Emotional rollercoaster

rixthetrick,

’As I have worked for some years in the industry, I have met successful salesman and managers of hifi stores.

Their purpose was to move product, and make revenue for the store and thus themselves.’


When a vacancy arose at a local dealer’s, (specialist separates) the only thing that I recall being on the owner’s mind were sales targets, not sound quality.


’I have often wondered what kind of a system could be built on a reasonably sane budget if we the consumer
could actually line up, side by side the cream of the crop, that actually perform at value driven pricing.’


This was not possible in the UK as companies such as Linn simply would not allow dealers to stock products from their immediate rivals. Who knows what happens nowadays? As far as I’m concerned, despite its lack of high end speakers, the nationwide chain Richer Sounds offers great sales service today.


As you can imagine UK audio magazines were bewildering to a newcomer back in the mid 80s, but somehow I stumbled onto one that made things a lot clearer.

Enter Hi-Fi Review. Published and written by a certain Chris Frankland it became my favourite for its forthright and opinionated views.

It’s basic premise was that the only products worth buying were those made either by Linn (turntable/arms/cartridges and speakers) and Naim (amps).

Occasionally a different manufacturer might get a look in, apart from Rega it’s hard to recall many. Maybe Epos, Kuzma, Inca Tech, and perhaps some Audio Technica higher end cartridges.

This simplified view of the audio ladder was shared by many dealers, one of whom was Derek Whittington. He ran a lovely civilised shop called (I think) Sound Advice in Loughborough.

It was a fair trek but he stocked Linn, Naim and Rega. Some of those demos in his concrete floored, bare brick-walled demo room have remained the most memorable.

Hi-Fi Review bit the dust a few years later (as did sadly Sound Advice) and perhaps as a direct consequence I managed to escape the Linn / Naim eco-system. More on the Chris Frankland and his Flat Response /Hi-Fi Review shenanigans here:

http://thetomtomclub.ning.com/m/blogpost?id=6506457%3ABlogPost%3A9465


With the development of the internet age I’m not sure whether published magazines domestic audio magazines have any useful role other than maybe fictional light reading.

So what’s different today?

Well, for one there’s far more trading in used equipment now, and there’s far more information, often contradictory, available online. Whichever way you look at it, the consumer is far better informed today.

Anyway, that was my experience, and as a consequence I’m all for sharing experiences, good or bad.

I’m still wondering how the OP (mid-fi-crisis) is now feeling. Has he come to terms with his disturbing realisation?

Let’s hope so.

mid-fi-crisis,

[Is spending big bucks a sham.]

Yes, after 35+ years I think it is largely a sham.

One largely perpetuated by reviewers, snake oil tweak merchants, unscrupulous dealers (the good dealers only need an introduction - they never push), and all too many other vested 3rd party interests who may want to offload their mistakes.

It’s a vicious circle rotating around the desire for your currency.


[Where have I gone wrong.]

Probably the same place as me in believing and trusting dishonest/ deliberately misleading reviewers.
I have come to believe they know exactly what they’re doing, and where their bread is buttered. (It’s now a part of a greater malaise affecting the whole mainstream media - but that’s another story).

They will not criticise a product, they will not compare a product with an established reference from the past, they will not compare top products side by side.

For example where, in the miles and miles of column inches can you find a group test review of high end speakers?

You can’t. Why not? Anything to do with the editorial directive that potential loss of as revenue must never be risked!?

Here in the UK you will get more informed opinion from the consumer magazine Which?, than a skipful of audio magazines aimed at the domestic consumer. Freedom from ad revenue is no small issue.

Instead, far too many domestic audio reviwers continue to listen to the same old well recorded (garbage) discs year after year.

Thankfully there are a growing of pro-audio publications emerging worldwide. These are likely to be of far more use in the future. Hopefully ad pressures are less of a concern to them.



[It’s left me disillusioned and fragile. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. Help]

I’m sorry to hear that, but you are not alone - far from it. Tales of disgruntled, disillusioned, exhausted audiophiles who eventually jump off the upgrade train and downsize with great relief and no loss of sonic satisfaction are legion.

I too have many bitter memories / experiences as a consumer. My whole LP12 saga leaves me fragile if I allow myself the luxury of contemplating. I thought I was finally nearing the top of the ladder but somehow they kept adding extensions upwards. Somehow I was getting less satisfied with the climb.

At least we both take consolation in that we eventually recognised the salient fact that it’s the music, that comes first and the music that matters most.



[I was listening to about $60 of hi-fi equipment that sounded extraordinarily nice and made me wonder why I’d spent a hundred and fifty times that much "improving" my main system over the years.]

You were probably trying to do the same as all too many of us : namely climb the upgrade ladder in search of satisfaction. Unfortunately, this dream all too often turns out to be little more possible than the attempt to climb Jacob’s Ladder.

It’s laughable but I can tell you that files played back from my Motorola G7 via my Tribit X Sound Go Bluetooth speaker can provoke a similar emotional reaction to that from my main system. That tiny speaker is not lacking in any way in the presentation of timbre or rhythm.

Furthermore the truth about cables, amplifiers, CD players, MP3 rates, DACs etc has been well understood for decades.

Unfortunately, there are many, many selfish vested interests in suppressing these truths.

See below.

Anyway, signing off from one fellow audiophile survivor to another, here’s wishing you the best of luck for the future.

Cue the Who
https://youtu.be/SHhrZgojY1Q

cleeds,

'Wow, you sound really unhappy. You might consider pursuing another hobby altogether.'

Yes, me and the OP both! This kind of disillusionment almost inevitably awaits every unsuspecting audiophile caught up in the upgrade path.

However, just like the OP, my passion for music has not dimmed. In fact it is as strong as ever. I now can enjoy music on a variety of systems : my phone/ headphones/Bluetooth speaker, my PC, or on my separates system.

The issue here is the way some of us feel we were mislead.

As the OP said,  

'I was listening to about $60 of hi-fi equipment that sounded extraordinarily nice and made me wonder why I'd spent a hundred and fifty times that much "improving" my main system over the years.'

That is the question here, isn't it?

You see when many of us started our journey towards seeking our version audio nirvana we had very little idea of what path to follow, with no map/guide and very little idea of what the end destination might be.

In the absence of both knowledge and experience (two essential pre-requisites before embarking) many of us tended to accept what we had read. After all, these were experienced learned men of the hi-fi world speaking. Weren't they?

There lies the problem.

Today, thanks to the internet, anyone new to this hobby can look around and share others experiences and be far better prepared for their journey than their predecessors ever were.

More skeptical and less gullible, I hope.
As they say, it's always better to think for yourself. Ultimately it's far more rewarding despite the extra effort.



mulveling,

Good for you brother, knowing of that particular all too common 'audiophile demo fodder' trap.

It took me ages and ages to realise why they hated playing mainstream recordings at demos or shows.

In fact at one demo I was even told, "If you're going to listen to that 60s stuff, you may as well stay with the system you've got."

At the time that didn't compute, but I now realise that those words were not very far off the mark.

I still love audio, I still love music, and though I wish my journey had been easier, I still dream of that audio nirvana.

Just not so vividly now.

glupson,

"British magazines had comparison tests of speakers. I am not sure how believable they were and if they ever had high end"

In my experience they were never high end. No one does high end group tests - for anything. It can’t be for lack of interest, can it?

Hi-Fi World (prob the most quirkiest of the bunch), Hi-Fi Choice, Hi-Fi News (best for vintage gear) and What Hi-Fi? (though I’m not too sure if this one is an audio magazine - nice pictures though!) all do feature the odd loudspeaker group test.

These are always current flavour of the month budget designs. You’ll find never a top model from the likes of B&W, Harbeth, Monopulse, Kerr, Spendor, ATC, Tannoy etc featured in a group test - let alone anything from abroad or the pro audio market.

They will also never include a familiar classic design such as the Quad ESL, LS3/5, Spendor BC1 etc for comparison.

In a word or two these tests are mostly useless. At least for any meaningful critical evaluation purposes.

As entertainment, they have their purposes. Ken Kessler for example, in person or in print, is always interesting.

When it comes to sound quality, some of the reviews here on Audiogon are far more relevant.

In fact it was initially stumbling on something that @prof had written about his Thiel CS3.7s timbral and textural qualities that led me to sign up here.

Here was someone posting online on a forum about essential sonic qualities that hardly any journalist had ever considered worth writing about!!

The only one exception I was aware of was the one and only Harvey Rosenberg.

I guess, like most of us, the best we can all hope for is that our words are of some help or interest to others out there.

So yes, my thanks too to @mid-fi-crisis for sharing his experiences. I’m certain they could be of great benefit to those still at the lower end of the audio ladder.

Or is it just a never-ending merry-go-round?

barts,

'I'm not on another upgrade path....this is it, the last rodeo, just like every other time. Time to sit back and and reap what I have sown.'


Yes, but what if a loudspeaker finally comes along that does most things right?

Texture, timbre, dynamics, bandwidth, dispersion, vanishingly low distortion esp through the 'presence' zone.

What if it can also pull off that all-important disappearing act too?

I guess we'd have to start saving up!

https://www.soundgym.co/blog/item?id=seven-frequency-zones-you-must-identify

glupson,

’If we ignore speakers. do those British magazines ever do group tests of other higher-end equipment?’


No, sadly they don’t - and never have as far as I know.

For sure experienced reviewers like Ken Kessler will cover high-end products. I don’t know how well he’s known in the US, but being originally from the states he’s more likely to cover lesser known products from further afield but he’s a rarity, and doesn’t do group tests.

Other experienced reviewers like Alan Sircom will also take the occasional look at more esoteric gear but again no group tests.

In fact the UK press was so resolutely insular that many of us had no idea of what a Mackintosh amplifier was. Even a monumentally important companies such as Acoustic Research and JBL got very scarce coverage. Magnepan, Thiel, Macintosh, Wilson etc all got similarly short shrift.

For a long time 70s through to 80s the print media continuously pushed a very simple system building philosophy.

For a turntable you started with either a Dual cs505 or a Rega Planar 3 and then upgraded to a Linn LP12 when funds allowed.

For an amplifier you could start with either a Nytech / NAD 3020 and upgrade to an A&R A60 before moving on to pre/power stuff from Naim Audio.

Speakers were more complicated as there were various options ranging from AR, Heybrook, Mordaunt Short, Celestion, Gale, Goodmans, Wharfedale and many more.

Unsurprisingly many magazines still suggested Linn (who had an entire range back then) as a final loudspeaker destination. Thankfully I was never tempted to buy one. Especially so after hearing the fabled Linn Isobariks for the first time in the mid 1980s.

The feeling of being underwhelmed upon hearing such a highly vaunted (and highly priced) loudspeaker has never left me.

As I write this it becomes clear that there was a method behind the machinations of the British press, one that probably still applies today.

It seems as if they were only really interested in products which were available in the UK. That’s where their advertising came from, so it was in effect a cartel of UK manufacturers and UK dealers pushing mainly UK goods.

I think it’s fairly well known now how Linn/Naim in particular, financially pressured dealers with almost draconian measures to stock their products whilst excluding those from their rivals.

Bear in mind there was also considerable barely disguised hostility towards foreign products all in the name of misguided patriotism. In particular Japanese goods (cars, motorbikes and hi-fi) seemed to get a very bad press during the 1970s /80s.

Nevertheless they were able to eventually overcome these handicaps through mainly word of mouth and the odd helpful consumerist programme on TV such as ’That’s Life!’

It also didn’t hurt that they were giant multinationals too. Lesser companies, UK or overseas must have had a torrid time getting a look in.

I bet they still do, on both sides of the pond. I’d go further and argue that there is still a cartel in operation today comprised of manufacturers/dealers and press that renders it extremely difficult for newcomers to succeed.

In fact what are the big new audio success stories of recent times? I can only think of 2 - PMC Speakers and Zu Audio. So congrats to both!

Everyone else could do worse than carefully study them both.

barts,

Good for you. As Clint Eastwood used to say, "A man’s got to know his limitations."

Maybe it’s the same for audiophiles - knowing when enough is enough.


audiorusty,

'If you can imagine your perfect audio system in your mind, what would it sound like? If you don’t know, how will you know when you have a system that has achieved it?’

I can’t speak for anyone else but in my main system, which does so many other right things, the speakers are just a little obvious. Large 1970s chipboard cabinets probably leave a little to be desired when it comes to self effacement and neutrality.

The final frontier (or crossing the Rubicon as someone wittily said earlier), would be precisely that kind of loudspeaker that Siegfried Linkwitz talked about.

One that does most things right and somehow seemingly disappears just leaving behind a phantom musical image.

Just like a reasonable facsimile of performance in front of you.

In the meantime perhaps it’s better to take a leaf out of barts book.

boxer12,
 
"High end audio isn't a sham. The sound I have now is something I could only dream about 20 or 30 years ago. The stage is wall to wall, deep, with ambiance accurate to the recording."

"BTW, it took a far amount of tweaks & cable changes to finally hear it (across the same speakers & room)."


Without details, your posts could be mistaken as mere shills for high-end audio, tweaking and dabbling in random cable upgrades.

It might be more helpful if you at least provided us with a list of a few of these recordings you are now able to reproduce so successfully at home.

Evaluating recordings is difficult enough already without details and specifics.

Perhaps this might help to clarify things.

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

boxer12,

Thanks for sharing, I might check them out myself after I've stopped playing the last Dylan album.

Good recording too.