2. analog
  3. 1296759668

How can anyone afford this ?

I consider myself a dedicated audiophile. I am 36(which I am guessing is a little younger than the average here) and single. I have been interested in high-end audio since I saw my uncle's Mcintosh and Threshold equipment for the first time when I was 5.
Since joining the workforce and saving a little I have always been trying to put together a nice system on a budget. I do OK financially(I am a systems engineer) but I do live in NYC which may put some of this into perspective.
Over the last 6 months I have struggled to buy(all used on Agon) a pair of Dynaudio Audience 42s and a Threshold CAS2 amp, Chang CLS3200, and cables(I haven't gone out[I don't have a girfriend], purchased anything else and really haven't eaten too much to be able to afford these and it is still a real stretch). I am using the amp with a direct connection from my CD/DVD player(Cambridge Audo Azur 540D...slightly modified[op amps, PS caps, bypass caps] that I have had for almost 10 years). A fellow has a Threshold FET2 series II(to match with the CAS2) he is holding for me but that seems like a pipe dream at this point along with a turntable.
A few years ago the analogue bug hit me.
I had a setup consisting of an Audio Analogue Settanta integrated and a Nottingham Horizon SE turntable with a Rega RB300 tonearm with the Incognto rewire and structural mod. This was not an expensive kit by any stretch but for me it almost put me in the poor house. I had to sell the entire rig to pay my bills and it hurt.
It seems over the last 10 years or so I have not been able to keep a kit for more than 6 months before I had to sell it. Whenever I don't have a rig I am constantly scanning the online Ads lusting for the next bargain to set up a system and cannot even listen to music on a mass market rig(I have been spoiled).
Anyway, I guess my question is how can anyone normal afford this hobby? What type of money do you have to be making to be able to enjoy this hobby.....$100,000/year? $500,000/year? Do you need to be worth millions? $5,000 barely gets you in the door(some interconnects cost more) and you could possibly spend millions. I am not looking to put together a $10,000 system(not even close...and that is modest in this hobby) but if I wanted to I don't see it ever being financially possible. If I had a girlfriend or a family(hopefully someday) I would not event be able to think about this hobby with a good conscience. I guess I am wondering if all these people in this hobby are millionaires? I am close to selling my rig again to pay the bills(the amp needed repair/recap and that was $450). Any advice for an audiophile who lusts to put together a nice rig but can't afford it? Should I get out and save for 5 or 10 years and then try again? Maybe I am in the wrong hobby but it is more addicting that crack to me(and more expensive). Maybe I should be a crackhead instead...that might be the only thing to make me forget about it. Thoughts?
adamd1205
evilfij
12 posts
 
What I don't understand is how you can enjoy a stereo at any reasonably loud level in NYC? Small rooms in apartments and neighbors on all sides seem to preclude and decent listening volume. I understand music can be enjoyed at more modest volumes, but I suspect if I lived in NYC my neighbors would not be happy about me playing Telarc 1812 overture at 10pm when I get home from work (I work for a NYC firm, but not in NYC so I both spend a fair bit of time in the city and also work similar or worse hours).

The point of the above, is that I think you can save a lot of money by going with a smaller system. Me, I drool over MC301s and MG20s, when at modest volume, there is not a whole lot of difference between them and my MG1.6s even that is a pretty big system. Just be happy with what you have. I did just fine and loved music for over a decade with some infinities and a Sony ES receiver. I could afford spend them money on the system I really want, but like everything you have to make choices and the marginal utility just is not there. Heck, I would probably be happy with MMGs and an ST70.

Music should be about how it makes you feel more than having the best possible stuff.

hotmailjbc
571 posts
 
frogman, you assume so much and dance on the old mantle of i crawled here without a penny from a cursed socilist country blah blah blah. wrap yourself in the flag and you can be somebody. i too came to life here without a penny and made it. i also see this great country prop up phony distators and bomb innocent people into oblivion and have the courage to stand up to what i think is wrong. i am a unabashed socialist and have spent my life fighting, rascism, sexism, ignorance and poverty, and militarism. since this is such a "free?" country i guess i have the right to do so . so keep your lectures about how we are so "lucky" to be here to yourself. grasp that. look up the word hegemony and you might gain some insight to how unquestioned acceptance of the status quo works.
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
Hey hotmail, living in the Ozarks you should have no problem finding anyone to fight with regarding your views on just about any topic you choose. Why not seek one of your neighbors out for a good argument. Doing it here is only dragging this BS thread farther into absurdity.
frogman
7,478 posts
 
I guess I could just rest my case, as you have made it for me very nicely. I would have preferred to continue this privately, but if you insist. And, alas, I can't resist a good banter; I have a little free time today.

Predictably, hipocracy rears it's head. You want the privilege of lecturing others, but when they disagree with you want to silence them ("keep it to yourself").

You claim the high road, and while admitting to be an unabashed socialist, choose to live in this horrible, oppressive, capitalist society.

Anyway, fire away, but no further response will be forthcoming. See, I am glad that there is a viewpoint like yours as part of the mix. Kind of like putting a tube preamp in front of a too-aggressive ss amp. The end result can be just right :-)

To Adam1205, and other fellow Audigoners, I apologize for letting this get so far off-track.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Well I was talking about trickle-down *technology*, not economic policy. Marantz's first customer was a near Eastern sheik; hardly anyone else could afford hand-built cost-no-object high end components. Sequerra's Model 1 Tuner was $2500 in 1975 (almost $10K in today's money for an FM tuner!). Within a year Kenwood had one based on the same principle for $599. In the '40s the IBM CEO famously said that there might be 7 customers worldwide for a computer. At $7M per ($76M in today's money), he was probably right, but today we can get computers for $499 that far surpass the performance of the old ones.

By the same token, you can get a wider bandwidth, more linear, more transparent system today that will run circles around most systems from the '70s (including musical satisfaction) for far less (adjusted for inflation).
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