While streaming is not my primary source, there are many discs I do not purchase, that in the past I would have purchased, but after a listen or two on streaming I feel no desire to hear again...throws the whole ridiculous equation off ... and i also have never known anyone with a very good system and very few discs...
Do you agree with John Atkinson (and me)?
Point 1: In the recent thread entitled ’How much is too much to spend on a system?’, I contributed this comment: "The hi-fi shouldn’t be worth more than one’s music library." I said that half-jokingly, a wisecrack that I knew might be disagreed with.
Point 2: In the 1990’s I became a regular customer at the Tower Records Classical Music Annex store in Sherman Oaks, California. The store manager knew a LOT about Classical music, but also made no secret of his distain for audiophiles, whom he viewed as caring more about the sound quality of recordings than their musical quality.
Point 3: In the early days of The Absolute Sound magazine, the writers occasionally mocked audiophiles who had a serious high end system, but whose record collections merely consisted of a small number of "demo" discs. Those audiophiles collect records that make their systems sound good, rather than assemble a system that makes their records sound good.
I make the above points as a preamble to the following:
In the past few months I have fallen behind in my reading of the monthly issues of Stereophile that arrive in my mailbox. Yesterday I finally got around to reading the editorial in the January issue, written by John Atkinson (filling in for current editor Jim Austin, who is recuperating from surgery, I believe). The final two paragraphs of the editorial read as follows:
"Back in the day, I did an analysis of Stereophile reviewers’ systems. The common factor was that all the reviewers’ collections of LPs and CDs cost a lot more than their systems. The same is true of me, even in these days of streaming."
"Isn’t that the way it should be for all music-loving audiophiles?"
Well, is it?
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Tape I forgot to mention: Years ago, before they got expensive, primarily eBay I bought over 500 pre-recorded Reel to Reel Tapes (since sold over 200 of them) and moved up thru several generations of decks, stopped at Teac’s last Prosumer X2000R 6 head Auto Reverse Tape Decks, 2 for me (main and office), Gave my X1000’s to my sons, but there is no content from their era. Finally got to use one Vertically in my office, had the Mickey Mouse Dust Cover in a box for a long time They are 7-1/2 IPS, my best sounding content, but limited by the era’s content availability, and my friend’s 15 IPS Reel to Reels are the best content I’ve heard. |
The quality of streaming, transport and decoding continues to improve and at some point it will equal or surpass physical media. I suspect that the line is the sand is closer than many listeners think. Since streaming is so inexpensive for the end consumer, listeners can reallocate physical media funds to better equipment! Remember when automobile automatic transmissions were called "slush boxes" and no real car enthusiast would drive anything but a manual transmission? Technology has evolved and now a high end sports car have only some variation of an automatic transmissions. I'm fatigued from the format change in physical media. Vinyl to cassettes to CDs to stored high rez files. RIP physical media.
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My system started with wedding money age 19, became truly involving when I inherited my uncle’s Fisher President II Console age 25, all tube components with 4 way: 3 horns/15" woofer’s firing down. My current speakers still use those drivers. Buying some LPs while working part time and borrowing money for Pratt Institute 1966-70. (declared myself financially independent to get away from evil step father) After that: gifts, finds, bargains, swaps, favors, always on the prowl: Friend Wayne at Harvey’s 45th st alerted me to items about to hit their used shelf, friend Phil at Leonard Radio 44th st; restore used, very little new equipment. Even after I started my own company and had decent amount of disposable income, I prefer used Vintage equipment. Content: Working for others: limited new purchases, luckily a friend gave me around 50 Jazz LP’s that had water damage, I cleaned them and learned about Jazz for free. Payday, every two weeks, off to 5th avenue Record Hunter clearing out LPs, Madison avenue shop clearing out 8 Tracks (6 for $5). Tower Records, Colony Records to find specifics, owner took me down to the basement once, holy moly. 8 Tracks: I picked curious stuff I would never risk real money on, planned on listening when I retired, sadly most of the pressure pads of the 8 tracks dissolved. I keep an 8 Track player and dual cassette going in my garage/shop system. The Sony Front Loading Drawer TT gave me the extra room in the stack, and protects from sawdust. Smoking Money for Music: I quit smoking 1988, age 40, a carton a week was $700/year. I decided the bills were getting paid, I’ll give myself a treat, spend it all on music or music equipment, a few new Onkyo pieces, LPs and CDs, and one year I ordered 42 special oversized leather binders from Herringtons that fit 8 cds/page (80-100 cds/binder) deeper pages/full pockets with their booklets rather than just the curve of the CD between the rings. On shelves, left side here I gave myself a rise in pay every year, whatever a carton a week x 52 cost, up from $700. in 1988 to over $4,500 now. never thought what it would add up to, just a treat to help me quit. I stopped when I retired age 62 in 2010. Equipment: starting 2019, thru covid era, I overhauled 3 systems, mostly used vintage and restored. Main/Office/Garage-Shop, my virtual systems on this site
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You wonder why people would try and make it a quantifiable matter with music as well; my list of albums is longer than yours, not to mention more expensive than the totality of hardware gear comprising my setup. Thus, apparently, I’m the more music loving-audiophile - and in effect, it seems: the more real audiophile. Seems to me we have enough of self-entitlement, dichotomies and labels going on as it is (something also about people owning tube equipment and reel-to-reel decks being nicer?). @knotscott wrote:
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In the streaming era, this is like arguing about angels fitting on the head of a pin. It has completely lost relevance to the modern landscape. fwiw I’ve never known any of those stereotypes, people that owned high end systems and played only demo discs. The one Trope that I am intimately acquainted with is the 25-40 year old ‘hipster’ that thinks vinyl is so cool that they shell out $30-$60 for a classic rock reissue and then play it back on a phonograph in a box gizmo that costs $80.
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@billstevenson My son is a young audiophile. The only music he owns on recorded media is what I’ve given to him. With current trends, that's not likely to change. I have no idea what I’ve spent on cds and vinyl. And 8 track tapes and cassette tapes. I’m sure it’s a lot less than my gear. |
The size of the physical music collection is completely unrelated to how much someone should spend. This is true especially today where the absolute best quality a human could want is available via a stream. Few people want huge record collections and we have learned that vinyl has less range than most CDs or good streams. Thank goodness we have learned that MP3 is garbage... well, some of us, not the younger people however, some still don't get it and don't care. I recall a time back in the late 1980s that friends got into playing "full digital recordings" on CD of things like the 1812 Overture to show how the pure silence went to crazy levels with the cannons as a measure of the system. I still have these same friends :-) They also loved the demo discs, and listening to their hardware, but their main music genre was popular rock bands of the time. One of these guys had, and still grows his music collection, and had some of the old equipment in use to this day. It's still great. Others with absolutely incredible systems beyond my means have a limited collection of physical media, or even digital files saved. Talking about basing the system cost on the size of the collection would never make sense, but nowadays it's like talking about how much a fish should spend on a bicycle. |
I always collected a lot of recorded music. Still do to today. I always knew I had spent much more on the music than the stereo. Even if you add up all that I spent on equipment during my life, it is dwarfed by what I spent on recorded music. Hell, I have been buying music for 60 of my 68 years. My guess is that it would be flipped if I were starting out today. I would most likely be streaming and probably less focused on the systems. Systems are just not as interesting today, more of a commodity. Rich
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It is certainly true of me at this stage in my life, but I would not be quick to judge younger audiophiles. Especially in the current environment where streaming is so prevalent. Truth be told I am not sure in my younger days that it was true for me even when vinyl and reel to reel tape dominated my setup. The hobby is progressive after all. |