How Sexy Is Your HiFi?

On a scale from 1 to 10, how sexy is your hifi? I’m not joking, as this may be the most important question one can ask about the value of hifi — How sexy is your hifi?

A hifi should instigate action, as unlikely as that may sound. Whether it be to get up and move, read, write (music), initiate a journey, or keep us firmly planted in a present devoid of the meaningless distractions of the day, La Folie du jour, listening to music on the hifi can be a valued experience unlike any other.

The trouble with listening to music on the hifi is, just like the novice meditator, we are easily distracted. I propose that a hifi’s job is to entice us into listening for listening’s sake with the promise of pleasure. And that, my friends, is where sexy comes in.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.

They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.

That’s David Foster Wallace from his 2005 commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College. He goes on:

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation.

When we read comments or reviews about hifi where the person doing the writing or talking tries to tell us what is best when it comes to hifi, what we should buy, and of greater importance, what we shouldn’t buy, we are listening to people who are speaking directly from their tiny skull-sized kingdoms, blinded by the worship of self. In order to pull this stunt off, purveyors of “The Best” have to first convince us to worship at the feet of their false god — accuracy. Not music or pleasure, mind you, but accuracy.

The thing about accuracy in hifi is its not an end, it’s just one part of a much bigger picture, another ingredient that serves as a means to an end. Raising accuracy above all other hifi concerns is for people with little to no imagination who are looking to feel better about themselves, and let’s not miss this important part, who are also looking to feel superior. These people need to compete, even though there’s no competition involved in listening to music on the hifi.

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

Admitting that what we have is not something universally special, but rather something that is special for us, may sound like the antithesis of sexy. But it’s not. It is the definition of sexy. Just ask your significant other. A focus on accuracy as the path to obtain The Best HiFi, is as misguided as using measurements alone to try and find a lover. The only value this kind of dogged dumbed-down pettiness has to offer is comparative — Mine is better. Welcome to the rat race.

Wallace opened his Kenyon speech with this story:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

If you’re searching for the best hifi, odds are you are getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing. Instead, I suggest opening yourself up to pleasure.


There are these two old audiophiles who enter a room a hifi at a show and they happen to meet a young audiophile on his way out, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the music?” And the two old audiophiles sit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is music?”