Best regards,
Paul S

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