a rant

Sounds like you have been reading too many reviews and buying what becomes trendy.  not faulting you at all but I think you've concluded that isn't working and I agree with you. 

I recommend relaxing a little and don't buy anything for a while. 

I'm sure your system is good if not great.  Remember if you are shopping in the high end areana, there are very few bad decisions.  For example, I posted negative about Parasound yesterday, but that was compared to Rotel, Pass and Coda.  I hate Parasound but if I had to listen to it I would learn to enjoy it.  It isn't bad.  We are chasing the last few percent.

I recommend STOP reading all reviews.  Take all online recommendations, including on this site and including any equipment recommendation I make, with a grain of salt.  Make your own decisions about what you like.  Move slowly and if possible audition the equipment to make sure you like it. 

Consider buying used so that if you don't like it, you can resell at about the same price you paid.  Much easier to try lots of different equipment that way.

and oh yeah, break-in is highly exaggerated and often used to avoid returns.  Equipment does break in a bit, but after a few hours, or maybe even minutes, it isn't that dramatic so don't expect a piece of equipment you don't like to get good.  The best that can happen is your mind gets used to it.

Jerry  

Regarding amps, I began buying them based on measured distortion profile rather than focusing on their topology. I.e., the amp’s primary distortion harmonic that would be most audible. I began noticing a pattern that my favorite amps have either second or third harmonic as their highest distortion component, with higher orders being below the amp’s noise floor. Solid state amps of this nature provide the most tube-like dimensionality without the typical drawbacks of tubes. 

That’s how I landed on my current integrated amps, one of them being class D. If you’d asked me a year ago, I probably would’ve told you I’d never again purchase a class D amp. 

Regarding reviewers, they make their money off of raves and rhapsodies. No one wants a product that is merely “ok for the money.” They know this, and that’s why they tend to gloss over or entirely omit any negative criticism. There are other reasons why I believe most reviews are untrustworthy but that’s too long a diatribe for a Sunday morning. Suffice to say that if you think about the reviewing industry critically, there is really only one conclusion to make. 

Perhaps the best thing I have done in my audiophile journey was to cease reading the online pubs and watching the YT reviews. These days if I can’t somehow experience it for myself through the secondhand market or an audition, it’s not worth my attention. I only look at reviews if they include the aforementioned distortion measurements. 

@carlsbad2 + 1

I do not trust reviews generally speaking , but it was nice to see my Amp and DAC on Part Time Audio's best of and best value for the DAC and few years in a row after I purchased them.   They are great and definitely keepers.  

My most recent buy was a pair of Studio Electric M4.   They have been on that list every year since 2022 for good reason.  They are awesome.   That review did not influence my purchase, show reports by many saying that the Studio Electric room at shows sounded impressive did. Particularly those speakers.   

I think I'm finally off the component merry go round for a while.  As always , trust your ears.  

Pursuing high end audio is a very complex and ambiguous process. It requires successfully identifying the sound you like, sifting through marketing hype, evaluating equipment for sound, carefully choosing for the sound you want.

It is easy to get off track and follow marketing hype, poor reviews, other’s opinions.

I recommend, going and listening to live acoustic music. Apply your technical listening skills to characterize what you hear. Then go to high end shops and do general listing sessions to identify the kind of gear that is sounding what real music sounds like. Then read reviews of this equipment: Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and HIFI+ only. Do not read any of the other mags. Not that this mags aren’t infallible but they are relatively neutral. Then you need to make the correlation between what you hear from components and what reviewers say. Do not read marketing material on any components... it is completely unhelpful, as is the ASR site.

You need to use your ears to make the choices.

This is not a pursuit that is easy. But incredibly rewarding when you successfully navigate the many obstacles.

If you are not good at this analysis. Then find yourself a dealer that will carefully help you navigate all the alternatives. You have to interview and be interviewed by dealers to find one that gets you and what you are looking for and you get. There are actually many... but the ones simply out to sell give all a bad name. Typical medium sized shops, seek out the owner. Tell the story you posted. Find one that wants to be your guide.

Over the last fifty years I have slowly added a tubed piece of equipment after another until all my equipment is tubed. You can see my systems under my UserID. Tubed equipment took a hit in the '80s and has staged resergence since then because of its natural an musical sound. 

This is me -- with food.

After 30 years of being so enamored with restaurants - I am happy to just eat food. I’ve stopped looking for better food.
Whenever i have bought new brands or kinds of food it never tasted as good as people were telling me.
Maybe sometimes it did but most of the time, I was disappointed.
My over eager desires wanted every new morsel of food to taste incredible.

Now, I just eat the same things everytime, don’t think about its qualities, and don’t seek out any improvements.

Looking for something better is not as good as simply chewing and swallowing.

I have a $150 Fosi ZA3 and quite frankly, it sounds fantastic driving my Piega Coax 16s fed directly from my MSB Discrete DAC. Go figure...

I consider myself lucky to have been introduced to high end stereo in the 80's when there were brick and mortar stores aplenty in NYC. I got to listen to a wide variety of equipment and understand what I liked and didn't. Reviews didn't really have much impact upon me, I just knew what sounded good to me.

Fast forward to the 2010's when I finally had some money to spend, and knowing what I liked helped me obtain the system I always dreamed of (and buy it used).

Bob

I chased gear the first few years I was in the game in the early to later 80s...lots of amps, speakers, TTs, etc, but by 1989 I had acquired the same speakers, amps, and preamp I use now. It’s really been a matter of refinement since then...tube rolling, bi-amping, mods, configuration changes, etc. I don’t read reviews, don’t go into audio stores, and have a much slower, calculated approach to my next move than the early days. I also think the system sounds better than ever. It gets enjoyed more than ever too, but maybe the listener isn’t as picky as he used to be (though I doubt it! )

Luckily I never had your problem (with a mortgage, 3 kids, their college loans and a sick mother who is the cheapest of all (only a few grand a month) I can afford to chase 30 year old $30 amps on shopgoodwill) 

I reached the point in my audiophile journey that you are in right now about four years ago.  At age 65 and now retired, I put my retirement system together then, and now, I'm content for the duration.  I've got a great system, I'm tire of dumping money into the hobby endlessly, and I'm just tired of chasing the cat!!!  Life's good. Happy listening

Themproblem is learning what you want gear to perform like and not basing your decisions and self worth on others ideas.

There are folks who cook using recipes, and those who cook using an intuition. You just know. My wife is the former while I'm in the latter camp. I've never used a cook book but I make great food. Same with stereos. I don't need reviews. I just know how to put the system together, while keeping cost in check. 

Find a good dealer and get off the gear merry-go-round. And along with that develop confidence in your own ears and you will be a happy listener.

Does anyone remember if the Hafler amps were class A or class A/B?  I know their preamps were class A.  The reason I ask  is because they were my first introduction to high end equipment.  I have built, bought and traded my way up the ladder ever since ( with few exceptions).

One thing that always amuses me is how many reviewers come out with immense amounts of hyperbole about the gear under review, yet fail to have any idea as to the gear that was used to make the recording they are listening to. Many times the recording gear was so poor that the things that the reviewer is supposedly hearing could never be recored by said recording gear! A minor detail.

@curiousjim  My first Hafler 220 was a class A/B design. I think they all were.

@kennymac 

My story is similar 

4 years ago at 65, I stopped the chase after 45+ years, got a nice integrated amp and some good stand-mounted speakers. I kept my tt, streamer & CD transport.

I kept about 300 albums and 100 or so CDs since no one knows what streaming will be like 5-10 years in the future. 

Any involvement with audio is now confined to listening... and it's great! No more combing through reviews and spec's, wondering if I can make some tiny improvement for $$$.

It felt odd getting rid of the separates and 5-6 pairs of big speakers...including the Maggie's that I believed could not be improved upon, but I don't miss any of that stuff. 

It was a fun ride, albeit wasteful, but it was the path that led me here. 

Cheers

@curiousjim I built the Hafler kits, DH220 and accompanying preamp. Great value for the money and time spent. It was definitely Class AB, with the huge MOSFET transistors and enormous heat sinks. I used the pair in one system or another for 40 years... They're still in storage somewhere, and they make me nostalgic for my early audiophile days...

OP, I understand what you are saying and it can be hard to avoid. I agree with what many have said about reviewers. I don’t avoid them and find them interesting because I like learning about equipment. I do try to take them with a huge grain of salt, however, and use them only to learn about the general features and design of a product, Not so much sound quality. I like reviews that at least provide measurements although I don’t think measurements tell the whole story. Most of all, whether it’s one of the magazines or a YouTuber, those who publish reviews often, in some cases nearly always, have a financial conflict of interest. It doesn’t make them evil or dishonest, but it does mean the review is rarely going to be objective.

trust your ears more than someone else’s opinion. Try to listen to as many pieces of gear as you can if you are in shopping mode. Remember that most of the advice you get  will be to make the same choices that the advisor made, and that will be great advice if your tastes are the same and your ears are the same. There is a lot to be learned by someone else’s journey, but you can’t learn what you like from them. we all like something different and it is very subjective. on the other hand, you can learn a lot about the general build quality of equipment, the sound characteristics, etc. reviews and advice can be great to help you narrow down the list of equipment that you should try to hear.

When you are evaluating a review, or someone else’s advice, understand the serious limitations of language when employed to describe sound. if someone describes a color as Carolina blue, or black or ruby red, we pretty much know what they are talking about with some precision. On the other hand, if someone tells you a component sounds “warm“ or “bright”  or “transparent” we may have a general idea of what they mean, but it is far less precise. Another way of saying we have to trust our own ears above all else.
 

Have realistic expectations.  I rarely have experienced the “night day” difference from an equipment change, especially from cables, etc., that I read about sometimes. Speakers and room treatments made the biggest difference for me, but it may be otherwise for you. Subtle but discernible improvements have been the more likely result in moving up for me. 
 

I think Audiophiles, more than most, yearn for affirmation of our choices. So if someone, maybe a reviewer or someone who posts in forums, criticizes what we have, there’s a great temptation to jump down the rabbit hole. That might be a good time just to listen to music on your system and ask yourself if you find it enjoyable. If so, you are probably in a pretty good place.

It all comes down to the sound you prefer.  If most of you ever were at a reviewers home and listened to their systems, some of you would laugh at this.  They don't have golden ears ad some of the rooms are, well, not any better than your living rooms.  Most of you still do not know what makes something sound the way it does so you chase different equipment.  If you actually took the time to figure out how sound is produced, you would not chase anything.

Happy Listening.

@sfgak @daveyf

Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure they were A/B but I just couldn’t remember. I was always broke back then because I was always buying the upgrades. 😀

I have never viewed the hobby as a roller coaster ride because I have always used a systematic process for making improvements.  The systematic process involves a number of steps that I have posted before.  First, and most importantly, listen to live music, especially acoustic music, to develop your “ear” or impression on the sound of  individuals instruments in a live environment.  This requires you establish critical listening skills to discern nuances you consider important to you, such as the ambience of the venue, how the leading edge of the sound develops, dynamics, the sound of the body vs the string or reed of an instrument.  The second step is to critically listen to your current system and set a goal for improving the sound of your system to make it closer to your impression of live music.  Goal setting is critical to not getting on the roller coaster ride.  It is the simple psychology of gratification.  By achieving a goal, you are more likely to be satisfied.  Third, is research the literature to identify potential equipment within your means that may achieve your goal.  Fourth is auditioning the equipment to validate the reviews you read and determining if your goal is achieved.  I have been successful in using this process and making substantially satisfying improvements in SQ, and not changing my system often for the sake of change.  Another important attribute to develop is to be able rob have a critical listening mode and a musical appreciation mode of listening. The critical listening mode is important for equipment evaluation but it can distract you from appreciating the composition or performance.  The musical appreciation mode lets you focus on the composition and performance without distractions from critical listening.  Learn to turn off the critical listening mode and be immersed in the musical appreciation mode.  Finally, it is easy to get addicted to media hype regarding the next best thing.  This is often termed the fear of missing out (FOMO).  In psychology behind this, in part, is termed hedonic adaptation where the initial satisfaction with something fades quickly, and we seek new experiences to feel happy again.  It becomes cyclical.  In my situation, I attribute not being afflicted by FOMO to my goal setting process and being satisfied long term after goals were achieved.  This requires realization that there will be something better beyond my means, but that will not produce a substantial increase in the benefit/cost ratio.  

Well, the thing about a hobby is generally they are active.  You can't just sit still if it's going to be a hobby...thus the need to churn equipment even if one already loves the sound. 

This is why I focus on curating content as much or more than on hardware.  Making and organizing playlists and such is an active, rewarding part of the hobby that shows off the hardware without taxing the credit card.  Allows me to slow down on the equipment churn...

See, now tube amplifiers are all the rage again - it was class d about 3 years ago - it was solid state about 6 months ago - whenever i have tubes - i want solid state, whenever i have solid state - then i want tubes - then ill try class d in the meantime

@smargo Tubes have been ’back’ since sometime in the 1970s when ARC was founded as Electronic Industries. Later ARC was spun off and Electronic Industries made circuit boards instead. During the 1980s Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound liked the ARC tube amps and so tube amps ramped up. Class D really didn’t get a foothold until about 2000 although it has been around since the 1960s (and originally proposed in the 1950s). Lately class D has advanced enough that it can have some of the better quality of tubes without the downsides. Solid state (class A or AB) has been doing much better as well.

So I think tube amps are on borrowed time; the war in Ukraine has driven tube prices up worldwide. Right now tube producers can’t make them fast enough; but as the incursion of class D amplifiers into the musical instrument market (which is the main buyer of tubes, not high end audio) continues, things will look very different in the next ten years.

But here’s the tricky bit. The spec sheets we’ve all seen on amplifiers really don’t tell us what we need to know (how they will sound) and so we’ve all seen the phenomena where it measures well but sounds bad. That isn’t a failing of measurements in general; its a failing of having the right measurements so we can correlate them with what we hear ( you need to know the harmonic spectrum created by the amp at one Watt, whether distortion rises with frequency, and what the distortion spectrum looks like at higher power levels for starters and then you need to know what that means to the ear).

So the spec sheets have mostly been marketing and in that regard have a lot in common with the Emperor’s New Clothes. Because we’ve essentially been lied to for so many decades, any audiophile knows you simply have to take it home and see what you think in your own system.

Well, the thing about a hobby is generally they are active.  You can't just sit still if it's going to be a hobby...thus the need to churn equipment even if one already loves the sound. 

This is a good point. Hobbies are active.

But what do YOU think this hobby is: kaleidoscope or mountain?

For me, it's not about trying to get to the top of a mountain, but about turning a kaleidoscope and enjoying new combinations. (And not necessarily for more money.)

Those who don't like kaleidoscopes should turn them until they get a view they like, and then tape it so it cannot turn again.

For me the hobby was neither a mountain of the highest S.Q. to reach at all cost,

neither a Kaleidoscope of upgrades to felt a change because i am not satisfied or i am deluded by new purchase propositions,

for me this hobby was a road to learn how to install what i can afford...

Acoustics learning was the key, experiments and concepts...

Add to this vibration controls and resonance controls in my headphones and gear pieces,

Controls of my house/room electrical noise floor and EMI,

Tweakings with different methods with my homemade experiments ( no purchase of tweaks)

It was a journey on a road towards the threshold of minimal acoustical satisfaction or TMAS, extraccting the most of their potential from my 3 different speakers/rooms and from my headphones...

TMAS is important concept. It means that when you reach this minimum threshold you feel it so well that you had the impression to touch the acoustic goal. There is always more to extract but we must stop somewhere... The only way for me now to go further is buying Dr. Choueri BACCH implementation .

It is done...

My hobby is reading and music...

I learned a lot not from reviewers but with my intense discussions with three audio engineers here (objectivist) by realizing that they underestimated acoustics & psycho-acoustics and over valuated the material technology they used ... Thanks to them i conducted intense research and experiments... One is well know it is Amir...If it was not for his rant i will not had learn so much even in theoretical acoustics, which is the field i am the most interested in ...

This hobby is just like s few other expensive Hobbies I partake.

Motorcycles and skiing.

There is so much good hardware out there that can render subtle changes in the experience you enjoy that you just can’t stop.

In skiing you could have 2 ski’s that are the same dimension but because of internal construction materials render a completely different experience and both of those you enjoy, especially given a specific set of snow conditions. Same for Audio equipment. The conditions in audio would be the recording (genre, mastering quality, instruments , voice etc).  And your building a rig (boots,liner,binding,wax,ski edge angles) right down to sock thickness. 

@jbuhl

Yes, but do they sound any different?😀

And your building a rig (boots,liner,binding,wax,ski edge angles) right down to sock thickness.

@curiousjim

Yes, but do they sound any different?😀

HAHA! Well as in our sound system; They do perform differently and as many have pointed out; is that little extra performance gain worth the spend. At some point you just need to settle in a enjoy the music/ride.  Unless you have sheik money then keep on spending!

i think its very confronting just listening to music - and not listening to how the equipment sounds. settling in and just enjoying the music takes being open minded. 

Ive had well over 100 pieces of gear ranging from solid state amps - tube amps - class d amps - class g amps (arcam) - cd players - dacs - streaming devices - turntables - speaker cables - interconnects - like someone said - its a hobby - what else should you be doing.

same as golf - im a golf enthusiast - for 30 years ive chased this tip and that swing method - all promising to lead me to a golf perfection

so what i see now as with stereo and golf - its not the hobbies so much im addicted to - its chasing that im addicted to - so ive joined a 12 step program for chasing - ill let you know how it turn out. 

To me, the hobby is the buying and selling and upgrading of gear, where I'm actively doing something. I would never consider anything like listening to music or watching movies or reading to be 'hobbies'. Those are just things I've done for as long as I've been alive. 

I am not sure that audio was a hobby for me.

If i think about it my goal was not buying and trying gear pieces but succeeding with low cost system to reach complete satisfaction about sound and understanding how to do it.

Acoustics dont change with gear pricing scale...

I succeeded after many years...

I had no hobby it seems anymore... ( i changed 2 pieces of gear this month but it was necessary not an hobbyist action)

I am interested anyway by reading about audio and acoustics...I will call it one of my hobby anyway...

I listen music...

To stay in the mood of this thread , i suffered very badly without speakers for a month...

But take it with a grain of salt...

I agree with the idea that my audio journey is a hobby, and for the time being, I get great pleasure in learning from and engaging with the hobby; and that means spending money. I am not retired and can afford what I spend on audio, and for now the cost does not impact my life in a negative way. I'm adding upgrading a pair of speakers, a streamer, a DAC, and finishing a dedicated audio room.....which I may add home theater later.

Mahgister brought up Baach, and I will be spending a lot of time at Axpona with the folks from Theoretica and learning much more about the Baach systems. The ability (claims they can) to present most recorded music closer to how it is presented in a live performance, greatly intrigues me. Tom Martin from Absolute Sound recently made a written and Youtube review of the technology, and now I'm very curious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxI6wf5TYTU

Thanks for the video...

Mahgister brought up Baach, and I will be spending a lot of time at Axpona with the folks from Theoretica and learning much more about the Baach systems. The ability (claims they can) to present most recorded music closer to how it is presented in a live performance, greatly intrigues me. Tom Martin from Absolute Sound recently made a written and Youtube review of the technology, and now I'm very curious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxI6wf5TYTU

I've encountered some issues with the audio hobby, and if I were to list them out, they’d look like this:

1. Lack of Progress: The audio industry hasn't made significant advancements over the years, especially when compared to the rapid progress in the video industry.

2. Overpriced Equipment: Prices across the board are outrageous. I usually buy used gear to avoid this, but even basic items like cables, DACs, vinyl, and SACDs are overpriced—especially when you compare them to the affordability of 4K Blu-rays, projectors, and OLED TVs.

3. Minimal Returns on Upgrades: Every upgrade feels marginal. I recently added an external SMSL DAC, which technically counts as an upgrade, but I see no reason to spend over $1,000 on a DAC—it’s just not worth it. On the other hand, when I upgraded my projector from an HD bulb to a 4K laser, the improvement was massive. I can easily tell the difference between an HDR 4K Blu-ray and a 1080p Blu-ray, but with audio, the difference is subtle—even when switching from Totem to Sonus Faber speakers.

4. Human Hearing Limitations: Our hearing is inherently limited compared to our visual capabilities, which makes it harder to perceive these subtle audio upgrades—unlike the clear differences in video quality.

Overall, as someone interested in both audio and video hobbies, I sometimes feel like people are being ripped off in the audio industry. The returns on investment in audio are far less noticeable than in any other hobby.

@sheri2022

Those are great points. I would add auditioning is a giant pain. I can watch a tv at BestBuy, drive a car at a VW dealership but listening to a $2000 amp? I am not blaming it on anyone, but it slows down the process.

@smargo Chasing every fad in audio will not get you to the mountaintop.  That's more like an M.C. Escher work where you start to climb the stairs(of audio)only to end up where you started again.  Or you're chasing some perfection that never is satisfied/fulfilled and becomes some hellish nightmare from a Bruegel painting.  Or, of course, you stop and listen to the music like you did and enjoy what you have.  Okay, I'm done with the artist analogies.

I have definitely entered the phase where I'm enjoying the music, and specifically new music and genres, more than ever before.  I rarely listen to the music of my youth, but still enjoy it when I hear it. 

Short story...my high efficiency system is JBL C37 or Altec 604-8G (they take turns).  Have been driving them with anything from a homebrew SE45 amp to Dennis Had's KT88 Inspire to vintage Williamson designs.  Went to a ham radio swap meet last month and picked up a little Chinese made amp that uses a 6N2 driver and a pair of 832a wired single ended.  The 832a were done, so I ordered a pair.  I am shocked at how good this little amp sounds.  A bit short of the refinement I hear with the other SE amps in the stable, but it cost less than a half Franklin including the new tubes.  Since it has a headphone jack, I now feel like I need to buy some decent cans.....

Maybe it is just about the music.....

I too had high-end audio OCD obsession, but it’s subsiding as my audio chains gets established.  I do struggle which expensive noise reducing components to budget for: ether filter, Ethernet switch, Schnerzinger products, QSA…