Every January, I travel to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show, in particular to hear the latest in high end audiophile equipment. [But really it's just an excuse to meet up with my Chicago lawyers and eat and drink.] Each time I make sure to visit the Burmester suite to hear what I hope will one day be my stereo system.
Now all I need is $500,000. Then the neighborhood will be introduced to Miles Davis and John Coltrane in true style.
Inevitably we get around to talking about the differences between tubes and solid state. Tubes? Vacuum tubes. Most people under the age of 40 may never have seen a vacuum tube, because the transistor and then the IC chip has made tubes ancient history in every industry except high end audio.
Now to the point. I never realized how complex it is to listen to music. You know that old saw about a person uses only 20% of the brain. I'm not exaggerating much when I say that we are using nearly all of brain. The cerebrum is involved in keeping time, parts of the midbrain is involved in the emotion, the frontal lobe takes all the info and does the higher level processing. I can't do justice to all the neuroscience involved, but I can recommend Daniel Levitin's "This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science Of A Human Obsession."
Now back to some Miles Davis and a nice Sauvignon Blanc.
