Ingrid Fliter - Chopin Preludes (Linn Records)

[Confused]

I have spent a bit more time listening to Ingrid this morning, another week, another day. As it happens I am in a far better mood than I was last week, and you know what, I think I can hear 'Ian's fizz'. Or maybe not? The thing is that today I am hearing something pretty clearly that does not sound quite right to me, I am as sure as I can be that this is what was disturbing Ian a little, but I would perhaps describe it a little differently. To me is it sounds a bit like someone breathing and individual exhaling breath into a box of sand, that is how I would describe it. So I guess it is down to Ian to decide if that as a description fits what he himself was hearing. I have often though that human language is a little lacking in the necessary vocabulary to describe everything we can hear, after all, I have just used a slightly bonkers way to describe a sound, I mean, who on earth is actually familiar with the sound of a breath in a box of sand?

That said, the sound (assuming Ian and myself are hearing the same thing) is one of those things that you might not notice, you wont hear it at all, but once you notice it, it is there, every time, you cannot ignore it. Stuff like this fascinates me, and I think it does give some insight into the curious world of how the ear, and even more crucially the brain, work together to produce what we call hearing. It also gives some insight into why A/B testing similar sounding / quality hifi components is so difficult and sometimes misleading. I think I'll play some techno and calm my synapses down a little now.....