"Submitted by A. Hourst on December 14, 2016 - 9:09am
Another fact of sociology is that people can be deluded and perceptions are volatile. One would expect a technology based medium like audio not to rely almost uniquely on those subjective grounds, but we are bound to read text after text of those celebrations of individual truths and ritual remainders that music is the most important thing in life. “What matter most is the listener experience”… Well, what matter most in a good printed image is the subjective result, but we don’t see printer makers declare such baloney as “measurements don’t tell the whole story”. But in audio, we have the epicurean deviation easy. We talk about the feeling that a capacitor gives us, the emotion we have in front of a tube-horn system, and most of all, the impenetrable essence of listening to music. That pseudo-philosophy has taken the ground that technical matter should have, and we have to read things about “deep mysteries of life and death” almost on a daily basis in publications about audio gear. This text by Mr Serenius is only a short, textbook “condensé”. Somewhere along the way, audiophile writers have started to think that 5 cents spiritualism is cool, and that rather that babbling the technical terms of audio, speaking about the emotion would win them an “artist pedigree”, but it’s not. They are painting kittens on a tea cup.
“ultimate value can be determined only by the beating of the human heart.”
I can say that about my dishwasher. Or read that in a cheap movie review. That’s a boring triviality.
I believe there is some place for the enthusiasm of the soul in a good product review. Why is it usually so poor in audio publications? Probably because there is too much."
The depth of spiritual connection between souls that an audio component a phone can deliver is, I believe, how most of us at Stereophile "Cosmote" determine the worth of the equipment we review sell.