Am I right for this forum?

Never write your reply here directly... I am sorry OP but  we all had lived through that... 😁

If not you will loose them time to time as i did...

I wrote longer replies on a notebook then i copy them here ...

The best post from limomangus and i concur...

😊

many audiophiles are techno cultist...

They idolized the gear branded name which they "tastes"...

Or they idolized what they measured despising the other group...

I trust acoustics concepts and experiments over the price tags of the gear or over the price tags of the measuring tools...

i can bought anything relatively good and relatively low price and make it sound at his peak potential which level is perhaps not the best there is but is better than most can even imagine because they had no idea what acoustics means... 😊

 i am audiophile as any acoustician is : with a relatively modest system working at his best in the best room ...

I dont think focussing on music is a cure for gear upgrades obsessed audiophiles.

They are obsessed by the sound because they are not satisfied by the sound not because they suffer from an illness...

They suffer from acoustics basic ignorance...

I know i am cured for life and it is not because i urge myself to focus on music instead of sound , it is because i am in sound ectasy with music now ...

Then ..... 😊

Quit reviews of gear,  experiment it is fun, and read acoustics serious articles(not just mere room acoustic )

We cannot moved others before being ourselves moved...

Then for sure playing an instrument is a + ...

I am not a musician but i can wrote a book about the meaning of the Bruckner 5 th symphony as if it was a movie with a deep images content even if i dont read music. 😊

I am an audiophile because i am able to create my own dedicated acoustic room homemade with a complete transformative effect for any given system and i love music...

Then it is not so rare ...😊

my favorite violin pieces are Bach sonatas mono version with Szeryng and Miltstein as my second choice ...😊 ( the Szeryng version of the violin concertos of Bach as second choice)

"music lover" and "audiophile" are completely different classifications. I am a pro violinist and am both.....but that is rare

It is more easy and fun  to change a component as  it is to change a woman   to upgrade them so to speak 😁...

But we learned more putting them in the right embeddings enrironment.😊

 And often we must "teak" ourselves to kept our friends...

There are many parallels between our relationship with our systems and our relationships with significant others.  However it’s less messy to change an unsatisfactory component

Fantastic post i agree !

It was acoustics experiments that helped me the most...

My system is so well balanced now that i can think only about music...

It is not the best system possible by far ...😊

But any system at any price with minimal synergy when acoustically optimized will give you acoustic ectasy by revealing the original recorded acoustic parameters chosen by the recording engineer... Then your attention are focussed on the live recorded acoustics and music... The gear dont matter and impede nothing...

Could the gear be improved ? Always  for sure, but when done right any system can give you heaven on earth ... Mine does with speakers and headphone for 1000 bucks  ... If i could anybody could...

Simple question: how often, when listening to music, are you distracted by thoughts about the sound of your system -- especially thoughts tinged with dissatisfaction?

If you really are a "pure" music lover, who doesn’t fixate on sonics, congratulations! The "disease", as @ghdprentice calls it, once contracted, can be tricky to manage.

Perhaps it would be helpful to know most of us are located somewhere on a spectrum, being both music- lovers and sound-chasers in varying proportions and that, furthermore, this balance often changes. For example, when I’m happy with the sound of my system, I naturally tend to focus on music. On the other hand, if I’m experiencing problems with my system and listening is yielding little pleasure, I tend to become absorbed by the drive to address sonic dissatisfaction and seek advice. Of course, some of us are more easily taken over by obsession than others. ;o)

I’ve refrained from posting pics since imho most would be bored and unimpressed.... ’SOTA’ only in the State Of That Affordable v. Stuff Of Transient Admiration. ;)

Well said...

I posted only my basic components images... not my acoustic corner which is not esthetical and i never really posted the complete photos of my lost acoustic room with my 100 tuned resonators, just the first images at the beginning which were atrocious and more than unesthetical, this stir the pot of many and i was attacked for a week by a well known seller of tweaks here which never like my homemade motto : dont buy tweaks if you can do them yourself ...

As you my system is SOTA+C  ... 😊 State Of That Affordable and creative ...

I understand why you like to play with the gear...😊

Myself i am not someone who like to play with things at all ... I am more of a books worm...

But i get in the obligation to learn about acoustics because i was going nowhere buying audio gear...😁

My 9 headphnes where trash...😁 even after my improving modifications they do not satisfied me ( save the AKG K340 the best headphone ever created probably but even it need my help 😊 )

I disliked even My Tannoy dual gold concentric...Because during the 40 years i owned them i was ignorant of acoustics science basics ... 😁

After reading acoustics books and articles i felt compelled to experiment... I do it full time 2 years because i was retired and i disliked my audio system , nevermind the upgrades... Things improved a lot when i discovered how to decrease vibrations/reasonance, how to shield my gear from the main panel up, when i played with various minerals to use on my connectors, when i experimented with Helmholtz tuned resonators in a specific grid distributed in the room and the right balance of reflection-absorption-diffusion in my room. i used other controversial devices as shumann generator i modified , at the end the same system was so transformed that they were no comparison between before and after...

Unlike most people who dream only to buy new gear pieces, i learned how acoustic knowledge improve the gear way much than most upgrades , the only exception will be to go from cheap speakers to way more refine one , but even this upgrade will not compare if you put these speakers in a living room and then in a room dedicated to the speakers specific properties... Acoustic rules for me the rest is marketting mostly ... 😊

Now i own an headphone able to project the soundfield out of my head with deep bass and natural timbre...

And the cheapest speakers i ever owned which i disliked for 10 years became my best one AFTER my modifications ...Thanks to Helmholtz...

Then i became a book worm anew, no need to tinker anymore and i can listen music 5 hours a day in sonic heaven ... 😊

@mahgister , You found it! I was mostly just joshing/joking with you on my earlier post. It came in today btw. On these type of cheap chifi speakers, I usually add bracing, put some no-rez (sold by GR) and I will spend a considerable amt of time with the crossover. I have a stock of the good parts GR sells. That’s the extent of it for me, typically.

I have tinkered with many similar cheap speakers, amp kits, etc from AliExpress, e-bay, etc. After it meets my fidelity requirements and I don’t feel like dealing with it anymore, I give it away on FB, artist groups, etc ( possibly creates a few new/young ’audiophiles’ or not....but, keeps the audio stuff cluster in my hoarder’s paradise under control).

The Sony (sscs5) was one i couldn’t let go of in recent times, especially after I put the GR upgrade on it...that one’s staying for a bit.

It seems like you would enjoy some of the content in the diy audio forums.

my speakers are modified and go way beyond their price... ! 😊

i would be very thankful if you could give me the name of this chinese speakers you spoke about ...

Thanks ..😁😊

In fact, i just bought another 100 dollar speaker...the last pair of this 100 dollar unknown Chifi miracle as soon as i read the Amazon reviews. As soon as it gets delivered, I am sure it will sink your speaker (when i upgrade the crossover)! 😏

Ok it is these one :

https://www.amazon.com/SAMTRONIC-Passive-Bookshelf-Speakers-Tweeter/dp/B0CBYVK7Z1

There does not seems to have so much review...

And they are passive speakers with ribbon tweeter ...

I already go to a deep clear 50 hertz with no boominess at all in the mids and perfect highs natural timbre... my imaging is superb the soundstage include my listening position and exceed way over the speakers space and plane ...I used a tube preamp... I isolate them mechanically with my homemade sandwich of materials ... I used a tuned damping load of concrete on top of them ... I use my own homemade shielding tweaks... I use my own homemade cables enhancement ... I use a tube preamplification with my active speakers..M-audio AV 40... And i used them in their dedicated acoustic corner ... 😊

i modifed the porthole with a complex bundle of various straws of various diameter from few inches to more than three feet behind the port hole ... And i improve the tweeter wave guide ...

To beat mine you will pay way more than for those ribbon passive speakers ... And you will do more than changing only the crossover ... Any speakers produce resonance and are very heavily affec ted by vibrations... I did cure the problem and as i said many others homemade recipe ... I even use modified Shumann generators ... Sorry i am not convinced by buying these and plugging them i a wall after crossover change ... Not enough measures in my book .. 😊...

But i am pretty sure they can be good by themselves... Chinese engineer do a good job in all case for me...

But i never was satisfied by piece of gear not modified including my top headphone i modify also ... Only vibrations and resonance affect all speakers and people dont even know it ... I fine tune damp all the speakers i had used ... Only this change is staggering in his effect ... Add to that all the others...

Most speakers with a porthole are badly designed because it will be too costly to design a good porthole and unesthetical if the labyrinth of tubes is external instead of being inside as with my modification .. Each speaker is an Helmholtz resonator...

I like your opinion and experience a lot ... Thats confirmed my more limited one with the gear ...

Thanks

An audiophile is someone who cares and learns about improving the fidelity of playback, no matter what the budget is...even if it’s a 100 bucks. If his budget is small, he hopefully learns trickle down concepts, knows who the max bang 4 buck designers are (the really smart ones) etc...and gets smarter about purchases than the guys with bottomless pockets. He will also figure out room acoustics hopefully! An audiophile is also a guy who has the humility to constantly learn things and doesn’t sit on a pedestal thinking he’s got it all figured out in life.

If we want a healthy forum we must welcome people, listening to them and discussing without sarcasms when it is not necessary ...

It is better to be helping , empathic and then we can exhange in good faith ...

I like all people here for what they are , music lovers interested by the way a system/room/ ears can give us ectasy...

For all of us concerned the first definition of individual stupidity was given by Carlo Cippola an italian economist read attentively his laws and pay attention to the third one :

«

These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Corollary: a stupid person is more dangerous than a pillager.

😊

- Are you the type of troll who goes to some food enthusiast forum and says..."i’m very happy eating a wendy’s sh-burger. Any sympathy for me?"

it is very characteristic of trolling method too to use extreme comparison to disparage someone experience and stir a pot as you just did ...😁

I am here to socialize around sound and music interests ... The OP too ...

I think it is better to look less "smart" and suspicious and more empathic...

By the way it is not the OP who use 100 bucks speakers , it is myself , i heavily modify them thanks to Helmholtz observations... And i am perfectly happy with the balanced natural results... I feel more wise and creative  than buying a costlier pair of speakers as such and plugging them in the wall , is it a problem for your refined "taste" ?

I dont like sarcasm aimed at other people expanse...

Acoustics science is the only efficient exorcism of the demon of consumerism conditioning...😊

This is another common-place fact which is often misleading in audio and which is used in dac marketing ...😊

Another sad fact: "Garbage in/garbage out." Garbage in an accoustically treated environment is still garbage.

What is the source?

It is not the dac nor the turntable as this "garbage in garbage out" sentence may suggest ...😊

Why ?

This sentence dont come from acoustics... It comes from the computer industry...

In audio then in acoustics, the source is the set of acoustics trade-off choices makes by the recording engineer, which your gear will convey in analog digital reproduction, these choices must be TRANSLATED through your system in the room for your ears... There is not a mere  digital  transport and reproduction here but a translation of acoustics information  from an acoustic environment through another one using all gear pieces as a conveyor toward the speakers/room/ears ...

Then " garbage in garbage out" is not a so useful expression for describing the right or not so right acoustics translation from the live recording Hall into you room ...😁

Dac and turntable matter yes, for sure, but way less than the room/ears parameters controlled or not controlled ...

Anyway as demonstrated by Edgar Choueiri all stereo system are defective and must be corrected to give a TOP experience... This is an acoustics fact too ...

Acoustics science rule audio not software engineering ...

You cannot know how good will sound your gear (nevermind his price ) BEFORE it was rightfully embedded in the three working dimensions : electrical,mechanical and acoustical...

Then repeating a useless common place fact which is trivial truth as the better we pay the better the design you miss the message and the lesson of acoustics learning and other basic knowledge because you put your attention on price tags ..

We buy what our budget can afford... But we cannot know the acoustics potential of a system/room BEFORE we learn how to adress it ...

Any piece of gear and more so a system in a room cannot give his potential optimal without adressing the basic...

The system before and after is not comparable at all... I dont care about his price...All designs act the same at their worst if nobody reduce the vibration/resonance problem , and sound the worst in bad electrical environment and RFI and worst cannot reveal their truest quality in a bad acoustic environment ...

price tags dont change basic knowledge ...

What is really sad but true is that most people dont know that and dont want to know because it ask for studying, experimenting and a lot of time to do it right...It is more easier to buy and plug and called it high end 😊 ... The price tags will be the proof our system is good enough... But it is not so simplistic... Sorry... Dont take it personal please we only discuss...This is my experience not just an argument ...

How a low cost system can sound so good and how some very costlier system sound so bad even if they could be way better than the low cost system? It is relative to the basic knowledge of the users ...

This has nothing to do with a claim as preposterous as my low cost system may rival high end... It cannot ... But it can sound very good... And the high end may  not  sound so good because it is not installed to work at his peak potential ... The reason is knowledge applied or not in the triple embeddings  , not price ...

Unfortunately, sound quality usually improves as the equipment improves, and as the equipment improves it unfortunately usually costs more. Sad but true.

I know for a fact that acoustics knowledge matter more than gear price tags...

When you have a good balanced system you forgot the sound. Suddenly any musical album reveal his unique acoustic trade-off interesting choices and the music is well served so much you cannot stop listening the music not the sound.

How is it possible with a relatively low cost system as mine ? With acoustics basic applied among other factors...

I was accused to bash high end gear because of my claim😊 ... Complete misunderstanding who reveal the ignorance abyss put by marketing publicity in audio forums and magazine and in people head... I discovered it late in my life and recently and progressively all along my acoustics journey ... ( acoustics concepts are not room acoustic panels by the way )

No acoustics concepts and experiment will put a 100 bucks speaker on the same podium as 10,000 bucks one... Common sense and common place fact ... But acoustics will make possible an improvement in the limits of these different designs in an astounding way ... I am flabbergasted by acoustics not by the gear...

Wow!

A very good example of acoustics ignorance coupled to gear fetichism ...

A.I. will replace our ears and Bach soon ...

A.I. is not a tool we are the tool of A.I. 😊

Sadly, on another note. We got a new conductor whom wanted to make his mark on the symphony. He had a multimillion dollar DSP system installed in the orchestra hall. Suddenly the violins sounded steely on the top, the drums sounded as if they came from behind me ( my seats were in the 7th row center). The triangle became a very noticeable instrument... like it had a solo. The music was very severely compromised...so it goes. My system now sounds better than the live orchestra.

I hope you will participate because we need informed people and you appear one...

Then not only i welcome you but i hope for more exhanges...

We are not all defiant people... Trust is basic in human communication ..

By the way i beat you... My system is balanced and cost me 1000 bucks ( heavily modified though ) 😉

So, since my motives for this post have been questioned, let me clarify. I do love audio equipment for its own sake. I have for more than 50 years. But...the equipment is ultimately a tool that enables us to hear great music with as little compromise as possible. Speaking for myself, I feel I often lose sight of that; worse, that this site encourages loosing sight of that. So maybe I don’t belong here—even though I do love audio equipment in its own right.

I think you had overthought all this...😁

But i am very "naive" in public contact i concede this as a fact and my unability to catch subtleties in English speech... But i only gave my opinion for the sake of an audiogon good social health.. 😊

And i prefer to welcome people than suspecting them... It is my nature ... a defect in some case i concede it ...

the way the OP is written, the follow up system pictures that don’t align with the info provided originally, the meaningless, as far as context is concerned, mention of millercarbon, the claims of feeling alienated, the mention of million dollar system in a million a million dollar dedicated structure…the whole thing smells like trolling. It’s designed to cause a stir. And he accomplished it by the way. Deserves a credit for putting this together so masterfully, no doubt.
May be I’m overthinking this, or you just haven’t cracked the shell yet, @mahgister

He spoke about the price of his main system not about all the gear pieces he ever bought...

Why so much people accuse others of trolling pass over  my mind ... 😊

A troll throw some posts to upset people...

But other troll feign to be upset to induce upsetting discussions...

Then we must spoke to one another in good faith without throwing useless accusation when there is no sign of harassment in the post history of the person...😊

If we exclude harassment from the trolling description , any provocative post will suffice to condemn anyone...

We must kept humor and open mind no ?

Why suspecting the OP of trolling ?

He explained well his experiences and his impressions and propose to publish his virtual system page...😊

For me trolls are mostly and essentially harassing people...And are people of bad faith ... With backthoughts...

If not, many people who may  ask candid question about cables, tweaks,measurements,  products, people will be accused of trolling especially by someone who will not like the cables,tweaks, measurements,products or people named etc...

Then i am not lost at all  seeing  the sincerity of the OP....

I always suppose to begin with here on audiogon  that people act on good faith ...

Why acting otherwise?

Dont display ignorance in full view by repeating common place useless fact and classification...

Someone with a handbook of acoustics and a low- fi system know more than a dude with a 100,000 bucks sound system in his living room and no book ...😁

if your system is only worth $3,000 I would not consider that high fidelity mid-fi at best.

I ferociously discussed against many Millercarbon idea by the way and i never hated him...

Then i dont understand people hate toward anyone...

Being annoyed  by someone ideas i understand  that 😁but hate ? After all these years ?

Anyway i like people and discussions...😊

This sentence make then  perfect sense to me ...

Why using this impressions of someone as a motive of rejecting his post ?

Think about that ...

I’ve been an Audiogon member for some years now; I remember (fondly) "millercarbon," for example, which will mean something to some of you. And I’ve been a lover of audio equipment since high school—so, for over 50 years (I graduated in 1973).

There is not on one side : music lovers...

And on the other side : audiophiles...

I know because i always were an audiophile but i did not have the money to become one all along my life...( i erroneously thought all my life that it takes money to be one really ) 😁

Then i retired...😊 With 7 day on 7 for my hobby...

Now i begun to learn HOW to create an audiophile system starting with basic synergetical pieces of gear from the ground up...

Then i had to read about acoustics, make experiments and create my own tweaks too... I called this journey : embeddings devices control of the mechanical,electrical and especially acoustical working dimensions...

Then to keep it short:

There is only ignorant audiophile who look at price tags for upgrades and  learning and learned audiophiles  who create their own audiophile realm with acoustics experiments .. We are all music lovers... (Some are more experienced with music of all the earth cultures as i am thats all )

( acoustics with and (s) is a noun not an adjective then do not refer to room acoustic only i modify my speakers with acoustics knowledge not merely with room acoustic experience )

I beat you...

None of my two system in their didicated room cost me more than 1000 bucks...😁

It sound so great i dont need any upgrade... ( all my gear is modified by me especially the speakers and headphone )

I could upgrade ( not a minor change ) from 1000 to 10,000 ... But i dont want to argue with my wife and anyway i dont feel any real lack in S.Q.

Creativity is the real audiophile tag and basic knowledge .... Not gear price tag ... As you know already...😊

Then if you are not at home here nobody can be either ...

My only claim to be here is the fact i know how to create one of the best possible system at the lowest price...This was my starting goal...

It is enough reason for me...

S.Q. is mandatory for me but i listen music 5 hours each day, not my gear which erase itself now behind music... That was my goal at the end...

 Acoustics science rule audio not price tags...

And yet...my system cost me less than $3,000 in total. I don’t lust after any particular "upgrade," even though I read reviews and all the many accounts of improvements in "SQ" documented in this forum.

So...am I an "audiophile," or not? Do I belong here, or not?