How does one get off the merry-go-round?

Don't catch the magic ring!

Blackwillard, 99% of the world doesn't care about sports cars, fine wine, plasma tvs, guns, electronic games, travel abroad, or any of the other vices that afflict modern society. Obviously, money is the key element is being able to afford your passion. :Your statement about hearing very little difference between a $5k system and a $50k system is, however, over the top. One would have to be a very poor audiophile to buy a system for $50k that would not be audibly superior to an average $5k system.

I find this thread quite interesting as I think there are few audiophiles that would want to get off. I have been doing this for nearly 50 years now and am still having great fun, more thoroughly enjoying realism, and enjoying the circle of audiophile friends I have met over the years.

Drubin, you put the music on the server in MP-3!!!!!!

You said, "... replace it with something better suited to listening to MP3 streams."

Carey1110, on the mark.

I have never understood this thread. I have not spent 40 plus years in this hobby because I wanted to get off. I have often thought that my reproduction of music could not get better only to have this crushed by something new. Given how much better my sound is now than even five years ago and the thrill of hearing a quality performance in substantial realism when I want to hear it hardly causes me to want to drop the hobby.

Dan_ed, I am more worried about running out of time. But my sound has gotten so thrilling and real that I long for total realism.

Jmcgrogan2, I suspect few are so threatened. I do think, however, that when your children are young you have to hold back, if for no other reason than they may get into your system or cost a lot of money.

I think "getting off the merrygoround" is deliberately pejorative. Most don't want to get off, but often do have to cutback.

Yes, it is like falling off the wagon. AA stands for Analogs Anonymous.

Thankfully, I did not get off. In the last year, conservatively I would say that the realism of my music reproduction has improved by 50 percent. I would credit the breakin of my Weiss Dac202, the new technology in the StillPoints Ultras, John Tucker's new Exemplar Portal cables, the Bergman Sindre tt and Ortofon A-90 cartridge, fullest use of the Syn. Res. ARTs, and the new H-Cat X9 circuit in the amp, phono stage, and line stage. What a year!

I used to have five passions-audio, catamaran racing, sports cars, being a good professor, and my family. I now have but two-audio and my family although my kids now have kids. I find people with no passions boring. I have absolutely no desire to get off the audio merry-go-round. I do a lot of listening but as relaxation and often not dedicated. What I love is when the reproduction is so real that I have to put down my book and just listen.

Shadorne, as I have said before, I have no interest in stopping making improvements and I have been doing this for 45 years. I am or was a musician and merely seek what I use to hear repeated at my leisure. I just get a thrill at realism.

I must say that I knew an excellent pianist who had a simple Webcor portable record player. He said that he really didn't listen except to certain key places for the recording player's interpretation.

This is why I just cannot understand the so-called objectivists.

Pubul57 and Phd, this discussion sounds like what Consumer Reports used to say about automobiles. Cheapest, reliable transportation is all one needs. They did not get many to subscribe to this philosophy. Most went about their lives, buying cars they wanted.

I'm sure no one would tell you that you cannot get off the merry-go-round if you want to. Nor should you tell others they are wrong to buy better equipment. Nobody appointed you to this duty.

Dan_ed, I am there for typical amplified shows, not for being in the presence of a real piano, much less drums, although that is the failure to capture their impact in recordings.

Phd, as I said before, not everyone wants to get off. Has buying and selling cost me a good deal of money over time? Certainly, so did race cars and racing catamarans, but also I continue to be thrilled by more revealing components. I would love to be able to hear beside my present system my Infinity ServoStatics and ARC gear from the '70s. I would expect it would sound terrible in comparison.

Jmcgrogan2, sorry, but I don't want anyone to believe that others should always want to get off just because they do. Do use your analogy, I am saying that many here are going into the bar and saying "I don't drink anymore" and neither should you, because the bar owner is ripping people off.

I doubt if many are so affected, but I hate the self-appointed scam police.

Jmcgrogan2, I didn't post here until Blackwillard said, " Put on a blindfold and you will hear very little differences between a $5,000.00 system which is properly set up and complimentary, to a $50,000.00 system which simply gives you braggin' rights." This characterizes the underlying thinking of many here.

If you don't like what I post here, don't read it. You are no one to tell another they should not post. Plug you MP3 player into your ears and enjoy.

Pubul57, what I object to is the presumption in Phd's post, "where others have used sound judgement."

I like people with passions and do not find most lack responsibility. There was a time when I did not have the luxury to invest much in my hobbies and I was into racing catamarans, photography, and audio. I am landlocked now and no longer willing to have more than a pocket camera. When our children left the nest, my wife and I agreed that I would take my stereo out of the living room. We bought a house with a game room where I now have my system. She does miss St. Paul Sunday morning, but our home radio is always tuned the NPR.

I don't think getting of the merry-go-round would deal with the guy he mentions.

Were this thread to suggest inexpensive audio products, rather than to suggest that some are merely in the game for impressing others and wasting their money, such as blackwillard says, I probably would have never taken exception.

Cdc, you would have to put shorting leads on all speakers except that you are listening to for this to work.

I just realized that my dedicated circuits put in 22 years ago are my oldest system parts.

Early on in my audio career, the choice was FM versus LPs. With WFMT available, all was good. Then there was Eugene and Tallahassee with a brief time in Philly. The only real music was on public radio. FM radio was on decline. While I still have a FM receiver, it has not been on in twenty years. In short for me "streaming" is gone. Now, however, I have a music servers, but I do no streaming from it throughout the house. We have a house intercom system which allows listening to a fairly good NPR station.

For me the thrill of audio is realism. The music server makes it easy to get even DSD files and HD 96/24 and 192/24 files in addition to cds. I must say, however, that if I want real music, it is still vinyl. And now with real isolation available thanks to StillPoints, I have achieved realism especially with vinyl. I am at many very special performance available on demand.

I certainly appreciate that had I gotten out of audio earlier, I would never have known such realism and the thrill of it.

Don_c55, I think it is even easier today.

Since even the few remaining dealers will soon be gone, most audio paper magazines will also be gone, and electronic magazines will be available for all perspectives and will disagree on everything, and everything will be no better than MP3, and finally most will want music 24/7, all you really need to do is wait.

Furthermore since only the top 1 percent will have discretionary income, you might as well get off the merry-go-round. High end audio will be like yachts. How many of your contemporaries have musical systems in their living rooms now? It used to be well over half of mine did. Now I see maybe one out of ten older friends have any and they are old ARs and receivers with lamp cords to the speakers.

Schubert, in my case, being retired, quality reproduction of classic performances no longer relax me at the end of the day, but as long as I can hear and am alive, I will still occasionally shout "bravo" at the end of some cuts.

My dad needed music and evidently passed on the genes.

Sabai, yes, look for long USB cords.

Thank goodness I never got off as the last four years have seen me achieve what I thought was impossible, namely realism.

Of course, your components have to have the potential in them, but it is other elements that have allowed the breakthrough. In the order of my getting them these have been: the Tripoint Troy, which I reviewed long ago, but the Troy Signature and especially with their Thor SE grounding cables; three generations of High Fidelity Cables and especially their power cords; both the Stillpoints Ultra series, and then the Star Sound Audio Points and their Apprentice platform; and the Zilplex room treatments.

While taken together these all represent about 55% of the cost of my system. But what they have done, I think, exceeds anything I could have done buying more expensive components.

I should also say, however, that the Koda K-10 preamp has contributed to this excellence.

All I know is that in the last five years, I have achieved more realism than I ever thought possible. But you are right as I'm about to try a new rack and will soon get a music server capable of play quad DSD.