Does upgrading you system have to be on a logarithmic curve?

Say what?

@overthemoon

I have read about the rooms full of people doing arithmetic for astronomers fifty or a hundred years before I went to college. In the ‘50’s every scientist and engineer carried a slide rule… or a book of tables. That is the way Sputnik got launched… most of the early space race was based on slide-rules! It is incredible isn’t it? I had three! I lusted after the K&E Bamboo for years… way out of my financial ability. The smoothness and effortlessness of using it.

Then virtually overnight… it was gone… buggy whips lasted a lot longer… there was such a long transition. Overnight, calculators replaced slide rules.

Our technology today is built on the shoulders of such incredible advancement. My father worked a team of horses to plow the fields! … and rode a horse drawn cart to go to town for supplies! I went down with my father to shovel coal into the furnace for heat each night (Chicago) so we had heat every night! Wow.

I implemented global system to run entire corporations from a single computer system while flying around the world in less than a month… many times. Incredible change.

There must be something to it as I'm seeing a record number of Posts removed.

@jjss49 @ghdprentice 

I feel like I am in an alternate version of Blazing Saddles and instead of hearing "Authentic Gibberish" and I realizing that slide rules were much more common than I thought!  And I have a new appreciation for the folks who had to use them as a primary calculation method versus a back-up calculation method.

but I pour my heart into something that means very little because of the respect in knowing it is so great!

Ok Kamala, we know it's you...

roxy54

5,926 posts

08-16-2022 at 07:40am

@shanesrain ,

I understand now. You’re similar to another member here who thinks that it’s amusing to write incomprehensible nonsense posts. Very boring.

@roxy54

i lay even odds it is the same member using one of many previously registered bogus handles

gotta love guys who keep blabbering when no one is even talking to him anymore... i guess the liquor speaks for itself 😂

@shanesrain No harm, no foul. Stay away from anger and politics and you'll be fine.

My expenditures were exponential because my ability to spend was exponential.  Of course I experienced diminishing returns but I could still hear the difference.

I only scaled back my purchases after I stopped hearing differences.

@jjss49

K&E bamboo slide rule.

I started school before the pocket calculator… for me, the first I could afford was the Texas Instruments SR-50 calculator (I could not afford HP35 calculator). My physics labs took 12 hours of work… 11 of the hours futzing with the slide rule. When I got my SR-50… the time to complete a lab went down to one hour! Speaking of a time saver.

It was with great pleasure decades later I ended up working for Texas Instruments.

It does not work this way at all. The single biggest sonic improvement anyone can make to ANY system cost $300. This 

This is rather amusing, quite a wordsmith.

+1 @ozzy62 

Just what we need around here. Need I say no more......?

@shanesrain ,

I understand now. You're similar to another member here who thinks that it's amusing to write incomprehensible nonsense posts. Very boring. I won't criticize or engage with you anymore.

Whats that?

shanesrain,

Just curious...what's your first language? Nothing that you have said in these posts makes any sense at all, and I'm thinking that it might have something to do with poor translation. If that's not it your problem might be much more serious.

LOL, @roxy54 

His posts are the best word salad out there this side of our current VP.

roxy54

5,924 posts

08-15-2022 at 11:04am 

shanesrain,

You might want to delete your post when you sober up.

That advice could be given on a daily basis around here.

@wmorrow I think you pose a very interesting question.  And with good questions considering the answer can be more valuable than the answer.

As I've upgraded my system I have questioned how much I've changed in terms of musical taste and appreciation of different aspects of music.

Over the last 10 years I've made three major upgrades to my system:

In 2014 I separated my audio system from my home theatre.  My dedicated system consisted of NAD C375BEE, Dual CS 5015 turntable, Parasound D/HX 600 Tape Deck and NAD Digtial Tuner with Sonus faber Venere 3.0.  Total investment (outside of the turntable and tape deck was about $7k.  My living room served as my listening area and this rekindled my passion for music and I regularly listened to music for hours.  I eventually added a Node 2i in 2018

I upgraded my system dramatically in 2020 after evaluating options with the intention of getting a much better digital experience.  I upgraded several pieced: McIntosh C2600/MC 302, Moon 280D and Sonus faber Sonetto Vs and because I was able to buy some demos my total cost with buying appropriate cables was about $16k.  The sound was significantly improved from my perspective - more detailed and increased dynamic range.  My listening sessions increased in frequency and duration.  I upgraded my dual to a Rega P8 in '21 since I have still have a few hundred LPs from my younger years.  I also was offered a great deal to trade in my Sonetto Vs for Olympica Nova Vs.

Recently I upgraded again - I wanted a bit more power (I'm a former Field Artillery guy and often listen at 80dbs).  I listened to McIntosh, Audio Research and others.  I decided to upgrade DAC/Streamer, Preamp and Amp to Moon 390 and M400s.  The equipment cost was $15k.  Now if I upgraded my MC302 to MC 462 or even MC 601s it would have been $10-18isk...not significantly different in cost.  However, I noticed the Moon amp was more detailed than the McIntosh system and was able to take advantage of a Moon trade in program.

Bottom line is I felt I received a significant upgrade in sound without a significant increase in price.  The characteristics of the music system changed and I enjoy it immensely.  Is my system significantly better?  I think it is and I wouldn't be surprised if someone who had similar Moon equipment and upgraded to McIntosh.

So I think I've upgraded going laterally.

@ghdprentice

@jjss49

I have my K&E bamboo in my desk drawer… would you like to borrow it? I haven’t been using it much since 1974.

haha only bad ass o-g science math and engineering majors know what the hell a k&e is!  ... though i admit when i got to college engineering the hp-35's had already hit scene

as everyone under 55 heads for the exits 😂🤣

shanesrain,

Just curious...what's your first language? Nothing that you have said in these posts makes any sense at all, and I'm thinking that it might have something to do with poor translation. If that's not it your problem might be much more serious.

I look at it as something that grows with you. My first car was a well used ‘67 VW bug. I learned how to drive a stick on it and about car maintenance. My first stereo was a pair of mismatched mono amps and some speakers I built. I learned about electronics and how sound works ( well sort of ). I went on to building my next amps. Now just last year I bought my first integrated amp. 
If someone ever asked me about about how much I spent along the way I usually lied, so as not hear all the BS. Heck, I still do to certain people.😆

@danager

Some good points. I wonder what the total cost was… a lot more over my lifetime.

The wonderful hours of music, and the hours of research have been truly enjoyable to me. My first career was as a scientist, so I love really complex ambiguous problems. I love solving multifaceted ambiguous problems… like, I have my system that sounds like this, and I want to get the maximum sound quality improvement (of a certain kind) spending the least amount of money: all the vendors exaggerate, most of measured parameters mean nothing as far as sound quality, reviews are slanted towards a different set of values than mine… my budget is limited… etc.

Over the last twenty years I feel I really got my arms around the pursuit and my values in sound quality. Component choices have become very easy to make and have performed in themselves and in my system exactly as I thought they would. In fact, I have been able to order a number of items without actually hearing them, and have them perform in my system exactly as I anticipated (for instance th Sonus Faber Olympica III I purchased unheard 10 years ago). This is nearly as rewarding as listening to my system… which, even after making no major changes for a couple years, surprises and delights me on a daily basis.

The above made me want to help others where possible achieve what they desire in audio. Especially when starting off, when one bad judgement, misstep, or attributing a change to the wrong thing can send one down a dead end or just sour one’s belief in high end audio. You hear them chime in on many of the threads on the forum. Those that don’t believe in interconnects, or better sounding components, or science doesn’t prove it, so it is just BS, or it’s all just marketing or psychology… the path is littered with the disenfranchised.

It is a very complex and ambiguous path to get to audio nirvana… but for those of us that have been successful, it has been a tremendous accomplishment and joyful pursuit.

@jjss49 

I have my K&E bamboo in my desk drawer… would you like to borrow it? I haven’t been using it much since 1974.

Depending what you believe your time is worth, investing in stereo equipment can seem like very little gain for lots of money.  ghdprentice may have $150 grand in his current system but how much was the total expenditure over the last 50 years?  How many hours at the going rate were spent analyzing comparing  and even  growing as a listener?   If you add up all the equipment you went through and the time spent to get to your current system isn't that really the cost?

To me the real  difference in just throwing money at the stuff the hi end shop tells you to buy and really understanding the relationship of how the components work together comes down to appreciation.  50 years of experience is beyond value.  To bad that experience can't be bottled and passed on to the newbies with only 20 years of experience.

I experienced only incremental changes for around twenty years building a number of systems. At one point I assumed this was how things would be far into future. Then things suddenly changed with the addition of some rather peripheral equipment, its like I passed this THRESHOLD of mere audio reproduction to performers in room sound quality. This happened perhaps three years ago, additions since then have only increased sensation of living breathing performers in room.

So, only incremental improvements for vast majority of time, passing this threshold has been of inestimable value. It goes beyond a logical analysis into realm of the emotional. A deeper connection to the music and performers has great, great value.