I think the OP did not have time to be familiar on all the gear he brought Home.Also I agree , No perfect sound can be achieved. This hobby takes times to really learn what sounds produces musicality on your own preferences.If you can find a honest audiophile who is willing to mentor you that would help.I usually bring new audiophile in my house to listen to my system, I will ask them what they heard and think? Many times I will explain what they should hear and feel on the cd I played.Its important to hear different system as well.Axpona is coming be a good idea to attend. OP I admired your passion on this hobby. I did not realize it takes time to really learn this hobby.But it’s fun to do the audio journey.
What I wish I knew before starting my audiophile journey
I’ve considered myself an audiophile for over 3 years now. In those 3 years I’ve owned over 12 pairs of speakers, 10 amplifiers, 4 pre amplifiers, 7 DACs all in search for the perfect sound. What I’ve come to learn is I knew nothing when I started and now have some, not all of an understanding of how this works. Im passing this on to anyone that’s getting into this hobby to help fast track them to a better sound and learn from my experience. If I were to do this all over again, here is where I would start and invest my money.
1. Clean power- I wasted a lot of time and probably sold very good gear thinking it wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have clean power. I installed a dedicated 8 gauge power line with 20 amp breaker and hospital grade plugs for approximately $800. This was hands down the single biggest upgrade. You really have no idea what your gear is capable of delivering until you have fed it with clean power.
2. Speakers-this is where I would spend the a big chunk of my budget. I could make tweaks all day to my system but until I had speaker resolved enough to hear them, it all seems a waste of time. I discounted many things like cables because I couldn’t hear the difference until I had speakers that could actually produce the differences. Keep in mind the room size. I believed that bigger was better. I actually now run a pair of very good bookshelves that have no problem energizing the room.
3. Amplifier power. Having enough power to drive the speakers is crucial in being able to hear what those speakers are capable of delivering. Yes different amp make different presentations but if there’s enough power then I believe it’s less of an issue and the source determines the sound quality more.
4. Now that I have the power and resolution to hear the difference between sources, cables, pre amplifier, streamer, DACs ect. This is where the real journey begins.
On a side note, my room played a huge roll in how my system sounded but not a deal breaker. I learned that it’s possible to tweak the system to the room by experimenting with different gear. I learned that speaker size based on room size is pretty important. Have good rug!!
For reference my set up
Dedicated power
Lumin U1 mini
Denafrips Venus 2
Simaudio 340i
Sonus Faber Minima Amator 2
cables, AQ full bloom. NRG Z3, Earth XLR, Diamond USB, Meteor Speaker cables.
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Terrific suggestion to attend audio expos. I’ve attended numerous ones over the recent decade and learned a lot from the exhibitors and dealers in attendance. It is also a filter for the vast plethora of personal heavily biased suggestions pushing their personal faves in this audio forum ( and others) that have no assurance of actually working in your system.. it’s an easy hands-on audition with other reputable dealers
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OP, ‘Thanks. Great post. While I have been in this pursuit for fifty years and am still learning… a lot. Great advice.
I churned a lot in my first few years as well… not as much as you perhaps… but quite a bit. At first unless you have experience with different components it is hard to know what kind of variation there is on performance of solid state vs tube, mid-fi vs high-fi, speaker types… it goes on and on. You can read all the audiophile magazines you want, but unless you have heard some of the reviewed components you can’t possibly understand how big a difference they are taking about on any parameter.
So, some churning I think needs to happen, but some of the rules of thumb and observations are useful for someone starting off or it is easy to go down a number of blind alleys and just decide the whole thing is just hocum. |
@dman1974 cool, thanks for explaining. You did good not losing much money, the only way I can do it is if I lose my credit card :) |
- 125 posts total