Is advice from a constant upgrader to be avoided


For a while now I've been reading these forums and to be honest i was thinking of leaving. I felt a bit out of depth given that it seems so many others have had so much experience through owning what seems to be tens of speakers, amplifiers, DACs etc etc and reading people buying and selling piece after piece after piece on the search for some sound.... 

When someone asks advice about a certain item it seems like half the audience have owned it and moved on and have a comment to make. I then read about someone buying an extremely expensive amp and deciding quickly to sell it because it doesn't sound right. Then someone else is on their fourth DAC in a year. 

So all these people have advice to give. What I'm wondering now is, is advice from a person who's never content, constantly changing their system, never living with a system for long enough, and have more money than patience, really the right person to take advice from? .

There seems fewer (maybe they're less vocal) people who buy gear and spend the time to appreciate it, and have maybe only had a very few systems in their lifetime. I think I'd rate their advice higher on the gear they know than the constant flipper/upgrader.

Is the constant flipper/upgrader always going to say that the gear they used to own was no good and they've now got better? Maybe their constant searching is because their ear is no good or they're addicted to the rush of opening a new box. 

Just because person X has owned a lot of equipment doesn't mean their advice is to be sought after, it could mean the exact opposite.

mid-fi-crisis

Maybe I start thread ranking quality of member advice of thing like speaker and tweak. I be at the top of list with golden ear reward. Even my ear hair made of diamond.

@hilde45

@jjss49 Well said and I agree. It’s not a bad way to decide on medical advice. Don’t trust the loudest voices or the ones with agendas behind their advice.

lol - when my parents got old and sick with cancer, we would visit an oncologist, they would recommend chemo therapy, we would then see a surgeon, guess what, he says by far the best way is surgical resection, then we call on a radiation oncologist, now just guess what they recommended as the ideal initial treatment????

when what you have is only a hammer in your tool-belt, the world quickly looks like a giant, endless bed of nails

@douglas_schroeder

When the internet evolved beyond the old BBS world I thought this was gonna be great, people sharing knowledge, growing with and from one another.  Has turned into something rather different, polluted by self-righteous and cowardly bullies hiding behind annonyimity to be intolerantly rude and judgemental and dumping the stream fecal sewerage the emminates from their mind into the clearer waters of those wanting and willing to listen and share.  Audiogon and the audiophile community is  certainly not alone in this unfortunateness.  Some people want to stay with the same audioi system forever.  Fine, I'd never put them down for it.  Some people like to experiment.  Sometimes they even do heretical things like adjust the hue or bright/contrast of the TV or even buy a new one!  I'd never put them down for that either. 

And there's one tremendously ironic thing about this dynamic and we see it displayed widely and clearly here.  The people who do experiment and change equipment and spend money on what have often, but not always, provided some small improvement in the experience and have proven to be advancements in the technology of audio reproduction are almost NEVER judgemental of those who don't experiment with changing equipment.  They consistely and sincerely express the position of, "Hey, I think it's great that you love your system the way it is.  Good for you."  It's universally the people who don't want to change anything and/or won't spend even a little bit of money to try something new who pile on with riducule, smug abuse and, honestly, a lot of ignorance as they attack people who are just having an open conversation. Cowards hiding behind a screen, armed with a keyboard, spewing sewage into otherwise interesting waters.

@sns 

You say you only trust the people who've learned "what they DON'T like."  Why?  What's wrong with people who've bought a piece of equipment they do like and sharing that??  If you go into a wine shop do you say to the person working there, "Hey, listen, just tell me all the things here you don't like?"  If you're thinking about going on a trip, the beach, skiing, traveling abroad and someone starts telling you about a place they really enjoyed do you say, "Hold on there!  I only want to here about bad trips you've had."  If you suddenly discover you need a plumber and a neighbor starts telling you about a great experience they had with a particular plumber do you say, "Whoa whoa whoa, I only want to here about all of the crappy plumbers you've hired?" 

You're whole story makes no sense, in fact it smells, like sewerage.  I'm calling BS on it.  It's made up trash to support your self annointed superiority.  Never happened.  

@wspohn 

The search for betterment is the passion of the intelligent and curious mind.  It is not a disease and not a symptom of a disease.  The inability to understand that coupled with the need to ridicule it is, however, a symptom of retardation.

 

@surfcat

"The search for betterment is the passion of the intelligent and curious mind. It is not a disease and not a symptom of a disease. The inability to understand that coupled with the need to ridicule it is, however, a symptom of retardation."

I assume that you would approve of our local high end market populated in great part by local and emigrant Chinese auidiophiles, who buy the new models of any well reveiwed gear the minute the review comes out and sell their one or two year old gear at cut rate prices to those of us who aren’t so easily influenced?

Don’t distort what I said - the urge to improve a system is indeed a natural one that we have all indulged in, but the urge to do so in an obsessive manner is unhealthy and unnatural.

Ah yes ,I like the questions.How do you trust someone who is always changing systems. I'm another audio nut,who buys alot of stuff.I have learned the hard way about buying used audio equipment. The price looks great for a piece of equipment that cost thousands when new and now it's being sold for hundreds. I have bought so junk...it should of never been sold.The buyer Beware.....take it from someone who has been burned a few times.