How Do You Live The Audiophile Life

CD318. Your experience is very similar to mine. Pinthrift: my final frontier was coupling my speakers to the walls ... and then happiness. I’ve decided I’m done. The end. Now just enjoying the music for what it is. This is an excellent thread and all the posts have been excellent reminders  not to stray from the path.

I suggest going to real live concerts....the sound is way different than are the recordings.  The difference is animation vs reality.

Hello All,
I too am beginning my journey into audiophile land and could think of no better way to start than to sign-up here and start my education.  I come from HT as a film lover with a significant investment there.  But as the film scores and sound engineering have progressed over recent years I started upgrading my audio equipment.  It didn’t take long to realize that while I was changing up the sound stage for movies, the music became increasingly more interesting.  I have always felt something almost spiritual with good music, but until recently I’ve rarely heard it played well.   I am a real neophyte here, with little more than marginal equipment.  My first concern is about my recent purchases of an Emotiva A-5175 and a Acurus A200 x 3.  I know neither of these qualify for serious audiophiles but its where I’m starting.  I run DefTech BP9020 towers and MartinLogan Dynamo 500 subs x 2, with a Denon x4500h as a preamp.  What this meager little system has done for me is open the door to what is possible.  I have also purchased a Bluesound Node 2.1 and subscribed to Qobuz Sublime and Tidal Hi-Res.  Roon soon.  But could you help, even at this very low level?  I first must decide which amp to keep, so I’m ABing them over the next few days.  I suspect the Acurus, if its in decent shape, will out-perform the Emotiva.  I’ll listen carefully.  But your thoughts and recommendations are most welcomed. Don’t worry, I’m not thin-skinned, be honest.  I want to be shown the best paths.  And thank you for this wonderful forum.  

I started with Emotiva in 2009 before they were really well known. It’s a fine place to start. I still have my Emotiva preamp boxed up just in case.

For me the magic came when I started to perceive height in my sound stage. A pair of JBL 4312a ‘s and Emotiva amp showed me this. 
Don’t worry about source material either. A good system will still create magic with MP3, DSD, streaming, Bluetooth, vinyl or reel to reel tape. I can prove it.

Once you begin to be able to discern spacial elements like scale, position, depth, height and width from two speakers you are on the right track. This means you’ve positioned the speakers properly (at least) and that you may have found a good speaker for your room. 

Localities of sound can be super specific. Different amplifiers will produce different scale, layering and tonal characteristics. But the speakers are the final arbiter of how everything sounds. So start there.

Try different amplifiers out. Play with the accuracy and tonality of your digital sources (DACs are important). Try some simple room treatments, nothing crazy. 
Once the speakers vanish (with eyes closed) and you can hear sound 4, 6, 12 feet away from your speakers, sometimes behind your head....
...and sometimes if you find yourself, even to music that isn’t specifically for it, you find yourself ‘dancing’ (in your seat) say to something obscure like Genesis “Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging,” “...Theb you know that you are there...” (to quote PC of Genesis “Silver Rainbow”)
Please feel free to direct message me if you have questions!

:-)

Thanks, BrettMcee!   Really appreciate the encouraging words, and suggestions. Speaker placement is a little limited but there is room to work it more, try some things out.  I’m fascinated with integrating DACs into the system.  My first opportunity will probably be putting a Schitt behind the Bluesound player.  But after that I’m at a loss as to thinking of how else the system I have could be enhanced using DACs.  Again, about thoughts very much appreciated.