Habituation to system changes: the Audiophiles' curse...

The ear always adapts if you really like the sound you're getting you will be happy. If you start to wonder likely not all is well or maybe you just crave something different? One thing to always remember different is different it's not always better.

@jond i wish that were true for me, but it hasn’t been my experience thus far. Maybe you’re less obsessive about it?

if you really like the sound you're getting you will be happy

Not sure I'm less obsessive I just got to a point where I stopped flipping gear and worked with a local dealer and got great sound. Since then upgrades have been incidental, tubes stuff like that.

But a little while after making any of these changes, I forget what it sounded like before!

No problem- take them out and refresh your memory.  

So here's one for you. Every night when you listen to that last song, do you notice it sounds much better than the first? Every night when you first turn it on do you remember it sounds much worse than the last song the night before? So there, you can work on your memory without having to change a single thing. 

Always strive for improvement but don't forget to stop and just listen to the music.

I'm the same, but I feel it a blessing.  I initially hear a difference.  Sometimes better and other times not, but my ears almost immediately adjust and I'm back to just enjoying the tunes.

That's why I don't tube roll.  

I’ve made a lot of great upgrades to my system in the past year and a half and it sounds much more engaging, quiet, pure, and detailed than it used to. But a little while after making any of these changes, I forget what it sounded like before! For a perfectionist hobby like this, what a curse! Always chasing that next noticeable sonic improvement, despite the diminishing returns...

Who else struggles with this?

I’m the same, but I feel it a blessing. I initially hear a difference. Sometimes better and other times not, but my ears almost immediately adjust and I’m back to just enjoying the tunes.

Your remarks made me think that you only begins the journey ...

I myself remember that my system sound bad at the beginning...Not too warm or too cold, but simply bad....

I cannot remember like you each station along the way...I was not even sure if a change was good at the end or bad...Like changing the position of the ass on a chair after an hour...I was chasing my tail here...




But i understand now how the sound was affected and modified by vibration and resonance....Good way to start here....

How it was modified unbeknownst to me by the higher electrical noise floor...More difficult to adress....

How it was modified by the acoustical settings, how related with one another are imaging, timbre perception, soundstage, listener envelopment and source width factors... This is by far the most difficult problem to understand and solve...

In the beginning, lacking the guiding concepts, i characterized my firsts changes with a very simple vocabulary: warm or cold, analog like or digital like etc.... A series of limited oppositions and duality....

Now i know that these limited dualities are constitutive polarities and INTERRELATED phemomena and factors of perception which i can analyse and experiment with...

It is very important to takes the journey with the right concepts...

In audio you have the system parts, the electronic design synergy and compatibilities...

Then you have the most important: the way you will embed in their working dimensions,mechanical, electrical and acoustical your system...
What people called "tweaks" will not do it alone by themselves here....With "tweaks" especially those costly  tweaks you can buy ready made, you can only go to a certain point all along the journey...

For the rest of the journey especially for the acoustical controls you must listen, think and learn... Learn basic concepts and experimenting...It cost me NOTHING by the way...I bought NOTHING....

Without that you will do what most did : upgrading with costly new electronic design or ready made solution for all, not tailored one for you...These partial solutions wont solve the central acoustical problem anyway....

Upgrading with a piece of gear is half the time a problem not a solution... When you have already basic good gear upgrading is only chasing the moon...

Way more important than upgrading is learning the way to embed rightfully what you already own...

And beginning here, it is no more the vocabulary of "warm" or "cold" or analog/digital that will help you...

It is not the vocabulary of the electronic design that will help to understand the sound quality but the technical vocabulary of acoustic...Read my sentence 2 times here....

Try timbre perception, imaging, soundstage, listener envelopment and relative source width...Study about these acoustical dimensions...

It is now necessary to think with our EARS....

I call it listenings experiments....

Here analog/versus digital, tube/ versus S.S. "cold"/versus "warm" exist no more like people oppose them with their limited understanding of sound perception dimensions....

This  electronical marketing and reviewers discourse is now replaced by the more refined acoustical experience and concepts and their dimensions and interactions...

This was my way....

Heaven at no cost.... Trust your ears and learn how to trust them with especially  experiments in acoustic....

Interesting phenomenon. One thing which will loop me out of this situation is planning out some extended listening which will provide not just entertainment but a path -- e.g. "Listen to all 9 Beethoven Symphonies" or "compare and contrast 5 different versions of Autumn Leaves," or "try out 5 jazz singers you've never listened to before."

In other words, without some kind of listening agenda, it's too easy for me to fall back into critical listening to audio. The best thing for me is to find a way to alternate between gear-listening and music-listening.

And all the stuff that Mahgister said is fine about room stuff, but that is really askew of what you are posting about, as I understand it -- namely, the psychology of getting out of a certain "grass is always greener" trap. The elaborate experiments Mahgister describes sounds like just as much of a trap, however inexpensive it is.

The elaborate experiments Mahgister describes sounds like just as much of a trap, however inexpensive it is.

In audio the trap is the illusion that money will buy the experience...

I listen music now more than my sound...

The trap is behind me....

Where you are....
😁😁😁😁😊😊😊

Sorry for the sarcasm...

My room is a dedicated one and a "trap"....

But without money what could i have done to reach sonic bliss?

You cannot put a mechanical equalizer with 30 tubes in a living room....my no cost solution to vibrations cannot be installed either  in a living room....Etc....

I am trapped in my audio room yes...

I am trapped with music tough now, not frustrating sounds....

It takes a dedicated room for me .... I dont know HOW to reach sonic heaven in a living room  for sure... Especially without any money invested....