Opinion
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Transfiguration
Imagine a fly buzzing around in the Pinacoteca Vaticana in the Vatican City. It flies around and eventually lands on an oil painting – Transfiguration by Raphael. It looks at the couple square centimetres of surface it has landed on,…
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Music & Friendship
I was fortunate to be able to attend the Munich show again this year. In fact, after setting up the room, four days of exhibiting & packing up, I am now de-compressing in the Netherlands with my colleagues and friends,…
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Why do we like listening to sad music?
Hey Doc! What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel better after listening to sad songs? This one is a bit peculiar. Most of my music buddies suffer from the same affliction. No, not the ‘Audiophilus Nervosa’ – the inability…
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Maslow’s hierarchy of audiophile needs
I love listening to different hi-fi systems. I am intrigued by the differences – how we all go on a journey of discovery and find equipment that speaks our sound. I love it when I look at photos of different…
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Journey into the divine muse
John Mellencamp was once being interviewed by an enthusiastic young music journalist about his famous hit song ‘Jack and Diane’. At one point she asked him “John, did you intend to symbolise the experiences of typical teenagers growing up in…
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I’m sorry, you can’t measure emotion in music
I believe that music can be TRANSCENDENT. As with many artforms, if you are sensitive to it, if you are receptive enough, music can affect you on many levels. To someone like me, defining music as pure entertainment is a…
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Music in different languages
Have you ever considered both the freedom and the limitations our language imposes on us and how some languages are better than others for certain purposes? The German language for example, is great at describing scientific objects & phenomena. The…
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Music is a wonderful thing
A few weeks ago, I sat down one night after a long day, turned on the TV and became captivated by a documentary that was exploring the role of music in the treatment of people with various medical conditions. In…
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Are you a measure-ophile?
Can you predict how a car will feel to drive from its spec sheet or brochure? Can you tell if you will enjoy someone’s company by reading their personality profile, or how a meal will taste from looking at the…
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Listening vs hearing
Have you ever been accused by someone of having ‘selective hearing’? “You only hear what you want to hear!” My wife constantly complains that I never listen to her… or something like that… Recently I spent some time with a…
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Are you ‘vinyl’ by nature?
I was sitting around on a Saturday morning playing records with my son who had got some new fresh copies in during the week and the phone rang. Geoff Haynes says “hey I just got a boxed set of Rolling…
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X-Ray audio and bone music
This is a true story of how music has an incredible ability to transcend borders and cultures. What lengths will music lovers go to get their ‘fix’? Have you got any “bootlegs” in your music collection? Have friends ever commented…
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How do you evaluate sound quality?
What is great sound quality to you? Is it defined by a set of measurements or by how it makes you feel? Or both? When you sit in front of a hi-fi system to listen to music, at some point…
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Imaging & Soundstage
If you have an interest in achieving an enjoyable sound in your listening space, then you’ve probably heard of the terms ‘imaging’ and ‘soundstage’ a lot. But what do these terms actually mean and why is there so much conversation…
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Emotional connection is important to me
Have you got someone in your life, whom you know that when they recommend a movie to watch, you make sure that you NEVER see that movie? I do. Actually, I have few of those people in my life, but…
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What’s your audiophile tribe?
There is no ‘absolute truth’ in audio, just perspective. The appreciation of sound quality is a purely subjective experience, meaning it is based on personal beliefs, tastes and opinions that are open to personal interpretation, not facts. This is one…
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The amplifier / speaker relationship
I was having breakfast with Rumen Artarski from Thrax Audio at a Munich show some time ago and I asked him the tongue-in-cheek question about what defines a perfect amplifier. He mentioned that the challenge for an amplifier designer was…
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Are you on the equipment merry-go-round?
After speaking with so many audiophiles and music enthusiasts over the years, I am confident in saying that everyone just wants to achieve the best sound they can – to experience their music collection through a system that presents it…
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Would you arrange your music autobiographically?
If you are a ‘serious music head’, you may be familiar with the movie ‘High Fidelity’. In the movie, Rob (John Cusack) is the owner of a failing record store in Chicago, where he sells music only on vinyl at…
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Are you your playlist?
If you were asked to list your top 10 songs or pieces of music, how would you go about it? Could you even decide on a definitive list? I heard someone once say that a person’s essence can be boiled…