My rant; we don't know what we don't know


Please don’t read this unless you are both bored and getting frustrated with the upgrade merry-go-round. Please don’t flame me if you think I am full of crap. Just stop reading. I am going to post this here in amps/preamps because I think it applies here just a bit more than in any of the other forums, though it still applies to all of them. I don’t pretend to know all that much about amps and preamps when it comes to circuit variations and designs. But one thing I do know after forty years in this hobby is that there is so much utterly painful hogwash bullsh*t owner-biased flotsam/diatribe/detritus utterly spewed out by mostly well-intentioned enthusiasts that it has to make any of the wiser folks in the industry cringe. My message to all of you-98% of what you read in this forum about the qualities of an amp or preamp in this forum will not help you obtain better sound. If you have a good amp or preamp and you feel the itch to upgrade, chances are, again, 98%, that the amp or preamp you presently have is not the impediment to your achievement of great sound. It sounds cliche’ as hell and most of you don’t to hear it or accept it, but the devil is in the details-room, component matching, speaker positioning, grounding, resonance control, room treatments, and it goes on and on. I am not in the industry and I have no affiliation of any type with anyone in the industry but I know from experience that 25 years ago I thought I had it all figured out; I posted on forums about my enthusiasm for this amp or that preamp and today I would cringe at all that misguided pablum that I mostly regurgitated from things that I had read but did not really understand and things that I thought I knew that I now know I do not. If you post here because you have nothing else better to do and it adds to your enjoyment of the hobby, fine. But if you rely upon others’ posts for finding just the right piece of gear that will suddenly part the Red Sea, spread the clouds and open up rays of sunlit audio-nirvana to suddenly shine it’s grace on your head and ears, you’re deluded. This is why Audio Note gear can sound amazing when set up properly in one room and gear from Sugden and Harbeth (just randomly for example) can sound amazing in another and on and on. This why those who have read Jim Smith’s book and re-read it and implemented as many of his tips have nothing but great things to say and those that have had him "tune their room" are amazed. We have a cultural abyss amongst us and it is the internet. Find a REAL person over the age of 50 who has been in the business for 30 years or so and talk face to face with a REAL PERSON! Listen with your own ears. If it means a five-six hour drive, pick a weekend on your calendar, make an appointment, and get off your couch and into your car to go visit a REAL PERSON. Thanks I feel better now. Those that want to claim that one amp is better than another or that one preamp is the answer to the search for great sound will, obviously, continue to post here with their unequivocal and yet baseless opinions and I will continue to skim and skip 98%, check that, 99%, of the posts here. And to those who might respond with the question, "why do you spend time here and ignore your own advice to interact with real people?", my response is that I am trying and succeeding at walking the walk.
128x128fsonicsmith
Folks would be much better off, generally speaking, if they believed in too much rather than too little. - PT Barnum

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. - Anonymous

Knowledge is what’s left after you subtract all the stuff you forgot from school. - Anonymous

"You may think you know what’s going on, Mr. Gettes, but believe me, you don’t." - Noah Cross, Chinatown

Many posting are looking for agreement that what they want to buy or like to do is right. Those offering reasonable well thought out replies based on actual experiences that do not agree will get ignored in favor of those that agree. In forum real experience doesn't mater its consensus that most are after. Do you agree or do you not? 
My take away from this thread is that most of the posts on this forum are worthless... In this instance, I think the OP hit the nail on the head.
johnk,

I agree to a certain extent on what you said. Where I differ is, no matter what reasonable well thought out reply based on experience is put forth, it's still only an opinion. The buyer must still use their own ears.
I've posted many times on Audiogon. If my thread is asking Audiogon  members for advice, I'm posting as a means to brainstorm and to receive options that I may not have thought of. I'm not asking for someone to tell me what to purchase. I've learned to feel comfortable with my own ears.
I've managed to get great sound in my listening spaces without reading Jim Smith's book, because my ears still work (I still get hired to mix live shows). I am one of the "over 50" people who the OP claims might have valid opinions, and can state with certainty that the elders in the audio geek world are often as full of crap as anybody else. Posting a screed about how rants, screeds, reviews, or opinions are a useless exercise is a useless exercise and sort of indicates a weird elitism that is, in its paradox of "don't trust posts," almost gonzo. Almost.