How much reality do you really need?


The real question to the audiophile  is, “how much reality do you need” to enjoy your system? Does it have to be close to an exact match?  How close before your satisfied?  Pursuing that ideal seems to be the ultimate goal of the audiophile.
The element of your imagination has to come into the equation, or you’ll drive yourself mad.  You have to fill in part of the experience with your mind.
But this explains the phenomenon of “upgraditis.”
128x128rvpiano
Recently Lewis Hamilton seems to be needing more horsepower. We'll see how that works out.

I like the sound of rooms along with whatever my hifi is spewing out, and was worried my newly acquired house was gonna be way too live in the high ceilinged long living room...it's not. Sounds amazing...reality bites.
I'm in the Master M camp. Reality is what you make it. MONEY, (as some have implied) has nothing to do with the reality of sound. TIME and experiments do.. 

If reality in sound equates to money invested, what do you do with ear buds or head phones? Say they don't sound good, when we all know they do. Some better than others. BUT a free pair that comes with a phone sound pretty good. Total cost .50 cents including packaging.

Set of earbuds and that right! Time to DANCE..

Hat on the floor and I slowly walk around the hat to the beat of the music, BUT my faithful K-9 can't keep the beat because she's got NO EAR BUDS!!. But she tries.. NOW we stop and slowly back around the hat to the beat... :-)

Regards..
Some posters here have the correct answer to this simple question:

There can be no reality.  An event cannot be reproduced with total precision, not least because it is being reproduced at a different time.

A system should seek to reproduce accurately what is on the recording.  The recording exists in the time it is being played.

End.
Post removed