I have recently invested in a new generation of audio equipment. Specifically I have a new cheap DAC, a DAP and relatively cheap pair of cans to play with; a Fiio K13 R2R DAC, a Fiio M33 DAP and a pair of Hifiman HE600.
I have been mightily impressed with all this new gear and it’s a big step up from my old M11 and Beyerdynamic T1 setup which was getting quite long in the tooth.
Two things which have been made apparent to me whilst enjoying my new purchases.
The first of these is how far cheap gear has come on in the last 15 years or so. Both in terms of build and features and also in sheer quality of sound.
The second is that with this setup I have now, there seems to be a sort of transcendancy going on where the music is become more tangible as an entity rather than a projection, if that makes sense. It’s like the equipment->brain pathway has been removed for the playback of music when stuff is recorded well enough. At times the complexity of certain music makes a lot of sense, like I’m getting close to the ideas in mind of the creator of the music. Now… this is all without any mind altering drugs, I must stress.
An example of this is when I was listening to the latest album by Devin Townsend “Moth”. It’s not something I listening to a lot, that sort of weird, eclectic, full bore, operatic progressive metal, but last night I popped on my cans and settled down to some meditative listening to Mr Townsend, and it was as if I could understand a whole new language of music; I could related entirely to what was going on. Weird sh’*t. It wasn’t an emotional moment, Lord knows I get loads of them with music, but it was impressive, expansive and exhilarating, adrenalising even.
I wondered if you people would like to share experiences in music and how your gear has enabled you to have “moments” and how they manifested?
Perhaps, different neurodivergent and neurotypical people will experience “good sound” differently?
Or maybe this is all derigeur to everyone here, so common that it doesn’t even need talking about, lol.