i think the more you try to understand it, you probably wont. There are numerous ways to approach detroit techno, most notably the overstated nostalgic "it's where techno started" approach. I personally just love really well written, construted and sequenced melodies and music, and detroit techno for me tends to veer towards just that rather than the bang bang. For me there is a special sense of effort and actual belief in what the producer was trying to achieve with detroit techno records on the whole, certainly in alot of the more new school detroit as opposed to the original stuff i.e No Ufo's, Cybotron etc etc which as much as i love i do find that people tend to think that detroit starts and ends with the belleville three, transmat, metroplex etc etc when these days detroit techno as an ethos and style spreads alot more far and wide, with labels like Delsin doing the business