Do You Love Music or Do You Love Hi-Fi?

"I sit here now with money buring a hole in my pocket and I can't think of a thing that would improve my sound, save a new room. So I buy good music instead."

I agree with you most of what you say but would only add "what would improve my sound MOST". Why do so many feel that more expensive components will somehow compensate for a room that will not support or justify the added expenditure beyond a given point? So much for being an audiophile, different strokes I suppose. I would be curious to know how many audiophiles realize this to the point that they would make that expenditure of a new room, if feasible, over purchase of "better" components, diminishing returns. At what point in the journey does this become a factual realization?

Of course the above is a bit off topic but the subject of loving music or hi-fi encompasses so many different elements for the varied listeners on this forum and the rest of the audiophile community that one can only say, "You know who you are", what difference does it make, really? Live, love, learn and yearn, it's what we do.

Merry Christmas to you too Rok2id.

Hi Sean

As far as the room goes, many will work depending on the type of music. I personally feel the room comes more into play with larger scale music which generally require larger rooms and appropriately larger more costly speakers, at least in my experience. Many speakers require room and space with careful placement to realize their potential, the more transparent and open the sound the more this comes into play. A dedicated large room offers greater options for placement which can be quite critical in optimizing the system and justifying the cost, most rooms give in to compromise and this is the real point. Certainly many speakers are designed with smaller rooms in mind and those that are highly efficient can work well with low powered amplifiers that need not be expensive to give excellent, realistic sound but generally they don't fare well with large scale music as far as I'm concerned. It is the reason i have been with the same speakers for the past 10 years, feeling any meaningful improvement will only come by a different room and being otherwise quite satisfied by their presentation across the board in my space. Yes, the sound might be improved somewhat by better electronics but at this point, in my case having tried many, the diminishing returns aren't worth the expenditure. At some point you hit a wall unless you have broader options. What drew me into this hobby in the first place is the joy of listening to large scale acoustical music with a natural presentation. It is a progressive road because the divide between the real thing and reproduced is quite wide.

I expect that there are more than a few serious music lovers/audiophiles that are into this large scale orchestral music to warrant the expenditure for a room. For a good midrange presentation in a smaller space and the intimate lifelike sound that many like, it can be done relatively inexpensively but a realistic, dynamic presentation of large scale is always going to be compromised in a small space due to too many limitations.