Dear Vagophile,
You are right that I titled my post 'Irrational' and that is because I suspect, for most people, it's exactly as you say. I'll have a go at a fuller explanation as to how I rationalise it and why I made the comment.
We are all different of course: show me a nice juicy cryptic crossword and a nice pint of ale and I salivate - not just for the ale either. But show me a sudoku and it would leave me cold and I am sure would mar the taste of the beer too. Others are the other way around and I am sure it's the same with music.
Music, for a lot of people, has a direct path to the emotions. It can. time-stamp events enhance encounters and experiences. It give life a lot of added colour. That does not mean to say it should be blaring away all the time like a builder's tranny, as with everything there is a time and place and one of the best listening places is a vehicle. A Cali vehicle especially as it is normally associated with times of relaxation and enjoyment anyway.
Even if sound reproduction has not moved on very much from the best analogue of 50 years ago the method of storage and delivery certainly has. High resolution files stored on a digital device plugged into the Cali system
is seductively lovely whether your taste is Mahler's 5th, Miles Davis' album 'Kind of Blue' or 'Tilted' by Christine and the Queens. It does not matter, good music is good music whatever the genre - well almost.
I walked into a super high end Hi-Fi supplier once in New York and laid my cards on the table, "unless my numbers come up today, I am one hundred percent a time-waster to you", I said to the imposing tall, black salesman (also a concert pianist I later discovered), "but I would love to hear just what north of 150,000 dollar's worth sounds like. "Certainly, come this way sir" he crooned. The German Burmeister gear was set up and served up a female jazz singer (I forget who). I closed my eyes and she was 'right there, in the room singing to me'.
Wowed, I feebly offered that even if I could afford it, I could not ever rationalise it or justify it. He countered "actually, it is one of the easier large emotional purchases to justify - on the simple grounds of the number of hours of luxurious enjoyment it provides". I could see what he meant and that's how I see it with the Dynaudio set up in our van and, come to think of it, how I see the van itself.
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