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Five "Golden Rules" of HiFi?

Tough question, but if you had to list your 5 most important "Golden Rules" of hifi, from your own experiences, what would they be?
To start things off, mine would be:

1. Protect your hearing; without it, the rest is pointless.
2. Use a surge/overvoltage protection power board
3. Read lots of reviews and forums like this one
4. Don't buy secondhand speakers (bad experience!)
5. Never buy gear without listening to your own music through it.
carl109
wolf_garcia
6,711 posts
 
Yeah…go to the Munich High End show and note the cost of schlepping yourself there is more than you might spend on most components…no problemo! Coming from the school of Experienced Professional Live Sound Tech and Professional Musician plus certified old person Logic Driven Audio Freak (or simply, "EPLSTPMLDAF"), one suggestion is to clean yer ears with the ear wax cleaning kit from the local drug store…been using that stuff for years. Also, ignore the "audio mysticism" as it's utter nonsense…directional fuses, expensive feet for your gear (vibration from sound goes everywhere all the time…get over it…) except maybe to decouple your speakers from a wood floor (spikes don't do that, rubbery things do), and simply be logical about things…remember you have your own taste unless you're some sort of cowardly wimp, which is also OK as the unstable keep the commercial world revolving…listen to live concerts that only I mix as MY taste is impeccable (Julian Lage…miked his tiny old tweed amps and the bass as Wolleson wanted no mics)…there ya go!
oblgny's avatar
oblgny
848 posts
 
I've pretty much broken every rule purported here so I'll simply admit that I keep looking because I'm bored - and curious.  While I'm not quite ready to scribe a "bucket list" for fear of tempting the fates,  there are many pieces of equipment that I want to hear for the sake of comparison,  or just for the hell of it.  Either or,  the end result is the same. 

I'll never be able to afford loudspeakers $20,000 and up so I avoid including those in my quest,  especially since there are many excellent brands well below that available used.  Every speaker that I've bought here came from an owner that cared about them - I've yet to have a problem with buying used speakers.  (Magnepan,  Thiel,  Von Schweikert,  Dynaudio...)  

I've been in the wine business for 33 years now which is as befuddling and subjective as this hobby is.  Most of the cult wines and rarities aren't even consumed by their buyers,  they simply collect them!

mapman's avatar
mapman
22,335 posts
 
Read, listen and learn.
jetter
3,035 posts
 
Where ever jaybo went, I miss his positive posts and wisdom.  For example, his post above, "only 2 rules.......1. one's love of music has nothing to do with equipment or media. 2. one's love of equipment or media has nothing to do with music" is just so right on.
gillatgh's avatar
gillatgh
381 posts
 

Superb wisdom by all participants in this thread. It just so happens I agree with them all. A couple of things I found while on my journey toward  musical nirvana were:

1) If you can buy used from a reputable site such as audiogon, not ebay. I have purchased most of my system used and its always been an improvement and its always been exemplary equipment. Latest purchase were speakers and I could not be happier.

2) Your room is more important than your best piece of equipment

3) Listen with YOUR ears not someone elses. Everybody has different tastes so you are the one living with yours. Trust yourself 1st.

4) The most expensive cable is not necessarily the best for you. I've "downgraded" my cables from very expensive to very reasonable and obtained IMO better sound.

5) Live and Love music, the more genres of music you love the closer you'll be to nirvana.

To end this I'm within hearing distance of Audio Nirvana now (only a few minor tweaks required, I think) but it took 50 years to get here one detail at a time.

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