Being an addicted audiophile for many (too many) years, I found myself analyzing every parameter of my system and enjoying it less. I started listening less and less until I stopped listening altogether.
I'm not sure how long the hiatus was, but when I gradually came back to it, I returned as a music lover again.
How surprised I am now at how beautiful the music sounds when NOT listening for audio niceties. This is true not only when listening to great sounding recordings but also to non audiophile releases, and enjoying them for the music despite whatever deficiencies they present. Even these latter recordings have some positive sonic qualities that my system produces.
I think Audiophilia attracts certain types of people. Men for one, but with analytical skills, a love of nuance and subtlety, lots of cuiousity, and definitely somewhat obsessed. Depending on where you are on the scale of obsessed will probably determine if you get dragged too far.
For me, the reward always outweighed any other aspect. I have been obsessed for 50 years nonstopped. I enjoyed listening to my system (sometimes the music, sometimes the system). Although at one point (about fifteen years ago) I had pushed my system too far to the detailed / analytical side. I loved listening to it for 45 minutes… I was working, so that was all I could manage most of the time. If I had more time I would get bored and go do something else. I was disappointed… and wondering if my interest was waning.
I called this system my reference system, as I could immediately determine the nuances of the venue and mastering techniques. It seemed like the best possible system.
Then I upgraded my headphone system to an unbelievably good, really powerful 300B amp. Instantly what was wrong with my main system became obvious. It lacked warmth and musicality as well as rhythm and pace. I completely rebuilt my main system… it is now completely musical and enthralling. I listen three hours a day and have to be dragged away each day.
Sounds like for you it was a change in attitude, for me it was a change in the sound of my system.
Reading these posts made me think of an analogy. I think the reason why we’re always tweaking is similar to why we buy new clothing. It’s like “we like the basic system” which would be ‘the person” and then every now and again we “make a tweak” or go buy some “new clothes.” So I’m “making a tweak” is the same as buying a new “sport jacket and some pants and shoes.” The core of the system is still there we just change how it sounds a little bit or how it looks. Does anybody think this makes any sense? Lol
I came to the conclusion that I love all 3 of my systems now, Livingroom, office, and RAAL phones. I am now done, done. The proof is in the last 2 photos. Taken before all were taken to the recycling centre.
Have to keep it all in context. For me it is about music, not the arms or gear race. I find that I am spending more time on small refinements and selling the stuff we do not use anymore.
If you spent $500 and it sounds good to you, then stop and listen to the roses. 😉
I completely rebuilt my main system… it is now completely musical and enthralling. I listen three hours a day and have to be dragged away each day.
Sounds like for you it was a change in attitude, for me it was a change in the sound of my system.
I lived through the exact same experience as you but with a low cost well embedded synergetical system..
I listen now as yourself music in ectasy and the negative aspects of sound are no more evident...
I can upgrade at a cost which will be 10 times the cost of my actual system ... I will not do it... It is unnecessary because i miss nothing so much as to feel a lack on any acoustic factors..
When you cannot stop listening the SOUND for the first time in your life this is a clear sign that all is synergetically well chosen and rightfully embedded.. ...
But the OP has a very important point : listening albums for their sound instead of their musical content and interpretation may be the starting point toward a dead end road, upgraditis ...
It is useless to upgrade BEFORE learning how to embed any system...
Articles about acoustics and electrical and mechanical embeddings are more valuable than any upgrade in general, except the necessary upgrade when there is no synergy...
Listening for sound became a moot point. Even when I achieved the sound I wanted, I thought like the song goes: “Is that all there is?” In other words it’s a dead end.
The enjoyment I get from music is infinite!
With streaming I have just about the whole catalog of Western classical music at my disposal in almost every possible version.
In general, I agree with the clothing analogy, but I think a food recipe might be more accurate, in that it allows for more precise tweaking.
With clothes you are stuck with the subject person’s size, shape and appearance and face it, some of us aren’t exactly runway candidates.
With a recipe there are more components and therefore more options that will affect the final satisfaction level. Take the soup I made last night. Basic ingredients are sausage, beans, some spices, potatoes, vegetables and chicken stock.
Change from breakfast sausage to a Tuscan pork sausage, add some cayenne and cumin and use my homemade brown chicken stock and it is heavenly.
As to the hiatus. It’s something I have never done, so I can’t comment. What I will say is that the quality of my system, while plebeian to some of our $150K members, is still at a level where I rarely analyze and listen at the same time.
Good for you, it's never too late! I never enjoy my audio system more than when I'm just listening to the music, which is what I'm doing most often now. The music elevates me, the audio system not so much. :-)
rvpiano: I've appreciated many of your posts over the years, but none as much as this one. By coincidence, I, too, have finally arrived at some kind of audiophilc stasis. After half a dozen superlative speaker systems in competition with my beloved Teslas, I finally acquired a pair of Magneplanar 1.6 QRs—a speaker technology I've been fascinated by for thirty years. And still, my Teslas prevailed. Now, it's back to the music, without any distractions regarding equipment: futile concerns that I might enjoy this more with X or Y. Such a liberation to stop thinking about the reproduction technology, and return to a full immersion in the thing reproduced: the music! I may now finally stop lurking on this site....
As I’ve aged, I can’t sit still that long anymore, although I try for one album a day. Having said that, I have music playing 4-8 hours a day, even if it’s just on ear buds.
I do still love finding that album where I can sit, close my eyes and smile from start to finish.
Thats funny. As I have aged, I find I can finally sit down for extended lengths of time. My watch is always telling me it has been an hour and that I should get up. I can ignor it easily for and hour or more.
it is the first time in my life i had not one but two systems well embedded...
For casual listening without end on speakers or sacred listening i am on headphone...
Music experience fill the space and the sound defects and upgrading audio gear choices are no more in my sight choices...
The only difference with me with my low cost systems compared to obsessed people is synergy between components and good mechanical,electrical and acoustical embeddings...
When sound manifest at his optimal through a system/room it disapear into music experience...
I think Audiophilia attracts certain types of people. Men for one, but with analytical skills, a love of nuance and subtlety, lots of cuiousity, and definitely somewhat obsessed. Depending on where you are on the scale of obsessed will probably determine if you get dragged too far.
There’s nothing quite like getting "dragged too far" as a way of learning when to back away from obsession.
Likewise, if you haven’t heard your system pushed in directions you don’t like, how can you discover what you do like?
I have found that my musical "judgement" is at its most accurate when listening late at night in the dark with just a hint of THC running through my brain and ears, Got my medical card last year. What the THC does is amplify focus and eliminate "monkey mind" or rather replace it with a more delightful monkey mind perhaps. Any stress or seriousness accumulated during the day is subsumed by the high and taken to oblivion for awhile. There is also the cannabis PRAT that lets one see the music more as a totality rather than a complex of independent parts that need monitoring and constant audiophile "assessment." It takes away the uptightness that can gather around our systems as we obsess over minutiae. It gives us the excuse to be a little reckless and forgiving in our hearing without the feeling that someone judgemental is always looking over our shoulder. It makes music more of a "surprise" probably because the THC has slightly retarded our analytical thinking and memory.
That’s why Satchmo could never play his horn right without it.
A toughie, for sure.
One decides, “I want to improve the way my music sounds.”
Fair.
The processes then undertaken to achieve the desired result in this fair endeavor often cause one to be inordinately concerned with minutiae instead of enjoying music (for many, the point of the whole shabang).
A tough line to top-toe.
For many, the processes themselves are enjoyable.
Fair.
In my case, I consider the processes tedious and frustrating, though certainly enjoyable at times when I can hear that my earnest efforts indeed yielded positive results. Just from a scientific standpoint, the processes can be interesting in and of themselves. It’s fascinating to hear how much difference a 1/2” tilt in speaker position makes in the way I experience sound, it’s interesting how seemingly insignificant adjustments to things like damping, use of various organic and synthetic materials etc. etc. can yield perceptible changes in the sound, the mental exercise involved in the use of geometry, physics…it’s not all bad, is what I’m getting at 😉
I’ve backed off the intensity in my focus on the sound, and it’s worked well.
I have reached a point where I’m more educated than I was before as to what this whole audio thing is, am better at achieving good sound than I was before, but have significantly dropped the troublesome preoccupation with technical minutia.
This was achieved through a “hiatus” from the high-end merry-go-round, and my appreciation for the high-end now has grown as a result.
I’m much more relaxed now.
How wonderful it is to realize that all the compulsive, addictive work you put in is in the past, and you can now enjoy the fruits of that labor as a music lover.
In my case, I consider the processes tedious and frustrating, though certainly enjoyable at times when I can hear that my earnest efforts indeed yielded positive results.
Wow -- this is not an admission I've encountered before!
Glad I'm not the only one.
The results that can be garnered from the "the troublesome preoccupation with technical minutiae" are undeniably gratifying, but it can be a real pain to get there.
The processes then undertaken to achieve the desired result in this fair endeavor often cause one to be inordinately concerned with minutiae instead of enjoying music (for many, the point of the whole shabang).
Myself too i lived through the same angry frustration and i hated it because it impeded my music enjoyment..
And all my upgrade trials were frustrations because it was never perfect at all...
All changed when with time after my retirement i go head on in acoustics reading , because i was lucky enough to have a room for my system and only for that...
Two years of acoustics experiments became so fun and surprising , it was as if i was able to upgrade my system sometimes each day sometimes each week for 2 years... my hobby was acoustics and other embeddings controls method and tweaks ...
I learned the basic and now i am no more interested in audio gear upgrade but only in listening music... I know how to embed an audio system at any price... And because i reach a minimal satisfaction threshold with this knowledge i enjoy music without frustration at all for the first time in my life... I was an audio ignorant , i am no more so ignorant... Now only music matter through my headphones or through my speakers.. I came here for friends and discussing music and acoustic in a general sense... I am very interested by philosophy of perception through acoustics..
Welcome back. Glad you’re enjoying your system again as “enjoyment” should be the target in our hobby. I also have an addictive personality so I have to be vigilant.
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