Evaluation is a natural part of the process. Once you have found "your sound", the craving goes away. That's when you start building your second system (LOL)!
New equipment
Just as I was smugly listening to and very much enjoying my MUSIC, I went and bought a new piece. At first, I was so happy with the improvement it made. But then the audiophile monster came lurking. I was not listening to the music anymore. I was listening to the SYSTEM. And, of course, there’s always something that can be better.
KISS OF DEATH!
It’s taking me a while to get back to the music again. Writing this is a good step.
BEWARE of new equipment.
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I don’t know where you are in the disease. But if this is in the construction of your first great system @dweller is correct. There is a lot of shuffling needed to build your first satisfying system. But once you get there it is worth it. Then you can just enjoy the music for a few years. The second after a time can be frustrating… but quicker than the first. By the third time with far greater knowledge,,. Typically it can be more structured and quicker. |
That's why it's important to make one change at a time and if at all possible kept the component you are replacing until you are sure. I just bought a new DAC. At the dealer and initially I liked it. Then I listened to it with all types of music and was really enjoying it and then for what ever reason my brain was at odds with my ears. Was this Non Oversampling DAC tube really outperforming something with much better specs? Fortunately I connected the original DAC and did some comparisons. The new DAC is clearly better and can be heard when switching between the two. They are definitely different presentations. I will trade a little detail for a lot of texture and tone any day. |
Sounds like new equipment syndrome. Initial insertion inherently brings on analytical mode of listening. Generally, we give new item at least 100 hours for burn in or adjustment of perceptions, could be more hours in some cases. We then, over time, almost imperceptibly fall into music lover mode, or we can't seem to get back there. New piece stays on one hand, out the door on the other.
Sometimes, in thinking about this, I wonder about all the cast offs people sell on used market, obviously, replacements bettered the item being sold. Usually, I like to ask what replaced item sold, appearance of lateral move can be bewildering, but then some people like to churn equipment. |
If you are considering replacing a piece, always try to get a long term audition of it in your own system and room so you can properly evaluate the change it is going to make. After a week or two your relationship with the changed sound will have bedded down. Listening to a different system or component the first time for a short period very often gives a false positive impression simply because the sound is different from your present system. Many dealers have sold many pieces taking advantage of this effect. Ask for a long term audition. More often than not, different is not better. |
@rvpiano My last comment was in jest, not making fun of you. We've all been there, heck I'm there right now. Tweaking my digital front end like a crackhead 😂. After I get my Sbooster LPS with the Ultra filter for my Qutest next Tuesday I'm putting the pipe down for a while. I think most go through cycles where we chill out and just enjoy our systems, then we get the itch to push it even further. It's part of the fun, and insanity of this hobby. As long as the periods of enjoyment FAR outweigh the upgrade periods, it's fine. Best of luck with your system! |
Agreed! My mindset and approach for a very long time. Charles |
Going onward and upward, instead of lateral shifts. It’s a tough call. First ask the question., First define the question. Define the parameters of the question. What the question means, what the question is doing, what the question is about. In technical terms and many angles within the details. Write it down. Write out the details. Ask yourself if the details are true. Research each detail. Question your assumptions. If some version of this is not considered then failure to move onward and upward is very much in play. Is one looking for more of the same, or is one looking for better? To get there, one must fully understand what ’better’ is, what ’better’ means. And in audio, whether one wants to believe it or not..Audio is a tough set of parameters to understand. With multitudes of people (middle of the bulk of the curve) chiming with directions that all lead to nowhere. to qualify and frame the answers, doors, and paths that others share with you. Reality could be seen as a complex problem with one path forward through a morass of error. Error is cubed in relation to the limited paths forward. Onward and upward is robustly framed in/by/via error. If one seeks mediocrity, then one is not short of paths to take, a place that is akin to wandering around in a huge market full of average goods. Any bit of yummy stuff will do. But ....to seek onward and upward takes effort. Results tend to be as good as the efforts put in. The correct path narrows, by design, by the very nature of reality. Audio is a tough one as we are looking to satisfy emotions and the body, in ways where depth and clarity of thought, in rigor.. is very much in recession (MIA) by design. Where we have to use rationality, logic and mental grunt in the greatest complex integrated efforts we can muster..... in order to get there. An obvious part of the complex scenario... is that few will seek it, few will know it, and few will understand it. Each ’level’ (if one may say that) of upward motion is occupied by at least 10x less people. Just like all other areas of life and endeavor. The more difficult the question... the greater the complexity of self, the greater the reach and range self .. that is required to be injected by the self - into the question and answer set. |
I'm sure you guys realize one get both tone and texture along with greater resolving capabilities these days. Some amazing equipment out there, and getting better over time. You can have your cake and eat it too.
I'm at point where I'm unsure of full resolving capabilities of audio reproduction, relatively low life 16/44 continues to amaze with it's ever evolving resolving capabilities. Designers and engineers with quality sensory perception and the technical knowledge to pull it off are producing equipment with both high resolving capabilities and natural timbre and/or high levels of harmonic development.
Continual jitter and noise reduction in digital reproduction are only two of the better known measurement protocols being continually improved upon making this possible. Adding new equipment to streaming systems is not a circular game, many new innovations in this arena, fast evolving which makes it extremely interesting for me. |
Call age but after 40 years I’ve learned a few things in this hobby, once you nail it with the sound you enjoy, then after that, it’s like cooking, you change something for a "different sound" or as I say spice and flavor to the sound. I have seen the systems sound superb the owner then gets bored and swaps out gear and loses what they had, they really start to shuffle gear in and out to get the magic back they had. This is very expensive but if you have the deep pockets to do it then do it. The Absolute Sound is the sound you enjoy, nothing more or less, and it never has what was mastered in the studio, for every cable, power cord (huge) impacts how the sound is delivered and what areas of reproduction they bring out in our systems. I have a very enjoyable system and I know it is as good as it can get for me, and the only other thing I think of now is enjoying my vast music collection. I’ve owned box speakers, electrostatic speakers, and now open baffle speakers and the open baffle really nailed what I liked about Electrostatic Speakers, but with unlimited bottom end and dynamics. So done with speakers now. The biggest thing is room acoustics and setup once you have a great system, it is cheaper by far to improve those 2 areas than any piece of gear can. TV between your speakers, racks, etc, get rid of them, imaging improves, bass traps in each corner bass improves and imaging, side wall damp them, even if it is canvas large prints, 48 X 60". Curtains if you have windows, even blinds on those windows tilting upward a bit is a good defuser and along with heavy curtains you have a good front wall area if you like me have windows on the front wall. Rooms are a huge percentage of what you hear and the balance of highs to lows. |
@phillyb , If you know what to do with electrostatic loudspeakers you can get all the volume and dynamic you could ever wish for with much lower distortion within the audio band. If they are designed as dipolar line sources you can minimize room interaction to a level impossible with any other type of loudspeaker. Thoughtful evaluation is the path to a state of the art system. You identify the problems, find and implement the solutions. The problem most people have is that they are not sure what the target is so they are out to sea without a compass. Thiis is why listening to an assortment of State of the art systems or frequenting live acoustic performances is so important. Sitting three or four rows away from a string quartet is an amazing experience. If you want to know what imaging should be like there you have it. Violins are difficult to reproduce without sibilance. Is there any at a live performance? If not then there should not be any at home either. Sitting a few rows away from a double bass and drums at a jazz performance will tell you what bass should sound and feel like. They should sound exactly the same at home. Anybody who tells you that any of this can not be done is a defeatist. Good hunting to all of you!
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@phillyb and the elephant in the audiophile room, is that if you don't fix the room, and spend real dollars there, the sound you will get will plateau. No amount of money, no fancy cables, no power conditiondf, no tubes in your DAC, no new cartridge, nothing will get your past a certain SQ. |
True, but I agree with @oddiofyl if there were a hypothetical "only" one or the other choice. Charles |
OP The same thing happened to me. I got to a place where I could only hear equipment and the music no longer mattered and as I wasn't in a place that I could afford or house the stereo I thought I wanted I just stopped put my albums in storage and only listened to NPR while driving. 30 years later I'm back. My hearing isn't as good so my ability to discern nuances has diminished. Technology has improved and with streaming I have access to more music than I could ever listen to. What worked for me was expanding what I listened to. It's hard to be critical of the sound if the music is unfamiliar. |
Unfortunately, it isn’t so clear cut that you listen to your system OR your music. |
I'd have to agree with slaw in that I can enjoy both as well. Likely every listening session of mine has a bit of the analytical as I'm still experimenting with entire streaming setup, changes constantly ongoing so my attention is purposely directed there. I think the problem with analytical listening is when one doesn't want to listen in that mode. IME, that indicates issue with system, or one may have severe case of audiphilia nervosa. |
Quite often audiophiles will buy a component because it enables them to hear “things in the music they have never heard before”. This can sometimes be a real trap if you aren’t an experienced listener. Quite often it is the result of an unnatural presentation of the music which skews frequency response, leading edge presentation, imaging, ambience, decay or some other parameter which exaggerates certain parts of the musical experience. The listener then becomes focused on listening to those new exaggerations or “highlights” in the system and the way they impose their signature on the signal, rather than the music as a whole. Some amps ams and speakers are designed to be really good at spotlighting certain aspects of a musical performance, which may be initially appealing but fall short in being able to offer a balanced presentation which satisfies long term. Any new information presented has to be taken in context: does it genuinely add to the musical experience? Does it distract from the flow of the music or does it integrate? Does it sound natural or artificial? Is it merely the result of existing information being highlighted? Is other information being obscured as a result ? Does it make you want to play more recordings? Does it help make you forget you are listening to recorded music? |
An insightful post there @pesky_wabbit |
@pesky_wabbit Hard to imagine that being said any better. |
This is the final paragraph from @pesky_wabbit. He didn’t make a proclamation encompassing all circumstances involving new/different audio components. Just pointed out (Astutely IMO) some specific situations that can indeed happen sometimes. I’d be the last person to deny that the listening experience can’t be improved with better audio equipment. Charles |
@charles1dad - indeed! There were a lot of question marks, and I was providing my thoughts on the subject in answer. And as most of the music I listen to is rock music and I live in an apartment, nothing is going to make me forget that Metallica isn't really playing in my living room. I don't particularly want to forget I'm listening to recorded music. I want to hear well-recorded music. Otherwise, I'll go to a gig and hear live music. |
Like all in AG, many listen to their system and not music. And that includes me sometimes. If they listen to music, why do people change their EQ? The phrase will always be "there is something better" but as I have come to realize were listening to different sound signatures vs the sayimg it sounds better. A matter of taste is what counts along with a budget. I've enjoyed my setup for years, the Freya+ added some warm holographic imaging to my amps. |
