Mark Twain famously wrote, "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" in response to a premature obituary. And I must apologize for having mistakenly done the same to mastering engineer Bob Ludwig in yesterday's post. It is with great relief and thanks to John Atkinson of Stereophile, that I can report Bob is alive and well.
I wanted to touch on expectations today, and how we set them in our worldviews. If I walk into a high end dealer's showroom, my expectations have been set by the very essence of the store, and I would be let down if a demo in a sound room wasn't great. If, on the other hand, I walk into the Apple store and they are playing a small bluetooth speaker, expectations for great sound are very different. The same can be said for bringing equipment home: a new DirectStream or BHK and you expect miraculous transformations of sound. A budget piece and you hope it outperforms its price point - any more than that and you're thrilled - less than that and you chalk it up to "well, what'ya expect?"
The exciting moments come not when expectations are met, but when they are blown out of the park, and that's something rare, yet we all hope for them. And once in awhile I get the pleasure of walking into Music Room One to audition something very new, very exciting, and few things in life give me more pleasure than to have a transformative experience. But it happens.
Wish me luck.
