Head-Fi can be so hardcore

Head-fi folks are the future of audio. Mostly young people that love music and gear. Most people on A'gon are my age or older. Not really a growth segment of the population.

We have the same thing here.  We also have the "nothing matters" crowd and the "all that matters is how much I paid for it" crowd.

But many of carefully craft the signal path with extreme detail.  I now make my own speaker binding posts to my own design.

Jerry

I've been on Head-Fi for years, and I've always gotten the impression that they're pretty much the same demographic as most other audiophile type forums. I think a lot more 'young people' are into music than are into gear. There are always exceptions, but most headphone reviewers I've seen on YouTube are well past being 'young people'.  

I don’t actively participate on that forum but DubStep Girl’s exhaustive comparison of rectifier tubes was invaluable to me and among the various tubes I’ve rolled, I found her descriptions to be spot on. Of course, market prices have gone up and some of the tubes (WE in particular) are even more unobtanium than ever.

As to using music as grist for evaluating equipment, I think that’s a common thing in audiophile land. It is useful to the extent you are making changes and comparisons, but it can also be a trap that I’ve certainly fallen into over the years.

I can’t claim to be more enlightened- maybe it’s just that I’m old, tired and don’t feel like fiddling around with tube rolling and gear changes at this point- I’m quite happy with the current system and am able to enjoy it as a vehicle for playing music- the obvious goal once we get things "sorted." I know there is this mindset of "never satisfied"-- I’ve been there too, but somehow, I’ve overcome that hurdle at least for now. Maybe it is a question of striking a balance-- between the amount of time spent in analytical mode and the amount of time you can devote to just kicking back and enjoying what you’ve got. Like I said, age, wear and tear, many years tweaking and twerking have gotten me to a point where I’m able to put the audio nervosa to the side and spend the time listening. It may also be the result of having gotten this system to the point where it really sings. I know its strengths and weaknesses and tend to play what I want to listen to, musically, rather than worrying about SQ.