Aging Gear for Aging Ears

This is something I hear more and more often. Usually ’older’ or at least veteran audiophiles who stumble upon some piece of vintage gear and are ’teleported’ to the times when it was still all about the music, not the gear. Is this just psychological, ’nostalgia for the old folks’ as it were, or is something more tangible going on?

Time to investigate, so I decided to put a carefully selected, top end vintage system side by side to my modern ’high end’ system in the same room. In terms of cost there’s no comparison (about 1:10 ratio), but sonically it’s quite a different story. I’ve been having ’this can’t be’ moments ever since. And it’s always a delight whenever people with expensive high end systems at home come listen to both systems and to see that same ’this can’t be’ look on their faces. It also happens to young people, with no nostalgic mind games involved. Of course this doesn’t ’prove’ anything, but at least it should give the ’new is always better’ crowd something to ponder.

I'm having a similar experience. I had a catastrophic incident with my Proac Response 3.8s back in the early 00's that I am only now addressing. During the interim, the rest of the system was mothballed, and most of my listening was in my study using nearfield monitors and a sub. Over the years, I found it harder and harder to just listen for enjoyment.  It could be because I use that system for mixing and composing, or it could be the nature of near-field listening, or maybe my Neuman and Focus gear are a bad match, or something else, or a combination.

Fast forward to last week. While waiting for replacement Proac drivers, I put my old ADS B7's on some Sanus stands and hooked them up to my front end ( Arcam CD player, Rogue 99 preamp, Bryston 4B ST). 

Magic! I'm sure it helps that the Bryston has gobs of headroom for the B7's, but I suspect its a little like encountering an old friend after many years of separation as well.

So it's not just me.....I'll postpone the session with my therapist. I really believe there's some science or other logical explanation for this anomaly. Like a newborn animal, maybe we were 'imprinted' with the sound from our first system. I'll never forget hearing Paul McCartney's album 'Ram' on what was to me at the time, a good stereo system while I was overseas in the Army. It was almost like a religious conversion (think Saul on the road to Damascus), and I knew right then that I was hooked. Fifty years later, that sound is akin to what you referred to, an old friend.