I was introduced to separates by a friend at university.
Later I read the UK domestic audio press which mislead me for decades.
I would have done better reading the pro audio press but stupidly kept believing that domestic audio was superior.
One day whilst working in a local broadcasting studio I was surprised (and annoyed) to find myself to be enjoying the Technics turntable more that the Linn LP12 I had at home.
This anomaly remained in my head until eventually the penny dropped - the Technics was the better deck!
Shock, horror, anger and paranoia followed. Okay, slightly exaggerating, but you know what I mean. I realised that I had been continually duped for years and years.
My eyes were finally opened and I gave up resistance (or was it just laziness?) against those wise words I kept ignoring for years -
You must listen for yourself.
As you say, dealers are getting thin on the ground so you need to get to shows, or find some local audiophile friends.
Don't expect to be floored by what you hear, in all my years I've only heard about a dozen wow products. These were mainly speakers - ProAc pyramids, Avantgarde Trios, some Italian bookshelves I've forgotten the name of, Kerr K320s, and Monopulse Actives. However it's almost always great fun attending.
Keep in mind also the world of used products since the high end of 1960 and after can match more or less anything of today.
It's only the budget end where things have dramatically improved I think. A $1000 system of today beats a $1000 system of 1960 if you adjust for inflation.
After all these years I begin to wonder whether experience generally tends to move you from the subjective to the objective camp in the same way politically you may move from the left to the right.
Idealism tempered by wisdom?
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wolf_garcia,
"To live the "audiophile life" you must own a smoking jacket and those Gucci loafers, at least two sporty cars, a stash of various whiskeys, and be prepared to spend hours alone admiring your belongings and understanding what Estoril Blue is."
Yes, and you will find plenty of good examples at most shows. There's normally also an impressive turnout in the car park.
Still, you get a good social mix of people, ok mostly men, all coming from different backgrounds, converging for a common purpose.
The hardest part is often breaking the ice with people, but each one will have a story. |
jssmith,
"Start with Ethan Winer's The Audio Expert.
Like any other subject, you can go in blind, stumbling around, being pulled from one claim or review to the next, like almost everyone. Me included. Or you can educate yourself."
Stumbling around blindly in a state of confusion is where many in the business might want to keep you.
As the above poster said, if you want to save yourself time it's better to educate yourself.
Another good book would be Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms by Floyd E Toole.
Either book is worth more than a lifetime's subscription to any audio magazine - and infinitely more informative and entertaining.
At the very least the smart audiophile would have a copy displayed prominently on their shelf. |
larry5729,
"A lot depends on where you live and the dealers there. Reviews are misleading because it depends upon how much the manufacturer discounted the equipment to the writer.
Audio shows are helpful. However, how many years before we have one due to COVID. Thank you China for not telling the world you had it for 2 1/2 months."
No, no!
I was hoping, just maybe September.
You can't live the audiophile life without taking in the odd show or two.
No amount of money, understanding family members, or Dire Straits/Steely Dan/audiophile Jazz albums can make up for not attending shows.
Shows are the pulsing life blood of this hobby.
Maybe someone can post in-depth online guided show tours? How about Munich, Can-Jam, Axpona, Bristol, Montreal, Rocky Mountain etc on Netflix, Amazon.. anybody?
I'd pay to watch. |
alfa100,
A timely reminder.
The nature of this addiction (the bloom, the air, the dynamics, the timbre - yes all mainly from those vinyl years!) which can lead to many problems including that 'you could end up playing the same 12 tracks all your life on equipment demos'.
'I remember enjoying music off a budget 2 speaker, all in one record player system in my high school days.'
My experience too. I've often wondered what it would be like to get a well preserved example of that same system and listen again. Would it sound great, or more likely crap? I don't know, but I suspect the latter.
What I do know is that nothing, no system since has given me anything like the same pleasure as that one did. I was totally immersed in the music for years. The only tweaking issue being occasional adjustment of the t wire aerial for FM reception on some weaker stations.
So what happened? Well, first of all I must have started to run out of the supply of this purely divine music and tried to somehow maintain the strength of the musical hit I was intoxicated with via the route of equipment upgrades.
I mean once you get past Sgt Pepper, Revolver, Rubber Soul, White album, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home, Astral Weeks, Forever Changes, Led Zeppelin IV, Velvet Underground, Unknown Pleasures/Closer and greatest hits by Elvis, Buddy Holly, Rolling Stones, Who, Sex Pistols and various 45s it's just got to be downhill after that, hasn't it?
This all happened mainly between the age of 15 and 19. After that it was university and the discovery of separates. As you say, 'akin to going down a rabbit hole and doomed to audiophilia nervosa.'
Is this what this all is, an unending Proust like attempt to recover the lost pleasures of youth?
Or is it simply a transition problem? In my case, after university I took some time before grudgingly settling into a job and even more time before settling down into marriage and family. I wasn't keen on the family aspect but my wife was. I'm far happier with it now, and it's certainly precious to me now, but it was one hell of a transition.
Or maybe is this all simply a case of searching for something elusive in a digital format which was easily found in analogue LP? I don't know, but I suspect not. After all why would my cheap all in one system give me far more pleasure than my later LP12/Ittok/K18? Doesn't make sense until I factor in all that 'audiophilia nervosa' nonsense.
There's also the fact that digital can sound beautiful on rare occasions admittedly, but it definitely can. For example check out the sound on a few of those early Smith's CDs.
So thanks again for reminding us of what's really important here. It's very easy to skip over posts here as you have your morning tea, but yours I had to read a few times.
My journey too. |
asvjerry,
"..padding the ’listening den’ enough so it looks less ’room’ then padded cell...."
That’s made my day.
I guess I shouldn’t laugh too much, just in case someone else actually went that far.
I will admit to considering it though.
Only considering - but in this instance lazyness was my guardian. |
asvjerry,
"....extremism begets extreme response, in relationships as well as audio pursuits....but all of this is mere conjecture on my part. *G*"
I hope so. Even though the existence of the hi-fi widow has been known since the days of Edison, I'd like to think we're all doing better than that - lockdown or no lockdown.
My own audiophile journey has known many low points, for sure many have cleaned the mains plugs and fuses, but the holes for the wires too and sockets too? Then there was that ludicrous 350 mile round trip to pick up some Quad ESLs, and let's not even start on all those various turntable mods..
However, however getting locked up in my over bass trap-treated room by my spouse?
Well not yet, anyway. 😉 |
asvjerry,
"Are things getting better? Or are things getting worse?"
I suspect the advance of audio is much like the advance of civilization, forever moving forwards, and then backwards, and forwards again. Enlightenment followed by the dark ages followed by enlightenment and then so on.
How long has it been since Democritus, Socrates, Euclid, Aristotle, Pythagoras etc? How long since the construction of the Antithykera mechanism? How much progress since have we really made?
When was the real golden age of audio?
Was the highest point the 1950s where many people took an active part in building hi-fi equipment and actually demanded and sought out higher quality recordings? Or is it now?
Did we really need 4 track and beyond?
There’s plenty of recordings out there doing fine in plain mono, aren’t there?
If the wheels of history are driven by what the people want, then is it not also fair to say that the audio consuming public seem content with compressed garbage, err I mean music?
So did the CD/loudness wars era usher in a new dark age for audio? Were many of the advantages of digital recording and playback simply casually discarded in an attempt to stand out even further on AM/FM radio?
So are we audiophiles hopelessly fighting against the majority and merely pissing against the prevailing audio wind?
Or could we be on the cusp of a new audio awakening where we will witness the digital era coming to fruition, finally relegating analogue to history once and for all?
Either way, the audiophile life has never been easy. Even the well-heeled rarely seem to get what they really want, whilst the rest of us may merely be chasing a most enticing mirage, but mirage nonetheless... |
stringreen,
"I suggest going to real live concerts....the sound is way different than are the recordings. The difference is animation vs reality."
Yes, the often repeated but no less relevant advice.
I'd have to travel an hour or so to get to a concert, hopefully all acoustic, but I do need to.
The last time I went, ages ago, was a solo piano recital. Not for one moment did I even think my system could ever sound like that.
And despite all the many upgrades since, it hasn't. Not even close. |
brettmcee,
You're right, it makes no sense to try to replicate live sound in your home.
The infamous Toole/Olive 'circle of confusion' that exists in audio renders it unlikely. For sure some live albums do a good job of recreating that live feeling, but whether it is accurate, who knows?
Your have to have been there, and even then it's down to how well the engineers captured the venue acoustic.
The fact that there are so few reference points tends to steer everything into subjectivity and makes the pursuit of accurate playback extremely confusing.
But the point remains, some familiarity with real instruments will still give you a better starting point than none at all. I might not be able to, or even want to recreate a piano recital at home, or a pub rock band for that matter. But knowing what they sound like doesn't hurt, does it?
Picture the scene, a late night Jazz club. The acoustics are good, the music is unamplified and well known. People are enjoying the intimacy of the performance.
All of them except the unfortunate lone audiophile who is rather surprised and unsettled by the unfamiliar racous sound of the trumpet, saxophone and the drums. So he hurries home back to his soy latte and smooth sounding uber expensive home system which never sounds this harsh.
Kind of explains why there is a pro and domestic audio market, doesn't it?
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phd,
Many good points there. They certainly resonate with me.
I think it got me early as I remember being aware of how the sound of our school audio system changed for the worse when they replaced the previous huge speakers with smaller ones.
I guess I was already a dormant audiophile at the age of 5/6 even though I couldn’t do anything about it until after university. Without the money to buy the equipment it would have remained dormant.
Agree that it doesn’t go away with time. Even now the craving for bettere sound remains, despite experience teaching me of the many false roads that may thwart this desire.
I also went through downsizing, mainly because the money I was pouring in wasn’t related to any perceivable increase in satisfaction and the shift in priorities after marriage and children.
The biggest difference to me was when I realised that a lot of what I had read about CD players, amplifiers and cables was misleading. It was all implied and suggested, not promised, so I have no legal recourse. The better dealers left all of the purchasing decisions entirely down to me, even when in moments of doubt I sought a second opinion.
I will always respect them for that.
So nowadays I look for good recordings, this wasn’t an issue in my vinyl days as you just bought your LPs locally, and keep an open mind towards a future loudspeaker upgrade.
You’re also right about other more expensive hobbies. At best I have probably spent around £20k all in on audio over 35 years.
My brothers and cousins have spent a whole heap more on their cars, various BMW coupés (yuck!), executive Honda’s (nice) and in one case a fully equipped Lexus (wow!).
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