I'm interested in hearing from or about music lovers who have dropped out of the audio "hobby." I don't mean you were content with your system for 6 weeks. I mean, you stood pat for a long time, or--even better--you downsized...maybe got rid of your separates and got an integrated.
(I suppose if you did this, you probably aren't reading these forums any more.)
If this sounds like a cry for help, well, I dunno. Not really. I'm just curious. My thoughts have been running to things like integrated amps and small equipment racks and whatnot even as I continue to experiment and upgrade with vigor (I'm taking the room correction plunge, for example.) Just want to hear what people have to say on the subject.
If You get off of the merry go round & try another ride, you will eventually be called back to the merry go round, so, Best to just stay On it, & remember...Listen to the Music, Not the Gear.
"I think "getting off the merrygoround" is deliberately pejorative. Most don't want to get off, but often do have to cutback"
Exactly
Happy listening and as Phd so rightly says, we WILL enjoy our music. Perhaps even more intensely and deeply during the bad times we have now. Cheers, Detlof
Man that was deep. I'm just looking for some cool audio gear. Sometimes I'm on a merry go round, and other times a spiral (not saying which direction). But it's always fun, and that's really the point (to me).
The ultimate merry-go-round is life, living on this planet we call earth that spins on its axes and there is only one exit, I don't have to mention what that is. Given that if being an audiophile means having to entirely give up this hobby then I'm on the merry-go-round ride indefinately. Yes we are in a recession and we all survived the recession of the 80's and we will weather this storm now. It is normal for the economy to rise and fall over a period of time. I have great hope that are current leaders will move the economy in a positive direction.
During these tougher times we can tighten our belts and hold onto what we have till things improve. In the meantime enjoy your music. Music is and will always be a media that can be enjoyed by all peoples regardless of background.
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 Tvad, LOL. Getting lots of inspiration from the "real" but how to implement at home with ones limited means pocketbook- and technologywise.....still it is possible to a certain degree, though not in the state of addiction, speak carousel- or threadmillmode.
Actually, come to think of it, in my opinion the merry go round is not a good metaphore for what we are doing. Going round and round implies no progress. You may change your position within that given circle but you get no further. I find this too pessimistic a view for what we are intelligently doing, because progress towards a goal, as subjective as it may be, (although there is such a thing as the absolute sound) is possible. I would prefer the image of the spiral , because this would not imply the futility of our efforts to progress. The top end of my spiral would be what I hear as the "abolute" in my favourite concerthall in my favourite seat. Sometimes , when experimenting, trying new gear or tweaking, you slide forward and upward on this spiral, sometimes you slide back. On a merry go round you don't get anywhere, just have movment ( speak, different sounds as you change gear or tweak) but you don't get anywhere and you should in fact get off it by trying to figure ou how you would like your gear to perform in aural terms and relentlessly strive for that. Then you've left the carousel (or treadmill in other terms) and are on a spiral with a definite goal or end and if you think you're close to what you'd like, you can stop struggling upwards, only watching out not to slide back.
Get yourself this or that gear is not the point. Our tastes are too varied and the one man's heaven is the other man's hell..and as Tbg so rightly says, why get off at all. This IS our hobby and our passion and that's all there is to it. What most of us do reach however, after a long learning period which may have cost plenty, is that level of contentment, where the need to experiment further and to spend more money gets down to practically zero.
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.
1. I think it's useful to ask yourself, honestly, whether the $1000 you're considering spending on new cables would be better spent elsewhere (and doing this with someone who will call bulls*** on your reasoning is helpful). Will that $1000 be enjoyed more on the cables than on the myriad of other things you could spend it on? (E.g. with me, $1000 would let me spend more time in Europe, and that is a pure joy for me.)
2. I also think, as many have noted, that it's useful to ask if you're listening to music as opposed to your system. Is your system allowing you to enjoy all the music you really like? Or do you spend too much time listening to the system and how it is reproducing the music? When I do the latter, I stop buying stuff.
3. Nuclear option: Read Peter Singer (e.g. _Famine, Affluence, and Morality_ here: http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm). That'll do it, for sure.
In my opinion the best way to get off is simply getting divorce. That is right. Just let you x wife have it, and wish her luck. No doubt her new boyfriend will pick up where you left off.
It doesn't work to relocate from one temptation to another. Any AA person will tell you that there is no geographical cure. First you have to admit that you are powerless over audio. Then watch your behavior - you will find yourself rationalizing and finding ways to cheat or bumping up against circumstances that have to be considered unavoidable. These are signs of denial. (Yeah, I know it's a river). Some of you will turn to religion to escape your bonds. Others will transfer to another obsession like computer audio.
Ultimately, the only way out is through. You have to confront your self and your fears. You must give up your suckle. Wean yourself. Pull the plug. There is no gentle way.
Newbee, I am praying for you....and me too. My first reply was in 06/01, and now I am under the impression that the answer is NOT AVAILIBLE. One cannot get off the merry-go round, unless, as Cyclonicman suggests, one gets off the merry-go-round and on the ferris wheel.
The only chance you MIGHT have is to avoid all print media, any Hi-Fi shows, and ALL internet audio website's. Maybe then you can escape....however, if you are here, responding to threads, there is no hope whatsoever.
Since I last posted in Oct 2001, I've went thru a whole lot of audiophile stuff, but I'm NOT an audioholic! Actually I'm probably in denial, though the last component I bought was 19 months ago and I've dropped my subscription to audiophile rag's, and I'm no longer reading internet audio rag's either.
I've started a subscription to a new classical music magazine, and am thinking of a few others music magazines as well. Bought lots of CD's lately. Think I've overcome, at last, any interest in going to SACD's & players. Now if I could just convince myself that I couldn't get a better result with a new amp (the sound of which I'm having a hard time describing) I would stop coming here to check the Ads and my withdrawal would be about complete.
I'm not an audiophile, I'm not and audiophile, I'm not an audiophile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wouldn't that be deliciously ironic? Lets start an audio buyers recovery meeting here. We could combine it with a weight watchers type program and score points for selling equipment and lose points for buying.
We would all tell our stories and say how long it had been since our last purchase and how we had gotten started innocently enough in this self-destructive behavior in the first place.
This thread is nearing its eighth birthday and still remains unresolved for many including, presumably, its author. So, is there an answer?
I'm not rotating like I used to - certainly I've slowed the circles down - but I also have unresolved issues with my system. There are no areas of glaring dissatisfaction. There are no important reasons why I couldn't just stop right now. But there remains a curiosity about what could be improved, about how I might achieve the same results from less complexity or less investment. Or how to refine what I have just a little more.
It all leads me ultimately to conclude that I will never be completely satisfied and I may as well just call it a day and live with what I have. In the final analysis (had to fit that word in here somehow) the problem really is with me and not the system. My expectations are driving this madness. They're the cause of perpetual grinding about what to do next or whether or not to do anything at all.
Ultimately it seems that until we transfer the focus from our systems to ourselves, we will be treating the wrong patient.
I think one could get off the merry go round for a while but if you are a music lover and an audiophile, you are still in the amusement park! You may not be on the rides, but you are reading magazines, posts, etc. and are always thinking about equipment, even if you are not actively pursuing it. Sometimes you get off the merry go round only to get on the ferris wheel or the roller coaster!
one can leave the audio merry-go-'round by first establishing a sonic objective, configuring a stereo system that achieves that objective, and, being satisfied with the sound, decides not to replace any component in the stereo system.
In the past year, I've pursued a music server solution. I loaded about one-third of my CD collection on the server and then decided to give it a rest and just enjoy. And I've discovered a couple of things about myself:
As expected, I am listening to stuff in my collection that I haven't listened to in years. It's so easy to just give something a try. And I often play the entire library on shuffle while I'm doing other things, so I'm getting re-exposed to stuff. This is very positive.
I've also discovered that I have a lot of music in my collection that I have no interest in listening to, and I can comfortably say that I never will.
In the all-vinyl days, I was more likely than not to listen to an entire album side in one sitting. With CDs and remote control, I've tended to be more selective, which has fueled a sort of ADD behavior of listening to only a few tracks, or skipping to the next if I grow impatient with a particular song. With the music server, I find this ADD pattern is exacerbated. It's like endless channel surfing. It has it's plusses, but on balance I don't like what's become of my relationship to recorded music.
I'm coming to realize that, for pure music enjoyment, my preferred relationship is the radio. I've never played a lot of tapes or CDs in the car because that's when I listen to radio; and that's how I discover new music. I prefer DJ radio, commercials and all, to what I've heard of satellite radio. I like the human connection.
Sonics aside, with Internet radio there are now plenty of good stations within my grasp. If I think about being able to choose between WWOZ, a few classical stations I've found, some college stations, and several others, I begin to wonder what else I need. So long as I could put in a CD of KOB or several dozen other staples when the mood strikes, I'm not sure I need to "own"most the stuff I have. I prefer the never-ending surprise of others' programming choices, the discovery of new stuff, and the re-discovery of old favorites.
So I'm letting this percolate for a while before doing anything rash. But the thought has occurred: sell the entire system and replace it with something better suited to listening to MP3 streams. Sell most of the music collection, too.
Could it be that materialism creeps in to our love of music a subtle and quiet way, like a thief in the night, slowly robbing us of the vast expanse of an artform. I say BEWARE! Music is so big, so deep, so amazingly profound. Equipment is merely seductive. Come on guys, which would you really choose? Of course the answer is to have both. Right. That's coming from a guy who just spent thousands on an SET amp and made his wife crazy with it. So I am guilty. I could have lived with my $1000 Audio Refinement SS amp and loved it, but no, I had to upgrade. So maybe this is my confessional. However no matter how deep I go I will always love music the same. No $8000 amplifier can make me love music more.
I am now off the merry go round and after a period of depression I have finally come to terms with it. What I found out about myself was that the process upgrading and swapping out gear was a big part of what I enjoyed about this hobby. I was just as much in love with obtaining the SOTA gear as I was with listening to music. After doing this at a pretty crazy rate for 3 years, I have finally ended up getting all the gear I want. With the upgrade excitement gone, I stopped listening to my system for a few months. It is ironic that after putting together a system supposedly only for the sole purpose of listening to music, I was no longer interested. I found myself buying "audiophile" music that I did not necessarily enjoy but that would make my system sound best. Clearly, I had lost sight of what this whole hobby is all about and got caught up in the process.
Only recently have I gone back to listening and what I re-discovered was my love of music. Growing up, I never cared how much detail I heard, or how wide the soundstage was, or how accurate the timbre was. I just cared that the music touched something in my soul. I am at the point again where I would be happy with a cheap all in one stereo from Best Buy or Circuit City. It has even crossed my mind to sell everything and downgrade to something much cheaper. Dont get me wrong, I am glad I have the system I have but I dont intend on doing any major upgrades. I will probably add a power cord here or there and get an AC conditioner but thats it. So I can confidently say, I have been and will remain off the merry go round (famous last words of an audiophile).
Love of music is joy. Love of equipment is materialism. Love of music with great equipment makes the joy shine brighter, but when you start thinking about the gear too much it all turns to crap in your head. Just enjoy the music like you did when you were 20 and let the great gear do its job. Then music can be music again.
I have experienced this many times, and I have learned the hard way. Now I have great gear but I just concentrate on Coltrane, Bach, Webern, Schoenberg, Cecil Taylor, and Jimi Hendrix.
Emailists, you have brought up a good point in regards to the satisfaction of owning tube gear. I wish you would start a thread tube vs solid state & changing gear. I would post there.
The other day while at work, I thought about all of the money I've sunk into this hobby. Just purchased new power cords, am waiting for a record cleaning machine to be delivered, ordered some record cleaning solution, new brushes to clean the records with...then thought I must be sick. Seriously thought about selling the whole thing, and getting out the old Marantz receiver, Denon cdp, and Altec speakers to fend off the possible future urge to upgrade. But then I regained my sanity....or is that my insanity????? There's no escape.
When I was four years old I walked over to my girlfriend's house and her mother informed me that she was not at home. I said "fine, i just came over to listen to her record player!" (And people say audiophiles have their priorities wrong!) The first "high end" system of memory was Altec A7's driven by a Dynaco st-70 with an Ampex 15 ips deck. This system would still make me happy if I had a very large room. I enjoy and appreciate the variety of equipment and recordings, but in hindsight I know I wasted a lot of time and money trying to get the latest approach which rarely represented real progress. My progress list for BETTER SOUND alone over the last forty years is short. 1. turntables (credit to Linn) 2. digital room correction 3. subwoofers (slow evolution just recently good enough to be high end)
My system includes these improvements, but many of its components are old enough to vote.
Near field listening ! I am listening to a modest system now near field, and enjoying it quite a bit.
1) Sony es CD player ($800) 2) Marantz 2285 receiver (from many decades a go) 3) Mission speakers ($300) 4) Wires - $160 5) Oneac power conditioner ($170)
When I go near, I gain so much in audio pleasure - makes me wonder why more people are not into it. I get my favorite cup of tea, and a book, and my music playing practically in my ears, and I am in heaven.
Perhaps for some it is the journey and sea of constant change that keeps them trapped on the Merry-go-round.
Careful perusal of this thread and A'gon site in general shows that many audiophiles claim to have gotten off the merry-go-round (found that ideal component, system, the BEST!). Great eulogies abound to this, that, and other prized components... that the great search is ended!
Recorded for posterity, these threads are like trunkless legs of stone, a shattered visage, in a desert where nothing beside remains: a testament to long dead, fleeting passions.
Blackwillard, I think it is true that 99% of the world don't care about this hobby. But approximately the remaining 1% that do care are audiophiles (audiophiles represent a small segement of society). I would also agree there are far more important things in life including family but for an audiophile, a healthy balance between the two is a very good thing. It is when this balance tips towards compulsive behavior & out-of-control spending that leads to more serious consequences, thus the reason this thread exists for some.
Anyway I'm sure there are is an audible difference between a $50,000 system and one that costs $5,000 but the law of dimenishing returns do apply at a certain price point. If given $5,000 to work with, I could come up with a very enjoyable & satisfying system.
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