Are there other people like me ? Amazed by their low cost system :)


Are there other people so much amazed by a relatively low cost system , they consider that is not a stopgap but instead a minimally satisfying ectasy... Each day i am amazed by my speakers and headphone... Am i deaf? Am i ignorant of high end ? Be assured that i know better system with higher acoustic experience and more refined exist ...

My point is an experienced and felt minimal threshold of acoustic qualities and well done and well realized and well manifested acoustic factors exist for me and are at play, for the price invested; so much so , i consider any upgrade way less tempting and if possible would be more, way more , costlier to appear as a real upgrade in quality... For sure an upgrade of part at low cost unbeknowst to me is possible but i must live with what i have for now but i feel no frustration at all. 😊

Am i the only one deluded in this way or enlightened in this way ? Pick your choice of word.... 😎

128x128mahgister

It has to do with what your goals are. If you just want a system that gives you good sound and conveys the emotional content of the music, then you don’t really need to spend that much money.

You are completely right here....That was my goal....To be more precise i wanted a system/room able to give me the acoustic experience of each recording space of any album as it was in three dimensions as if the speakers never existed... I succeeded in my first acoustic room completely ...

In my second acoustic smaller corner in my second home i succeeded partially because of the speakers size, but nevermind, it is good enough to reach almost ectasy , i compensated by creating a satisfying headphone system too this time to add too it...

My headphone system is TOP and gave me an out of the head speakers experience with deep bass and natural timbre ( i always disliked headphones by the way then to pick the right one at low cost and learn how to modify it and optimize it is not easy at all , it takes me years and 9 headphones trials ) ... 😊

If you want a system that gives you great sound, impresses you every time you listen, BLOWS AWAY other listeners and looks impressive, then you’ll have to spend larger amounts of money. Even here the definition of large money is relative

 

But you are not completely right here, the few people who listened my system were if not blown away because of the crazyness of my first acoustic room (100 tuned resonators and many other homemade devices) were impressed by the sound experience and the low cost of my system...

knowledge and experiments takes us a long way it seems...

The main reason I go to audio shows is so I can have a reference to compare my system to. You get to listen to expensive and professionally tuned systems and determine where your system stands. If you don't listen to other systems how could you possibly know?  Highly recommended.

One other point... In many cases there seems to be a belief that "if it costs more it must be better". This is completely false. This is where the imagination takes over and people will swear they hear great "jaw dropping" improvements just because it's expensive. 

The best example of this is a blind test in Spain where they had 30 audiophiles do a blind listening test of a $500 front end. A dirt cheap $200 Crown, class D amp, using the cheapest cables vs. a $12,000 front end.

Conclusion of the test: 1/3 picked the cheap system...1/3 picked the expensive system ...1/3 couldn't tell a difference.

 

I don't have a big budget but that doesn't mean I can't have great sound. And if I had to choose between time and money, for what would benefit me more to improve my system, I would choose time (learning, searching, experimenting).

The main reason I go to audio shows is so I can have a reference to compare my system to. You get to listen to expensive and professionally tuned systems and determine where your system stands. If you don’t listen to other systems how could you possibly know? Highly recommended.

For sure in my 72 years of life i attend few showrooms and listend to some very good system...

 

One other point... In many cases there seems to be a belief that "if it costs more it must be better". This is completely false. This is where the imagination takes over and people will swear they hear great "jaw dropping" improvements just because it’s expensive.

The best example of this is a blind test in Spain where they had 30 audiophiles do a blind listening test of a $500 front end. A dirt cheap $200 Crown, class D amp, using the cheapest cables vs. a $12,000 front end.

Conclusion of the test: 1/3 picked the cheap system...1/3 picked the expensive system ...1/3 couldn’t tell a difference.

The way a system is embedded matter more most of the times than the price tag of the system...

And most people had no idea what is "timbre" or listener envelopment and sound source width and immersiveness conditions as experienced in a room where you can control the multidimensional parameters related to this acoustic concept and their experience...

You cannot recognize or identify something, being it an acoustic factors among many other one, if you dont have the concept related to the phenomenon you must distinguish and act upon ...

Then a crowd of average people will not do as crowd of acousticians...

We must learn how to hear... We dont know how to hear.... It is an illusion created by marketing piece of gear and assuring the future customers that his choice of the brand was right to begin with because it was " his taste" ... We dont learn how to hear by purchasing 40 amplifiers, dacs and speakers... Sorry...

I discovered that by accident years ago before studying and experimenting with acoustics because i had no money to buy my dreamed high cost gear system then i started experimenting with some acoustic concepts...

To reach satisfaction i learned by these accidental and planned experiments and acoustic reading how to hear and what to hear and how to modify it varying some parameters in the room or in the system pieces...

There is no other way.... purchasing will give you a possible better design but not necessarily a better experience on all counts...

By the way as suggested by this video, i dont accept the idea that all audiophile claims are placebos and illusions as the objectivist test obsessed crowd claim...

System design differences matter too ... We must pay for better design... it is a common place fact...

But we must learn how to hear and what to hear... Most audiophiles as i was dont...It is necessary to experiment with the SAME PIECES OF GEAR for a long time if the gear synergy is there to begin with for sure and we must learn how to optimize it mechanically, electrically and acoustically to do this... If you change gear each 6 months it is impossible to learn ...😁 Learning about the difference between two amplifiers is not "learning acoustic experience" it is learning about design branded name ...Sellers must learn that, acoustician has no need to learn about 100 different amplifiers... 😊 I dont either... If i wanted to upgrade i will analyse  the litterature concerning a better possible pieces of gear...I did that for my pieces of gear with success...

 

 

I don’t have a big budget but that doesn’t mean I can’t have great sound. And if I had to choose between time and money, for what would benefit me more to improve my system, I would choose time (learning, searching, experimenting).

In my opinion you are completely right ...

😊

The pride and joy we must have as the experienced result of our own creativity exceed in duration by far most costlier upgrades... And sometimes as in my case the ultimate upgrade will exceed 15 times my actual 1000 bucks system value ... I dont need it even if it will be better for sure...

Minimal acoustical satisfaction goes a long way... 😊

But many people dont understand what i spoke about...

Because their system is too faulty and a stopgap they cannot know about the minimal and maximal satisfaction threshold differences..

We dont learn that by going to showroom where the room is never optimized , we learn that by learning in our own room experiments...

 

 

 
 

 

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