Hiatus


Being an addicted audiophile for many (too many) years, I found myself analyzing every parameter of my system and enjoying it less. I started listening less and less until I stopped listening altogether. 
I'm not sure how long the hiatus was, but when I gradually came back to it, I returned as a music lover again.  
How  surprised I am now at how beautiful the music sounds when NOT listening  for audio niceties.  This is true not only when listening to great sounding recordings but also to non audiophile releases, and enjoying them for the music despite whatever deficiencies they present. Even these latter recordings have some positive sonic  qualities that my system produces.

 This is what enjoying your system is all about.

128x128rvpiano

@curiousjim 

Thats funny. As I have aged, I find I can finally sit down for extended lengths of time. My watch is always telling me it has been an hour and that I should get up. I can ignor it easily for and hour or more.

Thanks. I've gone through the same thing. Unfortunately, several times!

But you are spot on. A good reminder.

it is the first time in my life i had not one but two systems well embedded...

For casual listening without end on speakers or sacred listening  i am on headphone...

Music experience fill the space and the sound defects and upgrading  audio gear choices are no more in my sight choices...

The only difference with me with  my low cost systems compared to obsessed people is synergy between components and good mechanical,electrical and acoustical embeddings...

When sound manifest at his optimal through a system/room it disapear into music experience...

@rvpiano 

Glad you found your way back to the music! 

@ghdprentice

I think Audiophilia attracts certain types of people. Men for one, but with analytical skills, a love of nuance and subtlety, lots of cuiousity, and definitely somewhat obsessed. Depending on where you are on the scale of obsessed will probably determine if you get dragged too far.

There’s nothing quite like getting "dragged too far" as a way of learning when to back away from obsession.

Likewise, if you haven’t heard your system pushed in directions you don’t like, how can you discover what you do like?

 

 

I have found that my musical "judgement" is at its most accurate when listening late at night in the dark with just a hint of THC running through my brain and ears, Got my medical card last year. What the THC does is amplify focus and eliminate "monkey mind" or rather replace it with a more delightful monkey mind perhaps. Any stress or seriousness accumulated during the day is subsumed by the high and taken to oblivion for awhile. There is also the cannabis PRAT that lets one see the music more as a totality rather than a complex of independent parts that need monitoring and constant audiophile "assessment." It takes away the uptightness that can gather around our systems as we obsess over minutiae. It gives us the excuse to be a little reckless and forgiving in our hearing without the feeling that someone judgemental is always looking over our shoulder. It makes music more of a "surprise" probably because the THC has slightly retarded our analytical thinking and memory.

That’s why Satchmo could never play his horn right without it.