@uber- well, it had to happen eventually...:)
Can one ever be "done" in this hobby?
I would like to think I am pretty much in audio nirvana right now but supremely well aware how quickly that can change to audio nervosa!
What do think?
Is it really possible to kick the addiction and be done and just sit back and enjoy the music?
Has anybody managed this trick of the mind?
What do think?
Is it really possible to kick the addiction and be done and just sit back and enjoy the music?
Has anybody managed this trick of the mind?
181 responses Add your response
Back to irregular programming. uberwaltz, Do you happen to know which Alfa Romeo was Roger Taylor's? Maybe they tuned them all the same, but the song end always sounded like my friend's Junior. It was actually a guess from those times. Would "irregular programming" be considered as some cousin of "deprogramming"? |
The concept of "being done" with audio reminds me of the famous line by Mark Twain regarding smoking. He said, "Quitting smoking is the easiest thing in the world to do; I've done it hundreds of times!" Personally, I've been "done" upgrading my system at least half a dozen times, as is my present state. Oh.....wait.......I just saw this awesome refurbished Revox reel to reel deck........... |
Now playing with what I would have thought were subtle tweaks for pennies. However not so subtle at all. Raised my phono stage up and placed ceramic cones under it. More detail but a little etched and definitely a loss of bottom end slam. Placed Les Davis 3D2 pads under said ceramic cones. Holy crap! Truly impressed, have all the extra detail AND even more bottom slam than previous and mids brought forward a little. Overall a very pleasant and immersive presentation. Never would have thought such small changes at chumpchange level could yield such pleasing effects. Always learning....... Oh and i do have a Shakti Stone sitting on top near the rear as well. |
I am done. I was done before and just sat and enjoyed the music for about 15 years, with a system that I was happy with. I cancelled my subscriptions of both the main audio mags in 2003 and never missed the never ending monotonous 'lifted one more veil' BS for 'only' $40K invested. I just sat and listened to my system ad increased my music collection. When I moved three years ago, I had the opportunity to create a new main system and did so, retaining only my analogue front end from my old main system (many components flowed downhill and are used in one of the other two reasonably serious systems I maintain). It took me a couple of years to reach a point that I was happy with, and now I am there. I foresee no further 'upgrades' in my future. I have observed over many years that attempting to be in the 'bleeding edge' of advance in audio doesn't guarantee you good sound, although it does ensure an empty wallet. There is a lot of quite inferior sound at audio shows generated by gear with stratospheric price tags. The guy sitting listening to original Quad electrostatics driven by 1950s amplification is certainly missing the bottom octaves of the music, but I'm not so sure that he is missing out on the music itself. |
My motto is: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I upgrade when things fall apart, but rarely. Usually I just fix it. The amount of time I have had the following components: 6 months - Semi-anechoic room - this is not something I set out to do. It’s a fringe benefit of putting r26 worth of insulation in the walls of and r72 worth of insulation in the studio/office of my new home, where my audio system is. I covered it with burlap instead of sheet rock. 1 year - subwoofer system 4 to 30 years - cartridges 25 years - crossovers 34 years - tonearm 34 years - turntable; upgrade 5 years ago (VPI tables are upgradeable) 32 years - CD player 30 years - preamp; upgraded with new caps 4 years ago 35 to 45 years - amps; upgraded with new caps, converted from pentode to triode 4 years ago by the same guy who built the amps 41 years - speakers I did go through a few cartridges 30 years ago before I settled on the 4 that I have. The new one from 4 years ago was a replacement of a tired cartridge with the same brand but better model. But as you can see, the foundation of the system has been fairly stable, or “done” for about 35 years. At 35 years, it feels like a member of the family. |
uberwaltz, Once upon a time, on an icy road, someone drove a bit too fast and crashed three other cars, including mine that I loved and still love. After waiting in icy rain and all that, I got in the car (it was movable but needed lots of, mostly, bodywork) and the song that started playing when I turned it on was...I’m in love with my car. |
"Can you determine which exotic car by the sound of this exhaust?The sound at the end of Queen song "I'm in love with my car" is Alfa Romeo. |
Me a couple of days ago: "I'm pretty much done. And happy." Then I saw a glowing review of the very inexpensive Schiit Mani. Now I want one. I'm a sucker for something that is reasonably cheap and reasonably good. So the answer to the original question: No. Not quite. But, I also agree with the post above about music vs equipment. In truth I'm pretty close to be done with equipment. There may be minor purchased here and there. But on the music side, no I'll never be done. Always looking to new stuff. Always open to better recordings of stuff I already have. |
To the original post. I actually think you can be done. But only if you beleive there are actually two different hobbies here. The audio hobby and the music hobby. I have to say I am mostly on the audio gear side. So as long as I focus on sound I will always be searching for something different and or better. That's why I constantly rotate speakers. I really like my power and pre amp so only on ocasion will I switch to my vintage Marantz, Sansui etc receivers. I have 3 TT's and switch them on ocasion as well. People who focus mainly on the music can be done with the Audio gear side. What is most important to them is the music. On what it is playing is not the most important thing, just that it is playing. Clearly evidenced by the mobile players now in millions of peoples hands. They are way better than what they used to be but not what most of on here would call great sound. Sure, "music people" if financially able, will search for a system that suits their needs but it is still all about the music. So I would say in reality there is actually two different hobbies here joined by one commonality, the music. I think I am going to put out a seperate post on the topic. Is this actually 2 different hobbies. |
Power handling and efficiency aren't necessarily related...like saying, "it's heavy, but it's green." I likely use a couple of watts to get my 99db speakers filling my ears and the room, and the peak capability of 'em is 400 watts. You can have a very efficient single 5" speaker that will explode from a steady 20 watts, and an inefficient speaker that will do 300 watts of uncompressed kick drum all day. |
I don’t change HW much. I replaced my DIY speakers two years ago after 25 years and the CD player (XA20ES) after 21 years. I guess I’m blessed with poor ears and could never discern differences between much of the electronics and ancillaries. I keep tweaking my listening room acoustics although “the” final adjustment/ change should be finished in the next couple months. Really. I’m serious about that. Done ;-) I focus on the music. Just got a book “1001 albums you must hear before you die” by Robert Dimery. Rough count, I only have ~ 2% of his list. This should keep my busy for a while. |
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dwmaggie Question for Millercarbon or Geofkaitt or any one. Considering a tube amp to run the ESS Heil AMT. I listen at mostly moderate levels. Current amp is Parasound Zamp.3 at 35w per channel. There is a Wavebourn on E for 800+shipping, but only 6 watts. Is that enough power? >>>>my guess is no. Even though the sensitivity of the ESS Heil AMT is relatively high at 98 dB at one watt, one meter, it’s power handling is 375 watts. So, I suspect 6 watts is not enough. But you never know. Depends on what you listen to and how loud. |
I too still like to keep up with new innovations or products that might add value even after having identified and actually "hit the target". I also actively look for every opportunity to downsize and still hit that target or at least come close enough that it does not really matter. Like Martykl, I count many (about a dozen or more different ways) I might listen to music these days, both in and out of the house, so lots of opportunity to just listen to more music in different ways, in different places, play around, and experiment. |
Correction. The ESS xover is model 2241. Question for Millercarbon or Geofkaitt or any one. Considering a tube amp to run the ESS Heil AMT. I listen at mostly moderate levels. Current amp is Parasound Zamp.3 at 35w per channel. There is a Wavebourn on E for 800+shipping, but only 6 watts. Is that enough power? |
Thank you folks. After reading this thread, i put my ear up to the various drivers.....hissy noise in The right Heil AMT tweeter/mid. Appears to be from my ESS 2142 crossover. And the quest goes on. Did my due diligence, unplugged the IC to amp, noise gone. IC connected to amp but not the ESS xover still no noise. Unplugged the input to the ESS xover and the noise stayed. |
Assuming one cares, once you know what your target is and you hit it, its harder to change than not. Otherwise, not so hard if you are not hitting the target or the target constantly moves. Then of course most things break or wear out and eventually just need to be replaced, assuming again one still cares. To each their own. |
I get satisfaction from accomplisment. I actually take offense to you telling me to get a new hobby. I did not say I did not enjoy it. I merely pointed out that humans become desensitized to almost anything when repeated enough. . Why did you do renovations to your system? I am guessing because you tired of it and wanted something better. Which proves my point. Change is the spice of life. |
Happiness lies in satisfaction rather than accomplishment. There is no end to improving audio sound. You had better stop and take a break and find another hobby. I had not changed major audio equipment from 2012 to July 2018 concentrating on photography. I got some award in photo contest. For last 6 months I had done lot of renovation on my audio system but it is close to the end. I will go back to photography and travel around the world. Thomas |
I live in the "twilight zone of zero self control" (Walter Becker line) and in my decently funded retirement I enjoy my self indulgent audio, guitars, a Triumph air cooled motorcycle, sporty German cars, mechanical watches, longboards, SUP boards, an adult long skateboard (Dewey Weber) and whatever else I feel like doing and absolutely care zero about what anybody else thinks about any of it. However, I do crave attention, so there's that. |
I beleive it has a lot to do with creating that "1st time reaction" why do we upgrade? Because we have become bored with what we have. On the "Happy Scale" I was just as excited with the first impression of my first higher quality system as I was with my first impression of recent acquisitions that are much better and 10 times as expensive. The best your new upgrade will eversound is in the first week of listening to it. We try to recreate that feeling with most things. Desensitivity to any thing can be very dangerous if you don't have a level of self control. Some times you just have to turn that system off or listen to your second system for a while or drive the grocery getter instead of the Ferrari to regain the level of excitement people thirst for. So can we ever actually be done? Only when we don't care anymore and move on to something else. |
Yes You can be done I am I took up guitar ten years ago and slowly began to care less about audio quality. These days I spend virtually all of my music time playing, not listening. Now, 90% of my listening is in the car, 8% is via Sonos when entertaining, 1.5% via headphones in the gym or on a plane, and half a percent in front of a high quality system. The audio thing has just sort of gone away |
For me, when I have the system as good as I perceive it can be within what I sanely feel like spending, then I have to STOP READING anything about audio--forums, reviews, new products, etc. I went 18 years with basically the exact same components when I did this the last time. The only thing I replaced was a totally blown component that would cost too much to fix to keep it. I'm very close now, as I love all the components together in my system and have done the Schroeder method with all the sets of ICs. I could go to higher cost ICs in the Schroeder method and have this part of the journey never end. I said I would do all 3 sets of ICs with the Schroeder method and love it. I have and I'm done. Don't listen to friend's systems that are much better than your own either. Help your friend's out by letting them borrow things to try in their own systems. I have 2 close friends and we do quite a bit of exchanging. Building a system that is ULTIMATELY musical and dynamic to listen to does take a good ear. I absolutely love the system I now have. A couple things are being done to optimize things in some way but other than shipping, it is costing me nothing. I will buy my own syringe on Perfect Path Total Contact to paste the contacts that I have removed or changed out in the past couple years. I bought part of a supply from a friend to do what I did. I WILL NOT start pasteing everything that has been suggested on the Forums. Tube pins, AC plugs, IEC pins, RCA male ends, spade lugs, bananas--did do the fuses, but will clean those off and not do the next time. Too much mess. As you can see, my final quest was on tweaking the system in many somewhat less expensive ways to finalize the sound. I just need to keep busy in retirement so I stay away from hobby reading. If I can't be extremely happy with my system, I should do as Jim Carey did in Liar, Liar and kick my own ass. Bob |
