What are your Eureka Moments in this Hobby?

In regard to music, I had one epiphany that was a life changer:

Like a good percentage the other young musicians I knew in the mid-60’s, it was bands like The Kinks, The Yardbirds (with first Eric Clapton and then Jeff Beck on guitar. Up until their final album---Little Games, which I did not at all care for. Their third guitarist sucked ), The Who, The Animals, and Them (featuring of course Van Morrison) that I was into, along with Buffalo Springfield and The Lovin’ Spoonful (not---perhaps surprisingly, given their popularity, The Beatles or The Stones). That was followed by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers (first three albums, with first Clapton, then Peter Green, and then Mick Taylor), Moby Grape, Procol Harum, The Jeff Beck Group, then eclipsing all others Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (I saw both live twice in 1967 and ’68. Envious? )

Then on July 1st of 1968 an album was released that I found impenetrable: Music From Big Pink by some band called The Band. I did not even understand what it was supposed to be. The best musicians I knew---and the smartest non-musicians I knew---claimed to love it. I tried, and tried, and tried, but to no avail. I also read everything written about it, and still didn’t get it; it remained a complete mystery to me.

In the Spring of 1969 my teen combo was offered a gig opening for The New Buffalo Springfield at a local San Jose-area High School. We of course excepted, and were informed that it was conditional on my drumset being available for Dewey Martin (the sole remaining original member) to perform on (he traveled with only a Rogers snare drum, bass drum pedal, and stick bag), and three amplifiers. No problem, even though Dewey is right handed and I’m a southpaw (my Ludwig kit had two mounted toms, so re-arranging it for right handed play was no big deal). Our guitarist, bassist, and organist had pro-level amps (a Fender blackface Dual Showman, an Ampeg with a 15" JBL D-150 driver, and whatever amp the Hammond organ was playing through).

The night arrived, and we played our opening set to a large crowd of kids sitting on the gymnasium floor (terrible acoustics!). The Springfield had arrived, and I was surprised to see Randy Fuller (Bobby’s brother) amongst the four members. I remember feeling like a little kid; The Springfield members looked very "adult". Dewey re-arranged the kit, the other three plugged in, and their set started. As I listened, I became somewhat bewildered. None of the four members seemed to be doing much, but they sounded SO good. A rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist (playing a Gibson ES-335), Randy playing his Fender Precision bass, and all four member singing. Oh my God, they sounded fantastic!

As I sat there listening, trying to figure out why that was, some of what I had read about the Music From Big Pink album came flooding into my brain. The answer was the concept of ensemble playing. That might sound like a small statement, but it’s not; It changes EVERYTHING. In the span of The Springfield’s set my entire musical language had been re-evaluated, and drastically re-engineered. As Springsteen said upon hearing Music From Big Pink for the first time, "Suddenly, everything had changed" (or words to that effect). Clapton put it thusly: "Music had been headed in the wrong direction for a long time, and when I heard MFBP I thought ’Somebody has finally got it right’"

It took a while, but I too finally got the message, and things were never the same.

SACD

@peter_s 

We can end it here! For the record, I'm not claiming that everyone should experience things the way I do. I'm making a narrower point — "music" and "sound" aren't two different objects one can choose to listen to. They're different ways of describing the same phenomenon. No one can attend to musical structure without also attending to acoustic properties (timbre, dynamics, spatial presentation), because those properties constitute the musical relationships. The question is "how much attention" and "what kind of attention." Listeners genuinely differ in what they value and how they talk about their experience, but the same reality is there to be perceived. 

(N.B. I cannot abide a phrase like "personal reality" — that phrase  suggests we each inhabit separate realities – too solipsistic. Unless one of us is genuinely insane or from another planet, we share the same reality. That's what makes this conversation possible in the first place.)

But you're absolutely right that we've gone deep into the theoretical, and there's a point where further discussion becomes unproductive. I appreciate the exchange — it's helped me clarify my own thinking. Time to get back to the music (and the sound!).

@hilde45 

i appreciate your rebuttal to my premise of a dichotomy between sound and music. You make a very convincing argument, to the point where I agree with you!

Less is more.

I was running a well named brand preamp for 30 years. I wanted to try a preamp running a NOS tube that I’m running in my phonostage, with excellent results.

I got the new preamp - 1/3 the size - 1/4 the electronics inside - 2 tubes for linestage which was 6 in the previous one.

If you look at these two boards, you would never guess the smaller one with 1/4 the parts sounds better.

I learned to get the electronics out of the way & let good tubes do the work.