How does one get off the merry-go-round?

Sounds to me like people are getting their priorites back in line with what"s important, the music. Wehamilton, I salute your attitude. Mine is very similar. If you enjoy music for it's own sake it doesn't matter what you listen to it on per se. I find many great performances on the radio in my car, hardly an audiophile friendly environment. When I want to critically listen to something in my dedicated listening room, I listen to the state of the art system for me, considerably less than $25K, but I get much more than $25K in enjoyment out of it. Getting off of the merry go round made me realize we now have state of the art equiptment to listen to. It's great but music companies are producing mostly state of the art junk to play on it. I'd rather chase the music than the equiptment at this point. I may have changed from one merry go round to another but this one is a better ride. I enjoy audio but love the pursusit of music much more, (vinyl in particular).

I have given up on hi-fi twice in my life:
1. I was played a demo system in which I heard distortion in the source of 9 out of 10 recordings. The 10th was clean, but I couldn't stand the music.

2. When I was no-the-air at a classical FM station, the sound we put out was terrible.

Therefore, if the source is normally sub-perfect, there's no point in spending tons of time and money on equipment superior to the "software." It is more satisfying to listen to real music on a system that "masks" the accuracy in favor of musicality.

Remember the sound of a Grundig console?

Unfortunately, that has to be my bottom line.

Richard

rgstein: Its all been downhill since vinyle. Listening to a cd on good stuff is like looking at a vangogh through a screen door. A clean screen door though.

Sincerely, I remain

Nice simile, Clueless, but I'd rather say through a thin layer of jelly-pudding, especially on big orchestral music.

Ah... some semblance of sanity creeping in. Thank you Wehamilton. Thank you Trebleclef. No I don't see this as some great personal victory in an never ending, semi-sterile debate, but as some confirmation that music is the thing to be enjoyed. I remember someone's definition of "audiophile" as a person who upgrades his hardware until he can prove that all software is garbage. I made the point a long time back in this forum that a system should be seen as something able to reproduce a broad variety of the music a person actually wants to listen too. That one ends up with the ultimate system that is only of use with a handful of audiophile records may be the ultimate justice for those having a passion towards buying equipment and squinting to hear "differences" and "improvements", whether appreciable or "HUGE". Detlof, in keeping with the food analogy, my memory of vinyl is of solo instruments or quiet passages with the sound of bacon frying or, in the most extreme cases, popcorn popping. I can almost smell it... Which brings me to the subject of another comment I made not long ago: since music is actually air being moved in the room by some transducer, I have come to believe that the olfactory quality of that air has an effect on the perceived sound, sometimes creating "HUGE" differences. I am still in the process of assessing whether the effect is more noticeable on the equipment or the music. For now my work is limited to various run of the mill deodorizers from Wal-Mart. To ease into this endeavour, I am presently experimenting with pine scented plug-ins, sprays and solids in concert with Respighi's Pines of Rome. Other suggestions would be appreciated. Please stop short of single, double and triple blind and dead olfactory system testing for now. And to all my wine loving friends out there, I have found a way of fine tuning lesser wines by using Grand Cru Classé bottles, complete with labels. Quite astonishing, a California wine, fine tuned with a Château Pape Clément label, was more full-bodied, with a distinct woodsy quality and good blackberry and hackberry overtones. Just my contribution to a better world. Regards one and all.