Love for music shatter by highend equipment

It is kind of crazy that folks get caught up in the high end to the extreme of discarding CD's that don't sound good enough to bother playing on their "high-resolution" rigs. Something does seem to be askew with some audiophiles' sense of priorities.

Personally, although I own some moderately expensive gear, I can still find pleasure in listening to lesser systems and recordings as long as they bear some semblance to real music. Heck, my wife has an old system with an Onkyo receiver and a pair of Yamaha bookshelf speakers that sounds surprisingly good when listening from the next room.

I am actually fascinated when I find budget components that provide a high percentage of the high end experience. Recently I hooked up a pair of Maggie 12QR speakers to an old NAD 3020 integrated amp and was pleasantly surprised at how musical and captivating that combination sounded. Though lacking in detail and low frequency extension, it had a sense of immediacy on vocals and midrange instruments that is hard to beat at any price. Yeah, sure -- my more expensive bi-amped electrostatic hybrids have much greater resolution, dynamic capability, and greater extension at the frequency extremes. So what! I can still appreciate either system on its own terms.

It makes me wonder -- when can I stop -- when will the system's performance be "good enough"? My gut feeling is that I could have stopped 10 or 15 years ago and still have been perfectly happy.

I look for systems that get the basics right. Above all else, they need to be musical on the bulk of recordings I play. If only a small percentage of my recordings sound good on a system, I blame the system (no matter how expensive) not the recordings. People get caught up in the high-resolution mentality and forget about basic musicality. I think that's where they run into trouble. If only 2 or 3 out of 10 recordings sound good on my system, I'd change my system, not my recordings.

In other words, what is the point of owning expensive gear if it fails to provide a musically compelling experience with most software??? If you're buying equipment mainly because it was rated "class 'A' or 'B' in Stereophile," then I believe you have lost sight of what really matters...

Another thing that galls me a bit is all the folks in the A-gon forum who are so insecure in their ability to make a decision that they must get a group consensus before making any purchase. God forbid they make a "mistake" and pay too much, or buy a CD player simply because they like it -- without hearing all other contenders at their price point.

End of rant. Happy Listening to those of you who actually listen.

Sounds like the high-end industry has been successful in brainwashing your friends.

that's tru...
most of the recording are not great and might sound worse on the higher quality system... i admit that i do sacrifice on how some of my records sound on my rig and might sound better on cheaper units but right there i have other records that i can double-enjoy meaning enjoying it's recorded quality and performing artists. anyone here probably would admit that the voice of Pete Gabriel is divine and great but early Genesis albums were pressed and recorded horrible and i admit they sounded better on my Rega P3 than they do on my Michell Gyro SE. my collection alters very often since i do not keep a particular record in collection(well some of the rarest i do) and sell them after i listen once or twice. i do some car-stereo compilations before i sell my records on nakamichi RXD2 unidirectional tape deck.
if i had enough budget i would definitely place a nakamichi car-stereo system in my Lincoln Towncar 1987(can't even think of changing that beloved vehicle!).

i've also noticed that most of high-end addicts listen to small-band jazz mainly that recorded somehow extraordinary: wehre sighing is heard even louder than music(what kind of compression is that or play of recording engineer??), bringing up unreal studio noise to attract naive listener? haha! i've been playing musical instruments and hearing people sing every time and i couldn't hear such "effects".
i once asked my friend highend-addict a question why would you listen to Cassandra Willson and wouldn't listen to Edit Piaf and he answers that Edit Piaf was never recorded well...