- "Both tend to have a lot of old white guys with a bunch of money ..."
As opposed to what? .... old Black & Brown guys with a bunch of money?
Frank
Audio hobby is like tasting wine.
1. There is no best wine for everyone.
It depends on personal taste to choose favorite wine.
2. Law of diminishing return apply to both audio and wine.
100$ wine is not 10 times better than 10$ wine.
1,000$ wine is not 10 times better than 100$ wine.
3. You need experience to acknowledge good audio or wine.
I am not wine connoisseur.
But I could taste some nice wines through one of my rich friend who is willing to treat nice wines in his listening room.
He treated 700$ wine to me last year. It is the best wine I had ever tasted.
I had never bought wine more than 150$ myself, since I do not have confidence in selecting right one.
Some rich guy paid huge price for big audio system.
It plays loud but not in the balanced way or without any nuanced flavor of nice wines.
Money can not buy you nice system.
You need experience to match right components and cables.
4. One keeps looking for different flavor.
Most people do not want to drink same wine everyday.
They wish to taste different flavor.
Audiophile is looking for new flavor in their audio system.
They keep changing components every year or do some tweaks like cable rolling, tube rolling and power isolation.
Sometimes audiophile do sidegrade rather than upgrade.
I have my first serious audio system back to 1978 with ADS bookself speaker, Garrard Turntable and Fisher integrated amplifier.
After using dynamic speakers like Altech, Thiel and Canton, I was enamored by Apogee Duetta ribbon speaker and Martin Logan CLX full range electrostatic speaker around 1989.
I do not have enough listening space or money to buy two of them at the same time.
Although I loved silky violin tone out of Martin Logan, I chose Apogee based upon overall balance and seemless dynamics.
I had been happy with Apogee Duetta Sig driven by Krell KSA 150 from 1989 to 1999.
But I wish to get sub bass below 35 hz.
It is not easy to match subwoofer with Apogee Duetta Sig which is very fast.
Thus I had switched to Avalon Ascent II and then to Wilson Watt Puppy 4 and then B&W Notilus 801.
B&W Notilus 801(15 inch woofer) driven by Jadis 500(350 watts tube power) gave the most powerful and deep bass in my listening room.
But with too much heat and some tube popping out, I had swtiched to 300B SET amp with 8 watts from the recommendation of my friend who treated me 700$ wine.
I also replaced B&W Notilus 801 with full range high efficiency speaker.
Full range speaker is not my cup of tea with limited dynamics and bass extension.
Thus I had auditioned few speakers to replace full range.
It came down to Lansche 4.1 and JBL DD66000.
Although I liked enormous dynamics out of JBL, it may need more power than 8watts of Silbatone.SET.
Thus I had chosen Lansche on 2007 and been happy with its pristine treble out of plasma tweeter.
Last December, I came across Vintage Western horn full system which cost 300K$.
I really like its natural dynamics and timber out of it.
But I could not shell out 300K$ right now.
This year I had embarked upon earphones and headphones.
I need those listening to music when my wife is sleeping or I travel out of town.
I had lot of joy in Stax 009S driven by Carbon amp with nuanced details and wide and deep headstage.
Although I loved Martin Logan CLX sound, I had never had electrostatic speaker at home.
Now I enjoy Stax 009s instead.
I also had considered getting ribbon or planar speaker but will opt for ribbon headphone instead.
It is called Raal Sr1a which I auditioned last week.
It reminds me of Apogee Duetta with fast and open sound.
I expect to get it January next year.
Some people place more than two sets of speakers in one room.
But I do not like such placement since sound of speaker is very sensitive to room acoustics.
But it is easier to have several headphones and choose them upon mood without paying attention to room acoustics or space.
For the time being I will play with several headphones with various flavors.
It depends on personal taste to choose favorite wine.
2. Law of diminishing return apply to both audio and wine.
100$ wine is not 10 times better than 10$ wine.
1,000$ wine is not 10 times better than 100$ wine.
3. You need experience to acknowledge good audio or wine.
I am not wine connoisseur.
But I could taste some nice wines through one of my rich friend who is willing to treat nice wines in his listening room.
He treated 700$ wine to me last year. It is the best wine I had ever tasted.
I had never bought wine more than 150$ myself, since I do not have confidence in selecting right one.
Some rich guy paid huge price for big audio system.
It plays loud but not in the balanced way or without any nuanced flavor of nice wines.
Money can not buy you nice system.
You need experience to match right components and cables.
4. One keeps looking for different flavor.
Most people do not want to drink same wine everyday.
They wish to taste different flavor.
Audiophile is looking for new flavor in their audio system.
They keep changing components every year or do some tweaks like cable rolling, tube rolling and power isolation.
Sometimes audiophile do sidegrade rather than upgrade.
I have my first serious audio system back to 1978 with ADS bookself speaker, Garrard Turntable and Fisher integrated amplifier.
After using dynamic speakers like Altech, Thiel and Canton, I was enamored by Apogee Duetta ribbon speaker and Martin Logan CLX full range electrostatic speaker around 1989.
I do not have enough listening space or money to buy two of them at the same time.
Although I loved silky violin tone out of Martin Logan, I chose Apogee based upon overall balance and seemless dynamics.
I had been happy with Apogee Duetta Sig driven by Krell KSA 150 from 1989 to 1999.
But I wish to get sub bass below 35 hz.
It is not easy to match subwoofer with Apogee Duetta Sig which is very fast.
Thus I had switched to Avalon Ascent II and then to Wilson Watt Puppy 4 and then B&W Notilus 801.
B&W Notilus 801(15 inch woofer) driven by Jadis 500(350 watts tube power) gave the most powerful and deep bass in my listening room.
But with too much heat and some tube popping out, I had swtiched to 300B SET amp with 8 watts from the recommendation of my friend who treated me 700$ wine.
I also replaced B&W Notilus 801 with full range high efficiency speaker.
Full range speaker is not my cup of tea with limited dynamics and bass extension.
Thus I had auditioned few speakers to replace full range.
It came down to Lansche 4.1 and JBL DD66000.
Although I liked enormous dynamics out of JBL, it may need more power than 8watts of Silbatone.SET.
Thus I had chosen Lansche on 2007 and been happy with its pristine treble out of plasma tweeter.
Last December, I came across Vintage Western horn full system which cost 300K$.
I really like its natural dynamics and timber out of it.
But I could not shell out 300K$ right now.
This year I had embarked upon earphones and headphones.
I need those listening to music when my wife is sleeping or I travel out of town.
I had lot of joy in Stax 009S driven by Carbon amp with nuanced details and wide and deep headstage.
Although I loved Martin Logan CLX sound, I had never had electrostatic speaker at home.
Now I enjoy Stax 009s instead.
I also had considered getting ribbon or planar speaker but will opt for ribbon headphone instead.
It is called Raal Sr1a which I auditioned last week.
It reminds me of Apogee Duetta with fast and open sound.
I expect to get it January next year.
Some people place more than two sets of speakers in one room.
But I do not like such placement since sound of speaker is very sensitive to room acoustics.
But it is easier to have several headphones and choose them upon mood without paying attention to room acoustics or space.
For the time being I will play with several headphones with various flavors.
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- 22 posts total
Unfortunately I am an audiophile who loves wine much to the chagrin of my bank account. Shkong78 you are correct that there are a lot of similarities between wine lovers and connoisseurs as well as stereo gear and the wine itself. The main difference between the two is once you open the bottle and drink it at best you have a very pleasant memory whereas stereo gear should last a little longer then an open bottle of wine. One of my wine buddies who really knew his wine would always buy 2 to 4 cases of the same wines that were highly rated by Robert Parker. That always puzzled me as I don’t buy my wine based upon ratings so I eventually asked him why he relied on Robert Parker so much? His response was “thanks to Parker I drink for free.” He would store the purchased cases in his wine cellar for 5 to ten years and then sell half the wine online for at least double what he had paid because Parker had rated them highly. I wish I could do this with stereo gear! |
I agree with all of the points made by the OP. To illustrate that, while I don’t by any means consider myself to be a wine expert, during the mid-1980s I purchased a few dozen bottles of French Bordeaux from the excellent 1982 vintage, that were highly rated by Robert Parker. I stored them properly in a temperature controlled wine cellar for several decades, consuming some of them with my wife during what are said to be peak years for the particular wines. While all of those we have consumed have been great, by far my favorite has been the 1982 Pichon Lalande (rated at 94 in Parker’s 1985 book and according to one source currently worth $762/bottle). I preferred that wine to the legendary (and excellent IMO) 1982 Mouton Rothschild (rated at 100 in Parker’s 1985 book and according to one source currently worth about $1600/bottle, although I recall seeing this wine sold at auction for far more than even that). In fact to my taste the finest wines I have ever tasted were that 1982 Pichon Lalande and a 1978 Chateau Palmer I had during the 1990s, currently worth only $280/bottle and costing far less at that time. As in audio, when it comes to wines personal preference is paramount. Regards, -- Al |
I think the comparison works and doesn't work. It works in the sense yes people have different tastes in wine and of course we all hear differently. Being in the wine business there is a point of diminishing returns someplace but it really depends on the type of wine and scarcity and of course your budget. There is less of a scarcity factor in audio though it does exist especially with some vintage gear and diminishing returns kick in much sooner relatively speaking. Also there is one aspect of wine that doesn't translate to audio, aging. You often pay more money for expensive wine for how it will cellar and what it will taste like 10, 20, or more years down the road. Also as noted above some wine appreciates in value most audio doesn't. So perhaps the comparison is not really that apt except how it relates to connoisseur ship and the appreciation of beauty. |
- 22 posts total