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Thinking different is how real advancements are made. Ridicule is the weapon of those who refuse to advance in their own thinking. And ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Innovation can often come from unexpected places, but "thinking different" can also engender ridicule. Is audio's "lunatic fringe" good or bad for the hobby?
I'll have to say that it is in the eyes (um, sorry, ears) of the beholder! I know I have been guilty of a bit of left-field stunts in my pursuit of audio satisfaction. I abandoned whatever I did if the results were not better than expected. Much of the time it was worth it!
Most audiophiles are viewed by the general public and press as a bit odd or nut cases when you consider how odd it must look to regular folks seeing audiophiles elevate their cables using Dark Field foam blocks that cost $200 or that little myrtle blocks and golden ratios are the cure for all their ills. No wonder the "snake oil" term gets thrown around so much.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no connection between creativity and lunacy. What really makes fools out of us is the snake oil aspect of hi-fi. Some magazines are worse than others, I can't help but think of a better use of space than cable-matching reviewers' cables. LOL. Of course, then you see who is buying ad space in a typical audiomag, cable-matching makes perfect sense. A proof of my theory can be seen in pro audio mags—those guys don't use $1000/m cables.
Vital, absolutely vital. For all the right reasons. Censorship, whether self- or externally inflicted, is a dangerous thing. The vast majority of people possess a "middling" mental state and prefer to be in comfortable spaces. When I say that, I mean that they prefer, to the point of arguing energetically against others, to have their world be comfortable or structured, so that nothing outside of their comfort zone intrudes. Sometimes, there are groups with financial and personal-control issues that align with those in the "middle" comfort zone. Human nature being as poorly understood as it is by the average human soul, this means that the larger middle-of-the-road group can be run by a small clique of people with low empathy and low acceptance of "differences." The subject is deep—and many (hah!) tend to lose interest in the proper explanation if it conflicts with their world view and their acceptance created by their inner desire for comfort. All innovation comes from outside of textbooks and outside of the acceptance level of any given "middle herd group." Textbooks are for bringing you up to speed, so you can be dumped from the end of the moving vehicle of "science" and run on your own—to become something more than the textbook and move beyond it. Textbooks are not dogma, but too many people treat them as if they are. Religion as science is vile beyond belief. All innovation that is paradigm-changing inherently comes from outside the accepted parameters, from outside of those textbooks. This is true, no matter how much it may make some uncomfortable. No lunatic fringe—and you've got no change of any lasting value, and then you have anchored mankind in the self-created emotionally based lies of its past. The very idea of calling it the "lunatic fringe" arises out of the emotions, which is not logical at all. It is an internally created act of passing judgment upon others for the purposes of self-comfort. It's a form of social fascism of the worst kind. This is how wars are manipulated into existence. Sadly, the scientific types, and those who pundify science, rarely achieve any real sort of awareness of their own point of understanding—that their logical processes are actually created in the depths of the mind that are controlled by emotions. Thus, emotions control and direct their very expression of logic and scientific creation. Einstein (paraphrasing) said that the shame of academia is that it is more political and controlled by emotionally based standards than any political or governmental concern that you may have ever known or come across. Max Planck said, "science advances—funeral by funeral." When the old stalwarts who refuse to understand the new and control the situation finally die, then we can at last have the new science. It is man—in all of his myriad and complex ways—who holds himself back, not the exploring the edge. Cursing the outer edges, or the lunatic fringe, is the very act that can and does kill us all. Science is a roiling act of moving evolution, it is not static and immutable. All theories of sciences are bound to be overthrown or radically altered in the future, this has been the way of it since long before the current state of science as it stands today and it will be so in the future. Discrediting and destroying it only kills the messengers of the emergent truth. In essence, if one does not like the lunatic fringe, then one has severe psychosis and is dangerous to the advancement of mankind. The lunatic fringe is where the action is: always has been—and always will be.
It's a very good thing. Sure, there are some snake oil nonsense products out there, but most people figure that out for themselves. It's better to have stuff that makes us expand our horizons than be confined to the lowest common denominator someone else sets for us. There's too much dumbing-down going on. Anybody can get an iPod, but to really appreciate the full performance and emotion demands more. Box movers be damned! Support those who take the time to set up, explain and demonstrate better music systems and provide customer support after the sale, which you don't get from the box movers.
The most fundamental problem with the "lunatic fringe" is their basic and inherent lack of familiarity with the sound of live, unamplified music; a problem frequently noted by the late Gordon Holt. The "lunatic fringe" has devised a vocabulary in which it compares one component to another with no absolute reference standard; use hyperbole to identify and promote seemingly "gigantic" differences; and fail to recognize that both components could be equally wrong—but in different directions—in terms of tonal accuracy, lack of coloration, and overall transparency.
It is always good to experiment and try something new. But sometimes it appears to go too far. Like the Statement TT—totally cool and very impressive, but for the cost of a couple Mercedes Benzes? Makes me wonder what some people think.
The lunatics, including some Stereophile writers, have essentially killed off the "hobby" as it was originally envisioned. Most "audiophiles" today are not interested in reproducing the source material without distortion, but want the music they hear to sound "good," even if the original was poorly recorded. Almost everyone else is satisfied with good enough. Buying the supposedly high-end equipment recommended by Stereophile and others is unaffordable and not worth bothering with for most people.
If Bob Moog and MartinLogan never existed, I would have never become an audiophile. It's the crazy-brilliant people responsible for all innovation, and perhaps the tight-wads working for them that have and will change the world. And now the guy responsible for the MP3 is making a "Laser Mic?" Wow! Just proves you'll never know what's next.