The 5 stages of making a bad audio purchase

For any audio gadget or thingamabob the assessments are split right down the middle 50-50. OK, you want examples? Fair enough! The Tice Clock, Nordost Cables, AntiCables, Mpingo disc, LS3/5a speakers, Wilson speakers, AudioQuest Cables, cables with Arrows 🔚 on them, audiophile fuses, things without an accompanying explanation, things WITH an explanation, vibration isolation, any product with the word quantum in the name, The Intelligent Chip, power line conditioners, MAG LEV, contact enhancers, CD treatments, the Green Pen, streaming, Schumann Frequency Generator, crystals, CD degaussers, cones, springs. OMG! What is an audiophile to do? 😩

I am a bit ashamed to answer to this revelatory thread about an obsession I partake with many brothers here...I am ashamed because my system cost is way under 1000 bucks all in all including all headphones... I am a bit envious for sure of some people here because my only dream was to give a good audio system to myself...

But How can you make that happens with a very short limited amount of money?

I begins to think about that after some wrong buying spree, reading the hype for the latest product...(it was very cheap product for sure in the eye of some others)


I can assure you that my system is not the best in the world, but I can assure you than many audio system sound worse or not better that cost around 10,000 bucks...I am only happy now … Why?


Because except for listening to the music I love in a relatively acceptable stereo system, I am proud of my homemade tweaks that makes me able to achieve this goal, suppressing the urge to buy for more illusory satisfaction sometimes...


I speak here for the audiophile with low amount of money.... Buy used, buy also vintage, choose TOTL of yesterday, read about sound quality after that, and you must know that it is funnier to design the room treatment yourself with low cost materials, homemade tweaks will makes you happy... And I can assure you for example that my cheap metal buckets " singing resonators", my last homemade design, can change the imaging of an audio room in an astounding way, in the right angle inclination, at the right spots...That cost me peanuts to makes...This idea comes to me from audiophile company that promise at a very higher cost the same changes I hear now in my room...You can smile or mock me if you want to, the " singing resonators" are on photo in my system display here... I control my audio obsession and my budget with simple knowledge about basic audio...I am not an engineer not even an audio master, a simple mind dedicated to his goal: cheap nirvanic music sound in my dedicated audio room... Total cost:(speakers,dac,amplifier headphones) my audio system+tweaks included, cost around 1000 bucks, stones and crystals excluded :)


For an answer to the Op: In the beginning of my buying spree I lived trough these stages...But after wise buying purchase of a dac, an amp, and speakers that were good at low cost, I decide to read, think, and experiment homemade, and after that there was only increased satisfaction, with no more remorse about any thing that I ever buy, and each months for the last few years were a way along a road that was always an improvement in sound quality, and without buying anything more than a few bucks...Experimenting homemade and listening music is only fun not the disease of my erratic self deceiving mind anymore... Basic Knowledge is key...And I read review about costly products I cant afford but when I listen my system smiling I know there is better than mine but how much better ? Then I smile... There is hope for the "poor audiophile" this is the only motivation for this rant of mine beyond the usual egocentric audiophile pride...

the assessments are split right down the middle 50-50

Simple explanation: Half can hear and half can't.

More likely explanation: Any particular component may have some particular merit in a particular system. However, the remainder of the system may exacerbate or ameliorate its flaws.

People do not have identical hearing. Any sonic claim for any component is mostly hogwash and applies to only a miniscule subset of the population with similar systems.

Unfortunately only a tiny subset of audiophiles frequently attend live acoustic performances in good spaces and therefore base their assessments on their fantasies.

"...and therefore base their assessments on their fantasies."

"The truth of the day"

+100,
Not to mention most of the music they listen to isn't even recorded in a fashion that a single listener would hear.