[D.Kreft]

The question may seem a bit odd, but here's where it's coming from...

When I had a really nice system in my car[1], I noticed that I tended
to enjoy my music a bit *less* at times than I used to. My system
imaged quite well and sounded *really* good with everything from Tower
of Power to Guns 'n' Roses to Dynamixx to Art of Noise, but every once
in a while I would find myself getting sick of the way the system
sounded, so I'd turn it off and drive around in silence for a while[2].


During the majority of the time, when I was actually enjoying my system
for all it was worth, I found myself turning-up my nose at songs I used
to love before I got into the world of high-end audio because the
recording wasn't as good as it "should have been" (this is particularly
true of songs I grew up with---songs from the 60's and 70's). I never
thought the songs sounded bad before, but when you pipe a
less-than-stellar recording through a system designed to be very high
resolution, you wind up hearing all the "crap" that you never knew was
in the recording in the first place because your OEM system never let
you hear it.

I guess you could say that my "innocence was lost" because I could hear
things that I never knew were there before, and I was such a
perfectionist that those songs which I once enjoyed I started to
loathe. Granted, having a high-fidelity system opens up a whole world
of musical information that most people don't even know exists (below
60Hz and above 16kHz), and with that new world comes some really
thrilling moments where the music *feels* as good as it sounds...but in
retrospect, it seems almost sad that I "had" (due to my own
perfectionism) to turn my back on the music of my youth and the
attendant nostalgic feelings.

Then there's the constant feeling of "gotta-get-mo'-betta-equipment"
(which caused me to ride around in silence for a while), which detracts
from the joy of the music, too, but that's probably another thread
altogether. :-)

Can anyone else given even a low-Q resonance with what I'm describing
here? I've found that since I've left the (expensive) world of high-end
car audio, I'm no longer snooty about who's car I'll ride in[3], and I
no longer turn my nose up at good music recorded poorly.

-dan

---- Footnotes

[1] My system was comprised of the following (forgive the lack of model
numbers...I don't remember them all):
1 - Denon CD Player
1 - Sony 10-Disc CD Changer
1 - PrecisionPower (PPI) 5-band quasi-parametric EQ
1 - PPI 2-way XO
1 - PPI 4050AM (50W x 4 @ 4) [mids & highs]
2 - JL Audio REF 100 (50 x 2 @ 4) [subs]
1 - MB Quart 328CS (6.5", 4", 0.75") [front speakers--doors &
dash]
1 - MB Quart 160KX (6.5" coax) [rear speakers]
1 - JL Audio 5.25 coax [center channel]
4 - JL Audio 15W5, isobarically-loaded, ported box

[2] Good thing, too, because it was usually during these silent driving
moments that I would hear very strange noises eminating from my engine
compartment--like the time my water pump went "poo-poo" and I drove
around with it for God knows how long before realizing what was going
on!

[3] Yeah, I was such an audio snob that when my friends and I would go
somewhere, I'd insist we ride in my NON-air conditioned '78 Accord (in
South Florida) instead of a friend's car that was perhaps 10 years
newer and *had* A/C....all because I had a far superior sound system.