Wow. I apologize to those readers taken aback by yesterday's post. Surely I didn't mean to make anyone depressed and to the one comment that I seemed despondent over the state of affairs in high-end audio, I find myself scratching my head. I must have written poorly. Fact is, I haven't been so excited about high-end audio and our progress as I am now. I think we're on the verge of big breakthroughs. My comment that it will take a tectonic shift to achieve perfection meant that we are nearing perfection for what we have, and even bigger, greater things are to come. The idea we can't yet reach nirvana with what we have doesn't mean we can't get there, it means there's more work to be done. We can get there, of that I am ever confident.
Someone asked me the other day what floats my boat about high-end audio equipment. Not just the listening of it, the enjoyment of the music, the emotional connection, but the gear itself. My answer probably won't surprise many. Looking deeper into the music. Every new piece of equipment, every improvement, upgrade and tweak that makes better music allows me the greatest pleasure to see deeper into what's there. Like looking into a treasure chest a hundred times and finding a new, shiny, gold coin buried deep within, one I never knew was there. That process of discovering new spatial characteristics, subtle cues in the music, 'seeing' the musicians as never before, that's what floats my boat.
Within the next few weeks we will release the next firmware for DirectStream and I am holding back telling you what to expect as I too wait breathlessly to hear deeper into the music as never before.
