If nothing else, maybe it makes one realize that collecting audio gear is not just about listening to music. It's like the people making devil's towers out of mashed potatoes in close encounters. It's like navaho sand paintings. One approaches the rack in a certain way, with a certain intent. The vinyl is ritually cleaned and inspected. The vinyl is put on the platter just so. The dials are adjusted just so. The needles and LEDs are examined for expected behavior. The music is played and the vinyl is restored to its sleeve and placed in just the right place, and the power is turned off in just a certain manner.
In other words, we are refining our inner being by playing records. We conduct a ritual that is constantly refined, and due to the refinement, we can imagine the listening experience converging on the horizon not with the perfect reproduction of music, but the being of musicians ourselves, being the instruments, being the music.
This is why esoteric methods like this persist and always find a sucker to believe in it. We are not just listening to music. By tweaking our nearly perfect system with a seemingly magical series of tones, we are dialing up god, the infinite, and finding it within ourselves. We are tweaking ourselves, not our stereos.
That said, the empiricist in me thinks there is no way a series of tones on the phone can do anything to your stereo. how the hell could it? What receives the input? What is being "tweaked?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because it is completely insubstantial, and the effect obviously subjective, there is no way to convince believers that it is not real. It's like creationism vs. evolutionism. Proponents of evolution believe because experience in the field and rigorous examination of physical evidence seem to indicate the phenomenon. Creationists believe because they believe, and the idea that their religious belief should be sullied by such trifles as "evidence" is insulting. Either that or they create elaborate unprovable "proofs" similar to perpetual motion machines as a quasi-scientific attempt to beat scientists at their own game. As if their gobbledygook could convince anyone but someone desperate to believe.
If people want to believe a telephone call to their stereo improves their performance, fine. You may like your system more than ever, and I do think that can attributed to the self-actualization aspects of system building. But to lie about it by trying to paint belief as knowledge... that is a game for fools and hucksters.
Not that I really care one way or the other... I just found this thread to be especially thought-provoking, i guess...
uke:
