Why you really should have a decent Hi Fi AV system ...

Sometimes when an uneducated novitiate to audio and cinema wanders into the shop I watch that sunrise of gawking incomprehension on their countenance as they gradually realise what it is that we are actually purveying. A common utterance is “but I could buy a good car for that much money” ... I recognise that It is not that they are necessarily ignorant or ill educated, it may be that within their particular socio cultural niche they just have never happened to come across those passionate individuals who love music and film and who are prepared to physically iterate the available technical quality of reproduction into their lifestyles in a manner that many of our existing clients do. In truth we are force fed consumptive models from an early age, there are the normal male dominated Freudian substitutes of motor vehicles and fashion … fashion for males to attract females and for females to attract males that is. Lately the mere brand names themselves have come to acquire a perceived measure of social value so as to make them desirable of ownership quite regardless of the products functionally additive value. This indeed is the professional marketers ideal … create such an air of Kudos around a brand that consumers will purchase it even though it will not assist their existence in any normally quantifiable manner. Pundits might argue that being the owner of a new pair of Nikes or the latest Prada might give that individual a competitive edge in the merry go round of human reproductive behavior. I would contend that any beneficial effect in that regard is simply the by-product of a sustained advertising campaign. Flowers and the ability to prepare food remain the best aphrodisiacal courtship behaviors for human primates in my humble opinion. This all being said, why should anyone need to buy a quality audio video system? Is it going to help you breed or eat? Lets remind ourselves where music comes from and why it works ... There is a very good argument that music and rhythm actually preceded the development of a language able to convey complex communication, that the endemic structure of our linguistic capability is in fact derived from our brains sense of rhythm and timbre. This musicality is a far reaching built in sense that humans possess; I recall an experiment where the unassisted rendition of a piece of music by a quartet choir was so time accurate that when used as a means of actual experiment timing for Newtonian physics experiments the singers were exactly able to match the timing accuracy if the best mechanical clocks. As it happens our auditory cortex is laid out like a piano keyboard, in pitch order connected to different hair sensors.When we look at the pattern of stimulation in a brain of someone listening to music, is not just one part that lights up though, the whole organ goes off in a veritable firework show of activity. When a piece of music moves you it is literally having an intimate and in depth effect on your thought patterns. Music has a great power to influence us individually and en masse. In fact music plays us as though our mind and body were the instrument. The youth cult phenomena of the post war world invariably have as a binding agent a new musical style that is expressed not just as a blip in record sales, but have also served to introduce new social memes into our young people. Where would all the youth movements be without their individual musical backgrounds? For better or worse this is a very powerful effector in the ongoing development of our cultures, one notes that those most reactionary and fanatical religious movements embedded in semi literate pre medieval thought patterns instinctively decry new musical influences as being evil for their ability to cause their followers to stray from the written path. Every tyrant and dictatorship at some time attempts to limit the access of its populace from new and invidious music that may cause them to think outside their particular narrow terms of reference. The oldest known crafted instruments are bone flutes dating back to c 35,000 years, and it has been suggested that this may have been a difference between homo sapiens and homo neanderthalis. Neanderthals are much berated and underrated by traditional anthropology, I prefer the view that they were into music of a percussive nature, the drummers of prehistory ... I note that Charles Darwin made a strong case for music as being important to human sexual selection ... To bring my argument home, it would seem that the really misguided consumers therefore are not the ones who choose to enrich their lives with good quality music and the breadth of sensory stimulation and cultural opportunities so offered; but are rather those who chase the false gods of consumerism as represented by the advertised aspirations of motor vehicles, houses, and fashion. In summary therefore to really improve your quality of life and breeding potential you actually need an excellent Hi Fi system above all else ... And further to this the BBC has published a nice little article on the 23rd April agreeing that music actually is about sex...