Has anyone made the jump to $uper High end and were disappointed?

I disagree. The real problem for audiophiles is that there are so many problems in playback, especially for digtital, and that many of the problems are either unknown or not well documented. Therefore, the motivated audiophile is forced to try to research what those problems are on line or to undertake the investigation himself. What kind of problems am I referring to? Well, without going too crazy, let’s start with background scattered laser light in CD players. Also, the vibration of the CD transport compartment itself, let alone seismic vibration, which of course is another big issue. These problems are not secret, for crying out loud. Well, some of them are but I will avoid those. What else? OK, the induced magnetic field from large transformers. And the vibration of large transformers, you know, the vibration that is direct coupled to the chassis and all th circuit boards by the four bolts holding down the transformer. And wire directionality, including fuses, power cords, all wire. See, I didn’t mention anything too crazy. 🤪

So, it’s not strictly a trial and error issue. Although that can be part of it. For example, I’ve always said trial and error for speaker placement is the wrong approach. Audio is like a big excavation, trying to retrieve the missing information, the information that is there on the recording but not in the room during playback.

The ineffectiveness of audio is being created by trial and error. And money will never help you. We auditioned different systems of over 500.000 dollar. And mann often it sounded rather poor.

When we audition these kind of systems I always start to look at the people who give these demos. They have often no idea how poor their systems soundd.

The most annoying part for a music addict like me is that they use often shitty music. When I ask them what music the use, they have no idea.

In Munic I met different people who were often only business people. Their real knowledge in both music and audio is limited. They only talk about prices and what we can earn when we sell it.

This will never be my world of doing audio. You only can do this is with full passion and drive. There is no other way to do this the right way.

I spend a few hours each week to listen to new music. For me as a music addict (what I am since I was a child) you love to look for new music.

I can buy music of all different music websites all over the world. Based on the fact that I use IP-Vanish so I can buy music from each single country.

The positive thing is that the level in quality is a lot better than in the past. But.....still the most recordings sound not that good. Even High Res recordings will not solve these limitations. I spend over 200 dollar on new music each single month. A perfectionist only wants the best quality possible.

It cost me a lot of time each week to find it. You can be happy as a child when you find a new artist. Most music I bought I buy from Qobuz.

You have the freedom to listen to music before you buy it. Bought music is about 40% better in quality compared to the same music streamed at the same bit rate.

I also find new artists by using Youtube. When you like a song or artist type in this on youtube. And Youtube will come with many similar kind of music. This way I also found new music what I later bought.

I love a website like Prostudiomaster as wel. Because they often are the only one who have some titles in high res no other one has.

Most of my time in the last 7 years I spend on the acoustics. Because this will always be the biggest influence on any audio system. That is why we don’t sell any audio system without Statement Audio Pro-measurement.

Not only we can solve the acoustic limitations of a room. We can add a lot more details and layers from the low frequencies till the high frequencies.

Almost each roomacoustic system absorbs details and layers in the whole freqency range. We don’t have this limitation. That is why we can outperform even highend stereo preamps.

We can reveal so much more details and information. And that is why we can use our Statement Audio Pro-measurement for highend audio as well.

We have proven over and over again how easy it is to outperform many highend stereo pre amps of over 15000 dollar. When people loose from a Onkyo 5509 you should see their faces. I always feel pitty for them.

People think it is just an Onkyo. We see it as the best level in properties we can find. I have to admit that mine and many of my clients are modified of over 3000 dollar. What we do is we change the cheap parts by expensive parts.

But even with a stock 5509 and S.A.P.-measurement and many different Pass labs monos and amps in 2013 I was already able to outperform the Pass labs XP-20 on the same Pass Labs poweramps.

Now in 2017 we are even so much further.

If I can be so bold those posts just preceding this one are not so much arguments as they are marketing monologues. Furthermore, it’s rather odd that you would brag about parts upgrade since there is probably no one who would disagree with that or think it outrageous. What I’m am referring to, by contrast, are issues that are not (rpt not) oft discussed, if ever. And I don’t even have to broach the very difficult and user unfriendly subjects on which a lot of my products are based since those unspeakable issues are beyond the scope of this forum. But there are certainly enough issues that ARE accessible and not too far out, as I just got through describing.