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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Accuracy vs. Musicality (and YMMV)
Post Subject: The quote of the year!Posted by Romy the Cat on: 1/22/2026
 rowuk wrote:
 My take on audio accuracy is like my take on Bach - there is a lot more than just an amp or just harmonies. As I do not even consider accuracy to be a "thing" in audio hardware, I do not chase it. My interests are in my application.

Robin, your statement — “my interests are in my application” — expresses a far more sophisticated epistemological position than it might appear at first glance. It is not a casual preference, nor merely a pragmatic orientation. It is not even fully a choice. Rather, it is the articulation of a deep principle about how knowledge comes into being and how meaning is validated.
 
At its core, this formulation rejects the idea that knowledge exists primarily as an abstract, detached structure waiting to be contemplated. Instead, it asserts that understanding emerges through use, through embodiment, through action. What you are pointing to is the primacy of application as the site where truth reveals itself. Knowledge that remains unapplied is, in this view, incomplete—not false, but unrealized or… become irrelevant. It is like in Software engineering you can make a functionality and to be able to work with any abstract objects that have no specific definitions.
 
This is why the phrase is not simply instrumental or utilitarian. It does not say, “I value usefulness over theory.” It says something much stronger: that theory itself is inseparable from its enactment. Interests are not arbitrary preferences layered on top of cognition; they are expressions of orientation. To say that your interests are in your application is to acknowledge that your cognitive commitments are structured by engagement with reality, not abstraction from it.
 
There is also an implicit humility in this stance. It recognizes that one does not stand outside the system of knowledge as a sovereign observer. Meaning is discovered while doing, not prior to doing. In that sense, the formulation aligns with a deeply embodied sequence: understanding is negotiated between intention, constraint, actions, perception, feedback, and consequence, perception alternation...
 
This is why the statement is not something one simply decides to adopt. It reflects a mode of being in relation to knowledge. It is descriptive before it is normative. You are not claiming superiority over other approaches; you are naming the level at which truth becomes visible for you. And once that level is recognized, it cannot be unrecognized.
What appears simple on the surface is, in fact, a concise expression of a mature epistemic posture: knowledge justified not by elegance alone, nor by coherence alone, but by lived integration with reality itself. Alan White would be happy for you.
 
There are two very different kinds of people in high-end audio. If I were Schopenhauer, I’d say: would say avoid both of them, because both are still forms of attachment. One is attached to external validation; the other is attached to the self and its refinements. From his view, they differ in sophistication, not in bondage. One chases approval, the other chases mastery — but both are still driven by will. But I am not Schopenhauer.
The first type builds and judges a system by looking outward. He relies on reviews, measurements, famous brands, price tags, and what other people say is “correct.” His confidence comes from agreement. If many respected sources praise a component, he feels safe using it. When something sounds wrong, he explains it by pointing outside himself: the room is bad, the recording is bad, the format is bad, or “that’s just how it’s supposed to sound.” His personal identity is not involved. The system could belong to anyone. He is following a map drawn by others.
 
The second type works very differently. He uses his own hearing, memory, nervous system, and lived experience as the primary reference. He listens carefully, changes one thing at a time, and notices how it actually affects him. If something sounds wrong, he assumes responsibility first. He does not ask, “Is this correct according to others?” but “Is this true in my direct experience?” His system is inseparable from him. It could not have been built by someone else, because it reflects how he perceives sound.
 
The difference is not intelligence, money, or technical knowledge. It is where authority lives. In the first person, authority lives outside. Validation is external and projective. He borrows certainty from the group. In the second person, authority lives inside. Validation comes from direct contact with reality. He trusts his own mind, psyche, and experience — and accepts the burden that comes with that trust. This is why the second person is harder to understand and harder to imitate. There is no checklist to follow and no consensus to hide behind. Every decision exposes the person making it. The result is not just a sound system — it is a statement of personal responsibility.
 
That was exactly what I was describing above to Jarek. Three levels of metacognitive monitoring in audio
 
Level 1 — Unreflected perception  - Object Perception

 This level is simple: I hear something and I react to it. The person asks questions like:   
 
There is no monitoring of how the judgment is formed. Perception is taken at face value. Taste feels natural and self-evident. At this level, the listener assumes their reaction is the reality of the sound. Most people in high-end audio remain here permanently.
 
Why? Because this level is:  
The industry depends on this. Marketing, reviews, brand mythology, price signaling — all of it works only if people do not examine how their perception is being shaped. Level 1 listeners are ideal consumers: sincere, reactive, and confident without being reflective.
 
Level 2 — Monitoring the act of listening (self-awareness)

 At the second level, the person begins to notice the listener, not just the sound. Now the questions change:
 
 
This is where most people stop advancing — and many retreat. Why? Because Level 2 introduces instability. Taste no longer feels pure. Certainty weakens. Identity becomes negotiable. The person realizes they are not just hearing sound — they are participating in a psychological process.
 
This level threatens:
 
 
As a result, audio culture quietly discourages it. People who linger here are often labeled as overthinking, cynical, or “not enjoying the music.” In reality, they are doing something much more difficult: holding perception and self-doubt at the same time.  Very few people stabilize at this level — but those who do stop being useful to the industry and since the audio community is juts a herd of blind and stupid sheep death of industry means death of community.
 
Level 3 — Monitoring the structure that produces meaning (epistemic awareness)

 At the third level, the person no longer focuses primarily on sound or on themselves as a listener. They observe the entire system that makes “audio judgment” possible at all.
 
Questions now look like: 
·         What kind of person does this practice require me to be?
·         What assumptions does this hobby smuggle in?
·         Why do certain distinctions matter here and not elsewhere?
·         What must be ignored for this whole discourse to function?
·         What sensations I consume in respect to my entire physics and believe system
·         Why I am experiencing what I experience.
·         What is relation between my experiences from sound or no-sound to my other non-audio experiences
·         Why at this level change in audio does not reduce my capacity to consume the depth of experiences.
 
At this level, audio is no longer a hobby — it is a case study in human cognition, desire, identity, and projection. And this is the key point I am making: Almost anyone who genuinely reaches this level leaves the audio world. Not because they fail — but because collaboration becomes impossible.
 
Why?
So, they build private, idiosyncratic audio practices. Systems that make sense to them, for reasons they no longer need to justify publicly. These systems are often excellent — but uninterpretable to others. They do not scale. They cannot be reviewed. They cannot be standardized. From outside, these people seem to “disappear.” In reality, they outgrow the social game.
 
Why most people stay at Level 1?

Not because they are unintelligent. But because:   
The industry survives on people who listen without questioning the act of listening, and it quietly sheds those who do. That is not a moral failure. It is a structural outcome. And once you see that — you cannot unsee it.
 
So, your phrase “my interests are in my application” can be read as coming from the third, epistemic level because it is not a statement of preference or self-trust, but a statement about where knowledge becomes valid at all. At this level, the speaker is no longer interested in sound, theory, consensus, or even personal perception as such; they are interested in what survives being enacted under real constraints. “Application” here means exposure to consequence, where abstractions, explanations, and identities are forced to either hold or collapse. The phrase quietly rejects discourse and validation as final authorities and marks a boundary: only what continues to function when embodied is worth attention, even if it cannot be easily explained, shared, or collaborated on. It it what Also, Alan Watts would proclaimed: the purpose of existence is to exist not to build an artificial contract to justify own existence. That is all good!

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