After fifty years… amazing. What high end audio can be.

Thank you all for your great comments. I am also happy to hear how many other folks are enjoying there system and living over 70.

The process has been incredibly enjoyable… one of discovery and ongoing enjoyment, what I like most in life.

I was privileged to be an exploration geologist for ten years. People actually paid me to, “go find x (mostly gold)… and said come back when you find it. Stay in the country.” That was pretty much my entire instructions. Stuff like that makes me come alive. Where to start, how, where to go…etc. High end audio is like that. You got to figure out where you want to go, where to start, how to get there. Unfortunately no one pays you to do it. Oh well.

For those of you nearing retirement or nearing 70… well, blink and you will be there. But you guys know that already. With age comes wisdom.

@noromance

Thanks.

Yes, I was so lucky when relocating twenty years ago and running through this house. I noticed this was the perfect place to put my stereo. I wasn’t thinking about acoustics, just the space… so, quite by accident I stumbled on one of the best possible acoustical spaces… well, actually that my dealer has ever heard (he installs many +$200 K systems), so has more experience than I. Just luck. Over the years I figured out why it is so good… but I never would have known.

@islandmandan

Fantastic! When you retire and take your emphasis off of work / achievement it is great to reap the rewards of all the effort.

I am really glad to hear so many similar experiences. One of the reasons I enjoy posting is to help folks start off right and that high end audio can be really rewarding. But there is a steep learning curve and it is easy to get off on the wrong foot and head down a dead end. You can see them all over this site, denying the sound quality of great designs, high quality components, high end wires, or thinking that measurements are everything. etc.

@skyscraper …”As a fellow 70 year old, my only concern is that youngsters like Baylinor and Henry58 feel entitled to chime in here at their tender age. Grow up you two.”  Yes, those young whippersnappers!

Thank you for your kind words.
 

Now where did I put the Advil 😊.

@kota1 … once you reach a point… because changes might actually degrade the enjoyment.”

Yes, for the last couple years I have been methodically adjusting and tweaking positioning, wires, and room acoustics and zeroing in on, what for me is the best sound. The improvement has been unreal. While I have done the same sequence and tweaking on previous systems, in the past changes were frequently punctuated by business trips and vacations. Being retired the cause and effects are much more easily detected in continuous long listening sessions.

Probably the greatest thing for me over the last few years was bringing my streaming up to the level of my vinyl system. My content went basically to infinity as I have have more time to listen… so for any group I used to like I can explore all the most of the albums I had not bought. Also, when I feel like it I can pull out an album and enjoy the tradition I performed since a little kid.

@gpetrof 

Bozak, now that is a word I have not heard in decades. Yes, I have memories like that. It is really cool that a pursuit like this that can last a lifetime and never cease to be fresh and rewarding. 
 

My father past away a long time ago, but I remember listening to Glen Miller from these two large vinyl compilations when around 10 years old. I found these used a couple decades ago and are in my collection.

@havocman

You must be one of those young whipper snappers… square wire! What will they think of next? Dag nab it, I am going to use wire as God intended it, round… like the Earth.

@bluorion

Great story about your fun vs reference system.

About ten years ago I had assembled what I considered to be my retirement system. I called it my reference system… because it was so good… but also because it revealed so much. I really enjoyed it.

I always wanted to own a 300b amp. So, decided to upgrade my heardphone system, which I did, big time. It became detailed but warm, natural, and musical.

Then I would listen to my main system and it just wasn’t inviting like my headphone system. I loved listening for about 45 minutes and then get bored. This was not a crappy system. Audio Research Ref 5 preamp. Pass x350 amp, Sonus Faber Olympica 3 speakers. Far less analytical than earlier versions of my system. But it was missing the warmth and musicality of my headphone system.
 

So, I did a bunch of upgrades (basically getting me to the system you see now) to all tube stuff. Reference system gone… seductive natural, musical and detailed system that I no longer get tired of listening to. If I listen to it for three hours, I am always thinking… just one more tune. 

The interesting thing is, I did not loose detail… it just isn’t stuck out in my face. In my reference system the venue stuck out… it was hard not to instantly think about the mastering or the recording quality. With the new system the details are all there, but you have to listen for them if you wanted to hear them. Then I would go to the symphony and realized, that was exactly how they were presented in real acoustical space. What would lead is the music… warm, rich, and inviting from a black background. From the symphony and from my systems now.

This may have nothing to do with your systems. Or maybe it does.

For me, I am very analytical and let my analytical side pull me a bit too much towards greater detail and the more obvious and easily identifiable parameters of sound and overlook rhythm and pace and mid-range bloom that give the sound musicality.

Thank you Mike. I always appreciate your comments and look forward to seeing you soon.

@falconquest

Oh… darn… I have been retired for a few years and been out of the loop. I know the Webb telescope is focused outward… I guess I got wrapped up in the genesis of new stars and failed to look inward. Thanks for the correction.

@bluorion  Thank you for sharing your recent journey. It can be really fun. One of the real challenges is to identify and put a name on the characteristics that really make a system satisfying to you. That is the real challenge for folks that pursue this  long termed like @panzrwagn. It can keep one captivated for a long time. Enjoy your pursuit of the high end.

@falconquest 😀

Thank you @curiousjim , @kennyc ​​@jtcf ,@panzrwagn and others for your kind words.

@whart

To add some evidence to support your hypothesis… ham radio. Back in the 50’s and 60’s there were the adult nerds with huge antennas sticking up from their houses (modest homes). The talked to people all over the world… other ham operators via short wave. It was at the forefront of hobbies… and was really important communications durin WW2. They are gone… come on, any left would have been killed with the internet.

On the other hand, high end audio is about music. Music is about as fundamentally human thing that is non-essential to survival and continuation of the species. This has never been a “popular” pursuit… it probably never will… but I don’t think it will be going away in the next generation or two. 

@griptube 

+1 👍😁🎉

@mbmi 

+1 Well, in my case I was really slow to get my priorities straight…

@bobheinatz 

👍😊