It's attention, not money, we should budget

I’ve found wise application of Room Correction or application of DSP in general also throws any prior assumptions out the door. The end result literally transforms a system of cost X into a totally different sounding one with the ultimate flexibility for tweaking at your fingertips. Big time game changer!  My mindset these days is if someone is not applying  modern digital signal processing to their poor system that is always subject to the room it must play in, then they have missed the boat and the journey to that desired perfect sound will take way longer and cost way more, that is if ever even achieved. 

@erik_squires

I get it. I made reference to DIY, but also validated the decisions made by those who take the most efficient path from A->B.

Yes, we frequently spend time (and, money) on whatever our kids have their attention on. I spent 4 hours over the weekend building custom speaker stands for my grandson. Dropping by later today to help him set up his music streamer while delivering the speaker stands. Time well spent.

Kind of. The thing is though, if we open ourselves to DIY then that calculation does change a little. I don’t mean just speaker building, but say, DIY your room and acoustics, or cables, etc.

We may spend more money on our children, but we may also make them toys and spend time with them in homework and after school activities, so I do think we can separate attention and money somewhat.

Exactly right...

And in my case i dont solder...😁 I am not near an electrical engineer or amplifier designer...

I used then only acoustics principle for my modifications of speakers and headphones and of room ...

I discovered that acoustics basic is underestimated completely because you can touch a cable or a piece of gear , you cannot touch acoustics... This is why so much people are focussed on gear upgrade race instead of their speakers/ears/room relation ...They believe or act as if the sound was "made" by the gear not by the brain in some acoustic context...

"Absolute sound" does not exist for most of us and for acoustician ... It is not an acoustic concept it is a marketing superstition ... In acoustics exist only optimization ...In acoustics between optimization thresholds there is minimal and maximal acoustical satisfaction for some given acoustics conditions and parameters and for some inear ears structure and some HRTF and for some trained or untrained listener biases etc ...

Some like too much their gear to appreciate what acoustics can taught us...The gear is secondary when you have a budget and secondary when you are a ascientist... The gear matter for the designer who do a marvellous work for sure ... But listening in optimal conditions had nothing to do with price tags , even with to some extent nothing to do with gear design ...

Acoustics work as well with a low cost piece of gear... What is analysed by acoustic experience is not something that does not exist , absolute sound, but something more real : acoustics parameters... This does not means in my mouth that the gear dont matter , it means the gear is a budget problem not an acoustic problem ...

I have no budget.

(Can be taken several ways).

Regards,

barts

@erik_squires

I’m agreeing with your premise. Establishing monetary metrics can get us "workable" results. Investing attention (time?) will get us better sonic results, for less money. The DYI reference was merely an example of time spent vs money spent to achieve a better outcome. Yes, there are other examples. But I’ve found, for example, a lot of music can come out of inexpensive and/or vintage drivers if you get things out of the way that make them sound worse.

@mahgister

I’m in the same camp with you on the "acoustics first" approach. Sometimes you have to work with what you have in front of you. We are involved in service and performance mods and bring up the subject of acoustics in every encounter. I think an element of the pushback is an unwillingness to change the decor in the room. Some of it is that acoustical panels are boring. They just hang on the wall and look at you. Not nearly as engaging as new gear, or "hot rodded" old gear.

I mentioned upgrading the cabling in my wife’s vehicle. I tried covering all that reflective glass with sound absorbent material. The back up camera worked well when traveling in reverse, but when moving forward the panels were a bit of an issue. So, if was on to "Plan B" -- upgrade the cabling.