Are all Audiophiles masocists?

Masochism is about pain as pleasure.  Music is about pleasure, not pain.  If you’re suffering for your hobby, that’s different.  If you can’t enjoy the music, that’s probably more on the obsessive compulsive spectrum.  I do think that OCD perfectionism is endemic in this hobby, myself included.

Here,
all of us upgrade each others because we are all rightfully embed already....
:)

If i judge by your posts asvjerry ,you are rightfully embedded because all your posts upgrade my spirit....

The only true masochists in audio are those who try to get into selling speakers commercially.

The rest of them are just shoppers.

Having only recently entered the gon, I can already tell that it comes at a high risk. On one hand, you can find good basic sound advice, on the other hand, you can find yourself submerged in an unending search for sound nirvana through endless means, like audiophile fuses and suspended cables. No matter what, sound nirvana is impossible to find through other's opinions, since your own equipment, layout and ears, are different from anyone else. Long story short, at this point, going at improving my system in my own environment for my own ears is better served by doing it with my own tries and errors working with simpler things like working with the room acoustics. The difference between adding and moving absorbers and diffusers around provides a HUGE change in sound that no equipment change can duplicate once you get to a certain level of audio equipment ($30 K in my case). Trying to achieve that much change in quality of sound with the incredibly small equipment improvements tauted by many here is simply too overwhelming for my sanity. Fishing lines, rubber bands? To each his own but to me music is simpler than that, hence its beauty. Just my two cents. 

I own and play several trumpets. I own and listen to several systems. Listening is the key to life. Listen, understand and learn...