Greetings, I have been into music and audio equipment since I was a kid. It started with a hand me down system from my uncle when he bought a new system. I was around 12 or 13 at the time. He gave me a stereo receiver, a pair of speakers, a turntable, and an equalizer. At the time all I had was a "boom box" and a Walkman. This was in the early 80s and I was listening to the endings of classic rock and hard rock and the beginnings of hair bands and glam rock with a little early rap in the mix. He also gave me a few records for the turntable. I don't remember what all the components he gave me were but from what I can recall it was a Realistic receiver and turntable, Pioneer equalizer, and Fisher speakers. It was well used but he took care of his stuff and he was an electronics wizard of sorts, always at Radio Shak buying resistors and capacitors and transistors, heat sinks, wire, etc... for his various projects which included repairing and upgrading stereo equipment so I'm positive that it wasn't stock but it certainly was plenty loud enough to get me on everyone that lived in the building's bad side immediately. I was doing just fine at that with my boom box, hence the need for the Walkman but once I got that stereo hooked up in my room and started blasting Black Sabbath and Ratt, all hell broke loose. But I was hooked so I ended up moving to my uncle's place where things were more tolerant of loud music.
I'm 52 now and have had many different systems over the years. But I've never made myself much money so I haven't had the greatest equipment. I've always been limited to what I could get commercially and locally for the most part with the exception of being able to buy things from the internet in more recent years. So i have been able to do a lot more as far as shopping goes by having access to equipment from pretty much anywhere. However still being limited for funds, i haven't been able to break into the super high end stuff. I've always known that there is a realm of equipment above what I've been limited to but I've never had the money to even be interested enough to explore any of the equipment.
I still don't and I don't expect to ever have that kind of money, however I decided to take a peek at what exists for the super wealthy portion of society and I am completely floored at the prices on some of the equipment I'm seeing. I just don't understand how people can spend the kind of money that this stuff is going for. Nor do I understand what kind of people are willing to spend it. I guess not being a part of that sector of society has a lot to do with this and if I were included in that sector I may feel differently about how preposterous it seems to me. However I'm not in that class and often thankful that I'm not. I've just always had a job and made do with what I get from that, which is not much. That's partially my fault for not having more motivation but also a lot of it has to do with circumstance. These circumstances include where I'm from, my family's background, and factors of society and how I have interacted in it. That's enough material to write a book about and doesn't really have any significance here. However in any case I'm just not one of those people and can't see myself being one. So with that mindset I can't consider how it must be, nor do I wish to.
I've always had to struggle to get what I do consider decent equipment to play my music on and thought that the few things that I had managed to scrape up enough for was pretty good but none of it was or is anywhere near as expensive as even some of the least expensive offerings that I see here and in a few other places that I've visited while checking this stuff out.
I'm also positive that I have damaged my hearing over the years blasting my tunes as well as with some other things I've exposed myself to but I still feel that my hearing is decent. I don't have trouble in conversation and I can hear many things that others around me can't. I do also have Tinnitus but it's only really noticeable when it's dead quiet. I try to avoid that kind of silence and I do this by listening to music when I'm not exposed to the noise of everyday life. I live in Denver Colorado now and it's usually pretty noisy most of the time so it's easier here than when I lived in Maine. I lived there all my life before moving here in Feb of 2014 so I had to have my tunes on much more often.
My boys are grown now and I'm divorced so the struggles of that part of my life are past me and I am doing somewhat better financially being in a city with a thriving economy so I have been slowly building my system. Piece by piece when I can afford a new component or upgrade one of the ones I have and I'm at the point where I'm pretty content with what I have for the time being so I got a little bored and decided to take a peek at the next level and I see that I'm going to have to explore other interests to cure my boredom because there isn't any way that I'm moving to the next level. And from the looks of things, I don't think I would want to even if I somehow did become financially able to. The way I see it, even with things that I'm passionate about, there comes a point where the gains in whatever is being sought after become simply not worth the expense of what it takes in order to achieve them. I find this to be true and consistent with whatever endeavor it is that I might be interested in pursuing. I feel that once a certain level of quality is achieved that going any further is a waste because the expense to do so far outweighs the minimal gains that are the result and this is very accurate with audio equipment.
My system is pretty damn impressive to me and those I choose to associate with and bring into my life to the point where they get to experience it. It's taken me over 5 years to get it to the point it is at and the total I have into it isn't enough to even put a down payment on many of the items for sale here and in other places aimed at the same target group. And I like to think that even if I had tons of disposable funds that I would still be happy with my current system and be sickened by the thought of having enough to buy what is included in the next level. There's definitely some things about society that just don't add up. At least not to me. But then again, who am I...
