Do you spend more time analyzing the sound of your system, worrying it could be better?

@bpoletti 

I spend time listening to music. The system disappears in the room and is replaced by musicians all in their proper position on stage. The original performance reproduced.

What do you come to an audio forum for?

@bpoletti Understood. I also like information.

Here's another way of framing the question:

"Do you ENJOY spending time enjoying improving -- or just tinkering with -- your system?"

If the answer to that is "yes" then there is no problem that Dan Wright needs to solve.

Honestly, for a forum focused on hobbyists, there's a lot of hand-wringing about being, well, a hobbyist.

@sns

The more I think about the continuing unhappiness I see in the pursuit of highest fidelity the more I think this has much to do with the extreme material nature of the hobby.

I like the way you put that. The further question is, why is one oriented around the "material"? (Here’s where a Marxian explanation would veer toward a fundamentally materialistic basis of reality and the lives within it. Some psychologists might chase it back to our fundamental rootedness in the body.)

We can see in @mahgister an approach that is joyful in its adjustments and experiments without being dragged into a materialistic -- consumeristic -- quest. He is very concerned with the materials involved in acoustics, of course, but they are instruments to create events and experiences. (In my humble opinion, even a small adjustment by him in the devices embedded in his embedding would be another lever worth pressing, but he prefers to stick with his $500 system. Whatever.)

Adjusting my system is like whittling. It’s fun to do. It’s part of the hobby. And just as with cooking, I like to rotate changes through for the same reason I like to listen to different music or watch different movies.

In other words, the challenge of upgrade-itis isn’t about material after all; it’s about a dogmatic and myopic idea -- that "perfection" is singular and final. If perfection is about plurality and change, the "disease" of audiophiles goes right away, with the hobby left intact.

@mijostyn Thanks. Appreciated.

NO! I stopped being neurotic about sound quality long ago!

That’s about as concise as a version as the false-dilemma driving this thread can get.

False dilemma: Either you love your system's sound (and are just agog, all the time, passive) or you are neurotic (frantic, chasing the dream).

The third option is the happy tinkerer. The experimenter.

That’s what makes this forum fun. Anyone who is just happy with the sound of their system should prove that by going off and listening rather than telling others they’re neurotic.