Do You Love Music or Do You Love Hi-Fi?

I think I love hifi because it gets me closer to the music/musicians. That feeling, on some level, of realism - the presence of the musicians etc. I find this connection even more special when listening to musicians who are no longer with us.
Of course it would be nothing without the music itself, but the little cues to realism/presence are what make hifi listening fundamentally different to hearing a tune on the radio.

Getting closer to this palpable presence can become a bit addictive...but if its driven by the enjoyment of music, I can't see anything wrong with that.

Merry Christmas to you too Rok2id.

Hi Sean

As far as the room goes, many will work depending on the type of music. I personally feel the room comes more into play with larger scale music which generally require larger rooms and appropriately larger more costly speakers, at least in my experience. Many speakers require room and space with careful placement to realize their potential, the more transparent and open the sound the more this comes into play. A dedicated large room offers greater options for placement which can be quite critical in optimizing the system and justifying the cost, most rooms give in to compromise and this is the real point. Certainly many speakers are designed with smaller rooms in mind and those that are highly efficient can work well with low powered amplifiers that need not be expensive to give excellent, realistic sound but generally they don't fare well with large scale music as far as I'm concerned. It is the reason i have been with the same speakers for the past 10 years, feeling any meaningful improvement will only come by a different room and being otherwise quite satisfied by their presentation across the board in my space. Yes, the sound might be improved somewhat by better electronics but at this point, in my case having tried many, the diminishing returns aren't worth the expenditure. At some point you hit a wall unless you have broader options. What drew me into this hobby in the first place is the joy of listening to large scale acoustical music with a natural presentation. It is a progressive road because the divide between the real thing and reproduced is quite wide.

I expect that there are more than a few serious music lovers/audiophiles that are into this large scale orchestral music to warrant the expenditure for a room. For a good midrange presentation in a smaller space and the intimate lifelike sound that many like, it can be done relatively inexpensively but a realistic, dynamic presentation of large scale is always going to be compromised in a small space due to too many limitations.

The better the hifi the better the music sounds. Better does not mean ultra high dollar gear. Better IMO means sound thats easy to listen to for hours on end. Sound that gets your feet taping sound that can give you the chills. Sound that puts a smile on my face. My quest for that has meant a lot of trial and error with gear.

My love for the sound of music has been a part of my life for decades. I dont skip many days in front of my system listening to lp after lp. Theres just about no better joy in life than to be able to sub live music with gear delivered music that satisfies the ears.

Vinyl my listening source of choice is elusive at times so i do enjoy the hands on part of vinyl playback which is another question that could be added.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Tubegroove,

I agree that if you're into large scale music a large room is the way to go. I also agree that it is worth the investment. I'm just saying that if it's not in your budget or there is no possiblity for expansion it's not the end of the world.

As for knowing when to stop upgrading and just enjoy the music that will be different for everyone. I personally am quite happy with my system and have had my current speakers for almost 4 years. I have no desire to change anything downstream of my turntable. I also don't really need to change anything in my vinyl setup but I am not done exploring what is possible with analog.

Sean

12-23-11: Kevvwill: "I once did a "random" play on my portable, and listed the first 30 songs that came up. People thought I was kidding! It was everything from Haydn's "Nelson" mass to Faiz Ali Faiz (amazing qawwal, next Nusrat Ali Khan), the Minutemen, Olivia Newton-John, Melt-Banana, Sinatra, Wu-Tang, Peter Brotzmann etc, etc."

I love your musical choices, particularly Melt Banana and Peter Brotzmann. Was it "Machine Gun"?

Yes, you can have both, music and hi-fi... and fun! :)

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