It's attention, not money, we should budget

@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.

My situation was the reverse situation of most people here...

I had no budget...

My only way to had an audiophile experience , once i settle on basic synergetical  gear pieces, was to study and experiment with acoustic , not only with passive material treatment but modification of the room physically and  with Helmholtz  tuned resonators grid and distribution and location  ...This opened my eyes about what is sound ... Nope, it does not come from the gear but THROUGH  the gear from some acoustic parameters chosen by the recording engineer of some album and the "sound" then comes TRANSLATED acoustically in my speakers/room/ears by my brain ...

Most people superstitiously believe as markeying indulge them to believe that amplifier or dac or speakers alone created the sound ... The costlier it is, the better it is as a motto ... This is romance marketing not science nor my experience ... Now for sure the gear choices matter a lot... But  Acoustics and psychoacoustics rule ...

I repeated that and people are annoyed because most people are as i am right now  limited in my room design...Happily when i was not so limited i learned not only how to hear better but the basic ... this truth is useless for half people because they feel captive in a living room with if not children a wife and they cannot really experiment nor understand the impactful scope of acoustic  ...

@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.