Did your system getting better the more money you spent or more experience you gained?

It's helpful to be able to spend money, but it's more important to have the listening skills and experience to know what truly sounds better & not just different.

Love of music, a father into stereo in it's very early days, curiosity, Learning how to use a soldering iron, Dynakits, 60 years, plenty of mistakes along the way. I'm almost there, right.

Fingerprints are unique as is our journey through life.

I have enjoyed my journey and it's been a long journey starting with my first stereo (MCS from JcPenny) in the '80s.  And in my experience the more I've spent the better sound I have experienced.

• Is my experience biased by my journey - most likely as I don't know what I don't know!
• Have others been as impressed with my system - definitely not!

Up to a point both are accurate. Budget for what you can afford and you will be able to find something in that range that will make you happy. Speakers should be the biggest part of the budget. Speaker quality and placement are most important IMHO.

p05129

446 posts

01-10-2024 at 07:40pm 

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Now I do think it’s foolish to buy a set of expensive speakers and put them in a room crammed next to a sofa, can’t bring them out from the wall, or put in a non-treated room, then you will never get the performance of the system and just wasting your money.

So much for a “Happy New Year” tone 😅

Somebody that has a limited budget on these threads always thinks that he has magical insights into being an audiophile that others don’t have, which is far from the truth. I know many people (in audio clubs and in virtual settings) that have money to spend on cars and audio equipment (including me) that know it takes smarts and money to get the infrastructure right 1st, which is the room (which can cost many thousands of dollars) including treatments and electrical before you spend a nickel on any gear.
Then these people know how to apply synergy between equipment which isn’t a magical feat. If I like a certain speaker, then I would buy the right amp to power that speaker. If I prefer digital, then you design your system accordingly, same for vinyl. I don’t know any tinkerers, if you spend $50k on a set of speakers because you like their sq, I’m not going to tinker with them. Same goes for my Porsche, if I want more performance, I’ll take it to a mechanic.

Now I do think it’s foolish to buy a set of expensive speakers and put them in a room crammed next to a sofa, can’t bring them out from the wall, or put in a non-treated room, then you will never get the performance of the system and just wasting your money.

@audioman58 thats what I talk about. 50k. Really good synergy sounds as good as 100k.  Easy

Both having owned a Audio store in the past I learned how a more expensive audio system can make big improvements ,but also diminishing returns 

and now through vast experience can get agreat system for 50% less just by knowing system synergies well for $50k   Get95% of a $100 k system.

@mitch4t yes that part all day!

I bought and swapped equipment for more than fifty years and I might not have the newest equipment, but I’m finally at a level where I’m starting to touch “ High End” and I like it.😁

About 20 years ago, someone on Audiogon made the following quote about audiophiles that I found to be true in my case:

”We’re all as crazy as we can afford to be”

@noromance i get it. I used to have tube system. I got some nice kt88’s and it was singing even better. I’m pretty set thought at this point. 

Experience over spend for me. A change of tube or capacitor can bring as great a difference as an expensive component upgrade.

@ghdprentice i was sonically destroyed one day by a soulution/raidho system in a soundproof and measured home listening cottage about 8 years ago.  He had it perfectly measures and cabled. Put me in a matrix.  I knew that that s]day they possibilities of audio in the high end. That was a revelation.  Now I’m as happy with what I have as I have been since that day. Money alone doesn’t do it.  Matching, synergy, source, room 

I never forget being curious and borrowing a used top of the line Nakamichi tape deck back in 1979. It cost at least four times what I ever would consider (could reasonably afford ) putting it in my system.

I must have listened with my mouth hanging open and unable to speak for a very long time, shocked how good it sounded. It sounded so many times better than the highest rated (Stereo Review) tape deck I had recently bought… like cheap transistor radio vs real high fi. I became an audiophile that day.

Great post by mike lavigne who explained the journey process better than i could with my fond use of new words as " the three embeddings controls" after the necessary right synergetical choice of the gear pieces...😁

I am very glad that we think the same at the two extreme of the cost and design quality scale...

My system is good, well chosen but cost peanuts compared to his , which is probably the better system here and one of the better in the world...

The fact we think the same if i judge by what he said is confirmed by his post i paraphrase here : audiophile audio is a determined learning mind thing more than a price tags race and collections ...

Short answer is yes, the more money that I spend, the better things sound.

 However when one arrives at the point of diminishing returns, I don’t see much point in playing with additional changes, as everything seems to be a lateral move.

Also, since I am newly retired, even though I could afford to jump into another price tier, I’ll just sit it out for now, as I am still psychologically adjusting to the absence of a steady paycheck.

Both.

Good equipment costs money, but you have to end up with a sound you like and are comfortable with. That takes experience, at least enough where you can be honest with yourself.

In my case, the issue was whenever I would upgrade a piece of hardware, it would develop a new weak link (I'd take big bites out of the upgrade pie). Fix that link and another one would pop up. But before you know it, it levels out and you have a really nice sounding system.

you are not born with a high level of system building knowledge and great judgment. it’s a process. it’s starts with a passion and hunger to have great music reproduction and a love of music.

the way it works is that (1) at the entry level you do need a minimal level of gear to be able to apply your knowledge and get a decent result. (2) but then past that threshold set up and careful system synergy becomes much more significant than big investments in gear. modest decent well put together systems are better than better gear not effectively assembled. then (3) better or really top level gear or a great room does raise the ceiling for how great things can be, but are no guarantee.

think of it as a kinda ratcheting process. where you maybe take a couple steps forward, a step back learning, another step forward, then sideways, then forward......etc. etc. as you learn and make decisions hopefully they mostly are good ones. but it’s not linear. there are mistakes if you really get after it. and if you are afraid to reach a little bit then you get stuck on a plateau and some of the passion leaves for a bit.

great set-up plus great gear is what takes you furthest. and mostly it takes years or decades to accomplish that. a lifetime process.

Personally I went with my gear because I felt like the electronics pushed the limits. The design elimates all noise and distortion by design. The Dac literally has min heat sinks between each chip to eliminate heat and distortion. The cable are on  balance all of the spectrum.  It’s detailed without being clinical or analytical. It’s built to be that way so as I learned more about what it did and I demoed the sound I went ahead and went with it at the increased price. It had synergy easily so it’s was worth the extra money and it delivers sound that I can’t wait to get home to.  You can’t randomly throw money in this hobby and get results it takes education and work. 

There is two kind of audiophiles at the two extreme limits...

We dont have the same budget...

Those with no budget limit...

Those with a strict budget limit...

Audiophile experience ask not only  for much time to create it but in my case acoustic knowledge ...

I am on a strict buget...

Someone with no limit budget will put emphasis on the gear design and price... Generally the priciest, the better ... ( they are exception as mike lavigne dedicated room ). It is easier to buy than to experiment with a necessary  big amount of time...

For most people with a strict budget i cannot imagine a real audiophile experience without emphasis put on mechanical, electrical and acoustical controls... And you cannot afford it without experiments  if you are on a low budget ...Costlier upgrades are out of choices..

The good fortune of being without unlimited budget was that i was absolutely in the obligation to learn the essentials and experiment : Acoustics was, i discovered it ,the main factor of audiophile experience not price tag... I completely ignore that 12 years ago as most ...

Here people with an unlimited budget but a limited judgment will attack me to say that i advocate a falsehood:  that  gear design dont matter... This is false , i could bought better gear design for my speakers system if i could afford it easily, gear design quality matters  ...

But my audiophile experience became  so good with low cost speakers (modified for sure) that i feel lucky... No frustration and a S.Q. with a low cost ratio impossible to beat...if i can afford better speakers  than those i own now in a real acoustic room as i had one year ago , for sure i will improve it ...

i wrote my piece for people with low budget.... learn about electrical, mechanical and especially acoustical control... The main stopgap in audio is a lack of knowledge and a lack of acoustics experiments way more than the gear price tags ...

Anyone who has watching Danny Richie from GR-Research has seen first hand that spending more money on audio does NOT ALWAYS equal better performance or even better parts.

I think it’s naive to think that it does, but it is a natural inclination to think that way because often times spending more money DOES bring better performance. Having said that, there are many factors which would contribute to better sound with synergy being one, individual hearing ability as well as having a trained ear as two more, the "I got more expensive new gear so it must be better" factor being another and so may others etc, etc.

I think experience would be the far more important factor as well as knowing one’s self. Taste in sound is another important factor and so is the degree of arrogance or objectivity and open-mindedness (internally) one has to recognize when listening to gear.

Great responses. I think l got to a point where I tried to learn as much as possible then I ramped the spending up more. I was extremely careful with the last 2 purchases. The Infigo method 4 & 6.  But I got to demo first and that was the key. Trying before I buy.  I was able to go amp source cables one company and it worked extremely well!  But you can’t just spend a lot of money and get it right based on cost. 

It is both. It took me some money to determine what I like / trying to achieve. Then through reading, listening, think I had to spend less to get close to my goal.  

I've been careful not to outspend my knowledge base.

Both. I have, in the very beginning tried to minimize cost and maximize effort (gaining experience) and found I wasted more money by trying to save money… I would try going low cost and just ended up buying three intermediate components and the final one. I definitely never invest less than 2x or more on each upgraded component… I have learned that is a great way to be very disappointed. 
 

However any purchase that was not hugely researched and considered in the context of my system has not been as effective either. So, you really need both to build better and better cost effective systems.

I suspect how much time you have / money you make strongly enters the picture here as well.

My thoughts always getting better, because I win more money and lose less as I age, but the rest of my system, while still in good "repair", cannot say is getting any better.

I managed to get worse sound several times I added and tried new components. 

Sometimes, if it ain't broken....

The better the sound, the harder it is to improve it, easier to go sideways/backwards - for me. Still learning.

Agree with @mapman. It’s synergy not monies spent. Spend wise and select components wisely. 

With experience over time I have managed to squeeze more out of fewer $$$s.  

For me it was a combination of experience from trial and error and learning over time as well as cost.  If I had to put a number on it, it would be 60% experience and 40% money, but there is definitely a minimum amount to be spent to get satisfaction and that varies by individual.  For some a little Bluetooth speaker does the trick and for some not even a 7-figure system brings satisfaction.