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The other day I watched a movie where a very old woman in a nursing home said to her iPhone "Siri... play that song". Then this woman is overcome with emotion, bursts into tears of joy. It is not because of the "realistic" quality of the Spotify mp3 file or the 'realistic' quality of the built-in iPhone speakers. No, only because of the memory that this music evokes in her. And yes, that is all that listening to music should do, evoke emotion.
In Japan music has 2 characters, one of "sound" and the other of "joy". I say this because I explain to non-audiophiles what an audiophile is, someone who listens to the quality of music AND also listens to the quality of sound at the same time. However, I think that most audiophiles are mainly concerned with the latter and indeed, that is at the expense of what it should be about, enjoying the music, letting yourself be carried away by the emotion.
That's why I've said here before that audiophiles, including me, are (older white male) autistics. People who take everything too literally. So also (the quality of) the sound. Not being able to listen to the quality of the music alone and just enjoy the thought / emotion that the music is about. No, they take the (quality of the sound literally. Most (and to a much lesser extent) autistics (, everyone is autistic from 0 to 100%,) listen purely to the music and the emotion it evokes. Often enough I sat at a table, or with a glass, where music was played through the built-in speakers of the iPhone, and everyone, except me, had the greatest pleasure from the music.
I wrote here recently:
I concluded years ago no matter how good and expensive your hifi stereo set is (and that is certainly not always the same thing, good and expensive, actually they have nothing to do with each other) your hifi stereo set remains artificial (reproduced music). And no matter how good your set is, if you (in your head) take a step back and listen again (as a just born baby) then you hear it that it is artificial,.
Two centuries ago, somewhere in the world(, I know where but that does not matter,) they took a person (someone who had not grown up with "images" - at the time in some culture that was the case, images where forbidden) to a museum and to a painting of a life-size and very lifelike image of a horse, as if it were a photo. They asked that person "what do you see"? "What do I see, what do you mean?" "Well, there on the wall, on the paiting". "Nothing, yes, spots of colored paint". "Don't you see a horse?" they asked. The person started laughing "A horse? Where, in here? Where then? Point me". In other words, already as babies we all grow up with images, pictures that our brains translate. If we hear a voice singing via a hi-fi stereo set, we only "think" we hear a voice because we have learned that. Our brains make a voice out of it. The same with a violin, piano or double bass, my favorite or punk-like loose rolling electric bass guitar but that is off topic. So in case of a hifi stereo set or whatever amplified reproduction of music, we think it. We think the music. We translate what we hear. We fill it in. We "make" it real. But it isn't.
In other words, a voice, a violin, piano or double bass (or whatever) electronically reproduced via a hi-fi stereo set is artificial. Not real. Not natural. Never. No matter how good your set is. It is and remains artificial.
That is why a "natural" sounding device or set is nonsense, it is fooling ourselves. Fooling yourself. There is no thing as a natural sounding hifi stereo device or set. Natural sounding music is only an unamplified live concert. That's real. And deep down we know, feel and hear that (if we listen to amplified reproducted music). But we refuse to admit it and keep striving for "less artificial sounding music reproduction". Because that's just what it is: only "more less". Never the full real thing
The same with artificial intelligence....
But well, isn't music, communicating of emotions, also only learned? Is music "culture", in other words is music artificial, or is it "natural"? Is a singing bird culture?
As long as we keep striving for the impossible, realistic sound, we will never be able to enjoy (the music and the moment). I started to enjoy (the music again knowing it is just artificial, but it is what it is). You have to ask yourself: is it about the sound or the music? Is it about how (more) beautiful this moment could have been or about how beautiful this moment is?
I like to add: all artificial things is poverty, cost saving such as the use of chips (in computers and dacs). A hifi stereo set is that too, it is a cost saving replacement of a (unamplified) live concert. But it can (often) not be otherwise, let we all just be honest and admit it.
So yes: "All recordings are lies. The best recording/mix engineers are the best liars." because it is artificial, not real.