An unscientific poll: How often are you happy?

Dear Greg, thanks for the flowers, however after much professional hums and haws and much thoughtful twiddling of thumbs, I'd suggest that in actual fact you rather pretend that your system sounds like REAL MUSIC !! And that is the best of illusions we unfortunate audiophiles can have. If that doesn't work, it is indeed Craig's formula which is the most beneficial!! Cheers from the curmudgeon's listening chair! (o; Detlof

I'd have to say that my happiness is near 100%. I can't imagine spending all that money if it were a lot lower. That's not to say that I don't constantly hear things that I'd like to change or improve, only that my system is now at the point that those things don't spoil my listening pleasure. As I've noted before, I listen to the music, not to the sound so when I find bad recordings I just don't play them. As an old codger neighbor once said to me, "Just because there'll be a better sunset someday doesn't mean that I can't enjoy this one." Wisdom there.

Detlof: I, too, am plagued with perfect pitch. I've learned to live comfortably with off-pitch performances so long as the relative pitch is consistent among the players. It's when the damned viola is 15 cents off of everybody else that I go crazy.

What I don't comprehend is the situation where a fellow audiophile is rhapsodizing over the wonderful, nirvanic sound and yet the performer is doing a lousy job of playing or singing or whatever. But we're all different.

Combined retail cost of my two systems is about $60K.

will

Going through all these great responses makes me want to clarify a little something about my original post: I didn't mean to imply that the remaining percentage of the time (about 85% in my case) that we are apoplectic or despondent - merely that we are not completely satisfied and blissful (with the system/sound/music, that is) to the point where there is no perceived impediment to enjoying the moment. So far, no clear correlation seems to be emerging between $ spent or represented, and % of pure joy (maybe I should have also specified $ spent on recordings?). Many mentions of one's pre-existing mood being a determining factor in peoples' response; this interests me because I've frequently regarded my music and system as a balming counteractant to the exigencies of everyday BS. I want to be so arrested by what I hear that I literally forget what I wasn't feeling good about!

Excellent thread and responses! I have about $50k (MSRP)in my main system. If the recordings are good to great quality, I'm very happy about 60% of the time. That rises by about 5% with each scotch. After six scotches, even the bad recordings start sounding good. I do not have perfect pitch (what is the opposite of that?) but think that about 75% of my recordings are good to great quality. The rest don't get spun very often.

90-95% of the time. i'm only ever not happy when the recording is subpar, which doesn't happen too terribly often. if it were all new, it'd run about 40k.