Paul S wrote:

I do think that there are "purely electro-mechanical" issues worth talking about for anyone actually thinking seriously about The Loudspeakers.

rowuk wrote:

In my view, the loudspeaker is a type of musical instrument that can be manipulated in any number of ways, albeit with playback, primarily statically. Just like the acclimation period with a musical instrument, we become accustomed to various parameters as well as the "feedback" to our senses. For those taking their playback (or acclimation to a musical instrument) seriously, there is a period of refinement during which there are things good and bad obvious to our perception. We react with our experience to solve these challenges, or learn new skills to deal with them. Hopefully at one stage, we reach a point where there are few triggers for disturbances in the presentation. At this point, we become "confident" in the overall response and turn the playback on with different motivation. At this point, we can hear THROUGH the playback and our focus is no longer the presentation, rather the performance. Paul, I believe that this is what happened with "the Loudspeakers". In my view, the next step (I am not assuming that anyone here is not already well along in this part of the journey) is the acclimation to the "performances" where we learn through experience to become confident in the readings by specific artists or ensembles. This stage borrows tools from listening to live performances and we in fact, then select the performances to be played back in a more purposeful way. When our musically interpretive chops are up to speed, we start to ask questions about why this is important, what it does to and with us as well as how and why we react internally the way we do and in my view more importantly, how we react externally - do we have things to share, things to learn outside of our comfort zone. In my 60 years of performance and >55 years of audio, I have had the great fortune of having mentors during critical and non critical periods and learning the lesson that that good fortune certainly showed me how small I really am in the overall scope of things BUT that I can still make an important difference by freely sharing those skills learned. The unfortunate reality is that there is a lot of preparation required to practice those skills. How can one communicate a transcendental moment to someone who does not practice any type of process hygiene?

Paul S wrote:

Robin, as you suggest, I did indeed have some specific things in mind when I chose and developed The Loudspeakers for myself, after a very long haul up to that point. I have tried to share about it in this thread, in my own, non-linear way, still trying to include more than just the usual isolated nuts and bolts, albeit I think the "audience" for else is pretty limited. Like you said, the sound system certainly has its own signature or stamp to "figure out" and either integrate or "filter out", also factoring the recording, and so on. It is what it is, and we (I) are (am) aiming to hear Music, or at least significant parts of it, and performances are very important to me where this is concerned, as well, multi-dimensionally. You mention some Musical/performance touchstones, and I hope these will always add to listening for me. Indeed, I suppose I regard this bonus as something of a reward for my dilgence and devotion. Those who don't know or don't care may never care. God bless us, every one. Best regards, Paul S

Romy the Cat wrote:

Okay, it is very strange and beautiful at the same time. I follow every single word you say, and then the idea you express—and it is superbly ironic that this is exactly what I am doing with my new… let’s call it a unified theory of audio that I began developing in 2025. Robin, what you are saying is absolutely accurate, and I agree with every twist, except that your twists leave certain gaps. My theory attempts to fill those gaps, transforming it from a hypothesis into a sensible and believable framework. I would actually like to use you as a kind of test subject and explain it to you personally, just to see your reaction. Would you be interested in having a Zoom session with me?

rowuk wrote:

We are creatures of habit and for many, the most major habit is procrastination. This is not necessarily anything that we can easily control but there are significant things to try. Our bodies have a dopamin regulated reward system and if we satisfy particular basic motivational parameters, our minds register this as something good. When motivating trumpet students, I use the following to tap into the rewards system: Interest - if something is interesting there is a bigger chance that we will be motivated to do something Urgency - if we need to do something by a deadline, we are more motivated to do something Degree of challenge - this is a tough one as the degree of challenge must be perceived as possible to accomplish, otherwise we give up Novelty - if something is unique to us, we tend to be more motivated to try it out When we are successful, the chance that we will repeat the action is very great. This list is about things with a very direct brain response which I find useful. For audio, these also apply. Good listening hygiene is a learned trait and certainly not something that is generally found but when we do, there is little to slow us down from repeating success. I think that the key word in my previous post was "confidence" first in our playback and then in our choice of program material.