Are all Audiophiles masocists?

For the first part of your post i will say that the price to pay to be free, really free, is consciousness of our own slavery, to begin with ourself and at the end to end with ourself....But in between we are suspended between polarities, and extremes.....

For the last question part, yes, i will do the same thing in my audio journey, and being without money has been for me a great luck because i has been push to be creative, then my audio wishes are realized by my own hands ....

Obsession is a problem only if we cannot satisfy it and control it by ourself, his name is creativity when it is the case, otherwise it is a bottomless pit...

:)

I apologize to give an asnwer to questions that were only rhetorical and for which you did not wait for an answer...

My best to you....

« All fundamentals are polarities» Goethe, Coleridge, Faraday, and Groucho Marx

And some people identify as chimeras what they dont know about....


« If we live inside it, there is only one side, but if we look at it externally there is 2 sides, what is that? »-Groucho Marx

« It is only you Groucho....»- Harpo Marx

 The difference between adding and moving absorbers and diffusers around provides a HUGE change in sound that no equipment change can duplicate once you get to a certain level of audio equipment ($30 K in my case). Trying to achieve that much change in quality of sound with the incredibly small equipment improvements tauted by many here is simply too overwhelming for my sanity.

You are perfectly right...

Audiophile experience is more dependent on acoustics than on electronics circuits...



«The Greek theater acoustic is way more older than the Edison trumpet» -Groucho Marx 

Here,
all of us upgrade each others because we are all rightfully embed already....
:)

If i judge by your posts asvjerry ,you are rightfully embedded because all your posts upgrade my spirit....

& years ago i was feeling the urge to upgrade and after the impossibility to upgrade anymore, because of the lack of money to do it; i turn myself in uncontrolable race to improve my audio system by myself...

With great success, it takes me 2 years of listenings experiments...

But now the sound is less an obsession than the music itself for the first time this month...The reason is simple when you are near the high-end audio experience, you feel ectasy in any files or cd....It is impossible like before to be annoyed by any music .... Good one for sure....Then you listen one cd by each hour without any desire to change something or the cd itself....

Music begins only when the sound problem is no more there....Before that many music i liked where not listenable on my system, now they are all beautiful.... And before i was not even able to hears all the details or even the instruments or delicate sounds...

Audio is not important, but only  when you have it right.... :)