Emotional rollercoaster

We don’t know what we really want a lot of the time. You can’t hit the target until you know what it is.

Random upgrades may well get you nowhere fast.

Better to first hear the sound you want and know what it is then pursue achieving it.

You have to listen to a lot of things usually to know. Both live music and recorded.

Then read a lot and learn about how hifi components work and forge out a plan.

Then make changes or tweaks from there until you finally hit the bullseye.

Also be aware along the way that all recordings sound different. They range from really bad to really good. Don’t get caught trying to put lipstick on a pig. Learn what specific recordings sound like on a good system and use that as a reference.

Good things don’t come easy. Good luck!

cleeds,

'Wow, you sound really unhappy. You might consider pursuing another hobby altogether.'

Yes, me and the OP both! This kind of disillusionment almost inevitably awaits every unsuspecting audiophile caught up in the upgrade path.

However, just like the OP, my passion for music has not dimmed. In fact it is as strong as ever. I now can enjoy music on a variety of systems : my phone/ headphones/Bluetooth speaker, my PC, or on my separates system.

The issue here is the way some of us feel we were mislead.

As the OP said,  

'I was listening to about $60 of hi-fi equipment that sounded extraordinarily nice and made me wonder why I'd spent a hundred and fifty times that much "improving" my main system over the years.'

That is the question here, isn't it?

You see when many of us started our journey towards seeking our version audio nirvana we had very little idea of what path to follow, with no map/guide and very little idea of what the end destination might be.

In the absence of both knowledge and experience (two essential pre-requisites before embarking) many of us tended to accept what we had read. After all, these were experienced learned men of the hi-fi world speaking. Weren't they?

There lies the problem.

Today, thanks to the internet, anyone new to this hobby can look around and share others experiences and be far better prepared for their journey than their predecessors ever were.

More skeptical and less gullible, I hope.
As they say, it's always better to think for yourself. Ultimately it's far more rewarding despite the extra effort.



mulveling,

Good for you brother, knowing of that particular all too common 'audiophile demo fodder' trap.

It took me ages and ages to realise why they hated playing mainstream recordings at demos or shows.

In fact at one demo I was even told, "If you're going to listen to that 60s stuff, you may as well stay with the system you've got."

At the time that didn't compute, but I now realise that those words were not very far off the mark.

I still love audio, I still love music, and though I wish my journey had been easier, I still dream of that audio nirvana.

Just not so vividly now.

millercarbon 5,108 posts

07-09-2020 11:53am

I’ve proved this more than once. Two of the best most fun systems I ever heard were ones I built for $1200 and $2500. The one for $1200 was set up in my listening room to burn in before delivery. For 2 weeks this little one was so darn captivating I never turned my main system on!

I know that millercarbon and I have different views on what is important in an audio system, but I believe his post reinforces a point I was making above whether he intended to or not. Take a look at millercarbon’s system pictures. I can’t speak to how well optimized his room is acoustically, but it certainly looks like it addresses all the basics well. In my opinion, that is why that $1,200 system sounds so captivating.


With odd exception, I could take friends speakers and amplifiers, hook the speakers up with $1/foot speaker cable, use stock cables, and use an LG V30 as the source, and it will sound not just a bit better, but a lot better in my dedicated custom built listening room, then it will in their homes, no matter the fancy sources, cables, or other doodads they have. It won’t even be close. There may be some minor "imperfections" in the sound, but w.r.t. an immersive experience, it won’t be close.

I never upgrade components willy-nilly.  I'm not a trigger-puller.  When I get to a point where I really like what I hear I pretty much get off the carousel for a while.  It doesn't hurt that, ever since I left the mid-fi universe for the tweaky audiophile one, I choose my components as carefully as I can and I seldom have regrets.  I only have upgrade-itis when a component breaks.  I've never been less than 90% at ease with what my audio system delivers at any particular point in the journey.  It's only when a new technology emerges (such as digital downloads, streaming, etc.) that lust truly begins to manifest.

You people keep equating sound quality with price.  If you would learn more about parts and how they impact the sound you would find your ultimate happiness.  I remember going to a local audio club in New Jersey and one of the guys asked me to look at his $10K power amplifier from a well known manufacturer (probably 40 years in business now) and when I took the cover off, I said unfortunately out loud, what a piece of junk, not knowing the owner was behind me.  Parts inside were just basic caps and resistors, transformer was cheap.  So that is when he challenged me if you can do better go ahead and the rest has been history as they say.

I have a friend I call vintage Joe.  He goes to estate sales and he finds fantastic bargains.  Some of the stuff was very high priced equipment years ago.  For example Harmon Kardon series XX preamp and amplifier for $200 in mint shape with boxes and manuals.  Now that was a find and they sound great.  Old speakers like the KEF 104/2 105s, Sony, Rogers, etc.  All those old box speakers still sound excellent and so much musical in the mid-range makes me rethink everything also.

Happy Listening.