Please tell me.

Yeah, I grew up on old school "consumer" level hi fi. I use to have Cerwin Vega AT-15's running off my HK... 20 years ago. So you could say I still like BIG sound with LOTS of low end. I hadn't been exposed to "real" hi fi until I was older so I will always have my roots. I have just come to accept that. I felt like I just didn't know how to apperciate "real" hi fi. I now know that real hi fi is in the eye of the beholder. It's easy to get caught up in all these variables to the point where you loose sight of the main objective... hearing the music the way YOU want to hear it. Not being told the way you're "suppose" to hear it. I'm enjoying my system more than ever now that I've given into this idea. Getting past mental quirks is hard... but once you do you find what it is you really desire.

Drum75, like yourself, when listening to music I don't have audiophiles sitting in my living room evaluating my system each time I fire it up, only on rare occasions. So it really comes down to pleasing yourself. I'm not positive but it seems that musicians, at least the ones I know don't care much about high end gear and are content to hear their music through gear similiar to your older HK. If I could theorize a little bit I believe that musicians are more focused on the music where as most audiophiles are defined by both their gear & the music.

What preamp are you using?

OK, I'll take it a step further and admit I'm loving having tone controls back in my life. It's been a long time. I like the option of adding a little bottom end to a recording that needs it by just turning up the bass. I had convinced myself that this was sacrelig!! Is there even such a thing(besides sunfire) as a pre amp with tone controls anymore? I realize if I go to Circuit City I could probably find one but there has to be a quality pre amp that caters to someone like myself.

Drum75, now you have really crossed the line--------- but since your a musician you are forgiven, (just a little humor here). There is a new affordable preamp offered by Halo (Parasound) that has defeatable tone controls (they are truly out of the signal path when they are defeated) so you can enjoy both audiophile sound or processed sound. It is the P3 and it retails new for $800.00 and can be purchased used for around $450.00 on Audiogon at times. Look into this quality but affordable preamp, do some research, you will be happy you did! The other alternative is to add a subwoofer to your current system for added bass response.