Why do so many members seem afraid of making an audio decision?
I mean it's a hobby sort of. It should be fun. If you cannot hear the difference between two components, cables, or tweaks, then you can't. It's ok not to. Honestly, I sometimes think that some mass hysteria hits the audio community over a new product that later doesn't pan out or some (big)scandal, and people get bent out of shape over it.
Here in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs I'm fortunate to have a pretty good slice of audio dealers plus having very different opinions on the subject. That I think is great. I may not agree with some dealers' tastes or recommendations but that's also ok. After doing this for a while, you learn from your mistakes and also get a handle on what you, yourself like without having to have someone else always telling you. What I have learned over decades; if I like something, I like something, and if I don't like it or hear it, or think it's an improvement, well I pretty much trust my own decision making. I come to Audiogon hopefully to learn from the more experienced enthusiasts about recent developments and about my own stuff.
@chayro I haven't made it to 95, and I am thinking that I won't, but for those that have, I would think that being as how every meal may be the last, they want to make prudent choices. |
@immatthewj - and like a person choosing their last meal, many audiophiles are trying to choose components as if it’s their last chance. The internet has allowed the audiophile to sift through literally hundreds of choices in every component category and price range and many people are paralyzed with fear of making the wrong choice as if it will be their last. I started a thread on this very subject a few months ago, pointing out how too many choices cause many to experience high stress levels. Just my opinion. |
@russbutton -- +1 There’s an emphasis in this thread on ’learning,’ while I would as well stress the importance of unlearning. Depending on the breadth of information gathered through years a lot of what’s accumulated can set one on a course that may be more reflective of a paradigm or school of thought than an explorative approach. DIY in a range of areas can be helpful in this regard with an element of trial and error or "Alice down the rabbit hole" that’s very rewarding. At the core of things it may be an anarchistic tendency to challenge the established and ask the ’why’ in addition to ’how;’ about perspective and a different vantage point and daring to turn your back on things that may have previously held meaning and importance. Sometimes, or even more often than not it’s a feeling of reverence to something or someone that in effect makes secondary your own thoughts on a matter, and yet at some point the realization may surface that it’s time to look elsewhere. Not necessarily because of thorough deduction on a specific matter coming to an opposing view, but simply because following the current has you asking too many questions on the why of it that one can’t not pause and step back for a moment. For a while I found myself heading in a direction in PC audio very much lead on or affected by a general tendency in this field, but at a certain juncture I began to question that direction, through chance almost, that it started a process of me devolving in a sense in the opposite way and back to an outset of years earlier. Not because I needed to be in opposition per se, but because I challenged a stance trusting my very own abilities to analyze it with an open mind. There was no presupposed right or wrong, price or principle didn’t matter, and suddenly I found myself reading through threads almost a decade old. Where I revived them I was told to basically "get into the loop" of the new. Why, because it’s new? If people tell you something is generally accepted as "the shit" in opposition to something else, test it out for yourself. Maybe you feel the variations are miniscule and mostly about ’different’ rather than ’better,’ and then why shell out thousands of $$ if you can avoid it and be just as happy, and maybe even more? What’s interesting is seeing how a particular field in audio reproduction (like accessories or diaphragm materials, and also computer audio) can be obsessed about to a degree where it’s seemingly about a segment of a leaf on a tree that keeps you from seeing the damn forest. Or a least that’s my assessment on the priority shown in some cases that completely throws me off and has me wondering where audio in any way fairly authentic to a live reference, on the whole, enters the picture. I digress. Be a warrior, throw things up in the air, challenge the established - not least try to see the forest for the trees. At the end of the day have the guts to go you own way, all the while sucking up all the information you care to. I don’t mean to be disrespectful of the "experts" in a particular field in audio reproduction, on the contrary, but their expertise may not speak to where this or that individual is heading. |
It depends on your objective. Is this a process for learning and experimentation where the process is your goal or do you want a high-end sound system soon… and spend most of your life listening to great systems and music.
The complexities involved with coming up a great system at a given investment level are huge and very time consuming to unravel. If you like bouncing around in solution space (like a ball in a pinball machine) rediscovering things already known and relishing it… go for it. But there are very well understood principles and guidelines to assess your own values, evaluate and match equipment to achieve the highest sound quality for the money. Most folks are not interested in making a challenging pursuit more difficult, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Most folks learn about the principles of algebra, Newtonian physics and quantum physics instead of ignoring them and deriving them from first principles. But one can do it either way.
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There are a couple of ways to go DIY. It's great fun to do your own engineering. You learn a great deal. But you can always let someone else do the engineering and you just build their design. You suggest that a DIY guy isn't going to have great sound and great music. Many experimenters do take time to get there, but you can build someone else's design and have true hi-end sound at a price we mere mortals can afford. |
