Pinthift. I too was a musician being a professional trumpet player. I was a bit younger than your son when going professional. Nothing I’ve heard over the years has equaled what I heard in the 15 piece band but that’s ok.
My greatest claim to fame was to sit in when the Fifth Dimension came to town and their player got the stomach bug.
I envy your boy in his journey.
That aside, we opened our first audio salon in 1970. We graduated to 3 stores and I left in 2001 and remained a financial principal until 2008 when the last store closed.
If I didn’t hear 10,000 combinations, I didn’t hear one. Krell, ARC, Wadia Garrad, Thorens, Jensen (an abomination of speakerdom but state of the art then) on and on.
With all that said, I am a babe in the wood with this digital stuff and amazed at the movement in tech it has wrought.
I am not against anything new but I admit I am a slow mover toward anything "new" partly because I exist in the comfort realms of the past while toe stepping into the future. I had to do that as a store owner.
I question everything. I guess because of all the bs spiel I heard as a business owner from vendors, suppliers and audio "critics" from every dimensional plane.
Like a newborn fawn, I do suppose I need to get out in the world to the few remaining stores and listen "all over again".
