Wallpaper
99% of people only ever experience recorded music as aural wallpaper.
A track plays, you enjoy the noise it makes, perhaps you pick out the tune, or the rhythmic insistence is such that you enjoy the beat. But, when the next, randomly shuffled, track comes along you are not shocked or horrified by the breaking of any sort of spell.
In the 1980’s this job was performed by the Sony Walkman, today, by your mobile device. The result, cold, heartless musical reproduction that bears as much resemblance to a musical performance as screen shot of a van Gogh to art
Cinematography
By spending several hundred pounds on a CD or LP based system, with reasonably capable loudspeakers, you can enter the world of Hi Fi. This can be a jaw dropping experience for the uninitiated, but this does depend on the system and how you personally relate to music. If now you are listening through capable Hi Fi loudspeakers, you start to feel the music as well as hear it. If you think that this is unimportant, then ask yourself how Evelynne Glennie (a profoundly deaf, but world class musician) experiences musical delight. Whether you are speaking of reggae or classical music, a proportion of musical involvement is visceral.
Theatre
When a Hi Fi system really starts to get its act together, you start to feel a connection with the individuals responsible for creating the musical event. Most systems from The AudioWorks aim to operate at this level. Individual ‘performance’; that thing that distinguishes good musicians from the mediocre, great bands or orchestras from the rest; are readily heard and appreciated. If you are now listening to a great piece of music that has been recorded as an album, and your device has the audacity to break the spell by randomly introducing a new piece of music, you would be very angry.
It is on these systems that you look forward to your own, personal concert. Each album is an event.
Immersive Reality
Our very top systems aim to provide a level of involvement that feels like being part of an event. Not only are the musicians clearly understandable, but there feels like a very personal connection between their playing, and your listening experience. This ‘one to one’ experience cannot happen with every album, but happens with enough regularity to keep you desperate for more.
Time and space have collapsed, and you are there.