HOW MUCH DO NON-AUDIO FACTORS INFLUENCE YOUR AUDIO PURCHASES?

I care only about price, and quality design....

Vintage mythical product for my amplifier...

Vintage good one for my speakers...

My Dac is contemporary but is minimal design with internal battery, externally coupled to a transformer, a NOS one design using a "single" old TDA 1543 chip...I paid it 20 bucks on EBAY bid....😁 This dac for the last 2 years reveal to me no defect on any count and improve with my improving system controls....There is better dac but what is their price? Many thousand dollars not hundreds....Anyway this dac well embeddded will beat many costly one badly embedded... This truth is misunderstood by most alas!


After that the only important factor is how do you embed all that ....I listen to it and then to correct its way in my room i created my homemade controls devices....Better to create than to buy.....

The final results is not a feast for the eyes.... 😁 Said my wife who blissfully say that to me listening music, but it is the best sound ever! ( she exagerated here but without knowing it)

But no one can made me really jealous.... It is not necessary to own the best system , it is only necessary to recreate a good instrumental timbre experience...


If the vibraphone is in your room with an aural hues in the tone variation and perfect decay and the sound dont come from 2 speakers thats all....

For 500 bucks+peanuts all included who can says better?



The only audiophiles suffering from a disease are the one who upgrade endlessly without even knowing how to embed their gear....

NO i am normal.

  jdmccall56

I sometimes think the whole process is, for me, more an exercise in obsessive behavior than a rational pursuit of a logical outcome ...

All joking aside, obsessive behavior is a behavioral disorder. If you truly feel what you wrote is actually true, I urge you to get help. Seriously. When people talk about "audiophilia nervosa," they are just joking. It's a nutty hobby. But being genuinely obsessive is not amusing or healthy.

"...I have for years, pursued matched, one-brand systems..."

That is a habit that needs to be broken, way too limiting.

I won't buy anything made by a company owned by the government of the Peoples Republic of China.  Don't care how great it sounds or what a "Deal" it is.