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I love dosas like almost everyone else. My go to places are select Udupi restaurants, especially in Matunga, Mumbai. The choices are limited, but you get lip-smacking dosas at a song. Once you eat there you can never forget the taste and experience. Eons ago I happened to go to a dosa festival at a five star hotel with some colleagues. They held it in their lawns with over 15-20 live counters - all making dosas, of different kinds (at least 100 plus variants). And you were served in sparkling dishes and cutlery, with wide variety of chutneys and sauces to choose from. Made by chefs in majestic dresses, it was an all you could eat buffet and the atmosphere was nothing less than mesmerising.
And to be frank, the chefs were good at it. Their innovative dosas (there were even sweet/dessert dosas) ‘wow‘ed our senses and imagination! We couldn’t wait to finish the dosa in out plate before we walked to the next counter to sample that variant. In no time it became kind of a pursuit to sample as many variants as we could given only the limitation of our stomach’s capacity. But something else was happening too. After the first couple of dosas we weren’t even awarefully eating the dosa currently in our plates. With most dosas we didn’t even complete them before we took another plate and tried the next. By the end each one of us was boasting to the other of all the varieties he ate/liked. Am sure each one of us also bragged about it with our folks back at home.
But then what next? Would I visit another dosa festival again? No siree, no way! After the above experience I was looking forward the first opportunity to go back to Matunga to my favourite Udipi’s to enjoy my staple dosa, one that has remained unchanged for decades, served in those plain dishes and as modest environs as you can get while still being very hygienic.
What that Udupi dosa does to me is difficult to explain. I can vaguely describe it as a ‘home-coming’ feeling, a ‘soulful experience’. Yes, the level of satisfaction is beyond mere senses. The experience touches the emotion and the spirit too. I can eat them all my life and not get bored. And it’s not just me... talk to any hard-core Mumbaiite.
FM radio is like the Udupi restaurant dosa. It doesn’t provide you the grand choices and bells & whistles of a Tidal or Spotify, but provides a certain sound described well by @prem (incidentally FM tuner is the only analog source I have in my system) and an experience that we’ve grown on, it’s kind of a part of our system. Just the way for those from my generation, Doordarshan was, or Test cricket or an Illustrated Weekly/Mayapuri/DharmYug were. Netflix, IPL and Magzter are all fine... but they are like the five star dosa buffet. They can ‘wow’ you most of the times. But how often do they ‘move’ you?
And this is not just when it comes to the source/content, but for the system as a whole too - the reason behind my signature. An audiophile typically goes through years of pursuing sound that ‘wows’ him, a pursuit that can be termed the hi-fi pursuit. After spending years and lakhs of rupees, one of them comes to the realisation that all the wowing was ephemeral, was never lasting. What he has been missing in the process was that emotional/spiritual connect with the music - something that ‘moves‘ him at a deeper level.
And also comes the conclusion that he didn’t need all the costly equipment for this. Even an ordinary FM radio does it and probably does it better than some of the complex set of technological buffet he has bought into. And then he starts simplifying. Sifting through what’s absolutely essential and what’s merely desirable, he is able to make choices that help him derive long-lasting satisfaction and joy from the system. Something he can steadily engage with - like the Udupi restaurant - without constantly desiring to change/upgrade it. Because he has learnt from his own experience and nothing else can change it - neither the peer pressure from forums, nor the most impressive reviews in audio magazines/websites/YouTube channels.
I went through this transformation over the length of this lockdown period. Recently @firearm describes his own transformation in a thread that’s worth reading. Some of the FMs I know have been through it and it’s a palpably different experience when you interact with them as compared to others. And if you wonder if this state itself is changeable, I don’t feel so. Having come to this realisation, I am unlikely to like any sound unless it moves me the same way - now that I know what I value the most - no matter what the sophistication/price of the system is. I am ok with a system wowing me, but only if it moves me first. In short, I shall value ‘premium’ of an audiophile system only after it has justified its ‘basic’ value to me.
(And to those who’d argue that specifications, measurements, charts, curves, distortion levels et al eventually add up to great sound, I’d say ‘good for you, not for me’. For all I know, there have been singers (even classical) who were pitch perfect and highly skilled with their technical prowess - they could also wow with their taans, but could never ‘move’ the audience with their performance).
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