The way to stay happy as an audiophile is just to accept that often "good enough" really is the point at which trying out audio equipment and the experience of listening of music is at its best.
I'm listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd on an iPhone this morning via an AQ Dragonfly Red DAC. You know what...this stuff rocks & it's setting the right mood for a pretty sunny Spring morning in Seattle. That's the feeling that makes all of this audio nonsense worthwhile to me.
On the other hand, I've been building up a digital streaming front end, so I have been dong a lot of 'critical' listening which gets to be a PITA after a while. I just learned that running a Qutest DAC off of a car battery jumpstart pack makes a substantial difference on the clarity (lower noise floor), smoothness, resolution and sense of flow from the Qutest. I'm getting a Denafrips Pontus II soon as well to compare. I didn't love the Qutest with the standard power supply, but using the battery is a big transformation in sound quality To me, it's interesting to compare equipment...for a while. But getting things to sound "good enough" in order to be able to get back to enjoying music that consistently sounds good is "priceless". There will always be some piece of audio equipment out there that is "better". Accept that, but forget about it and you'll be much happier.
I'm listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd on an iPhone this morning via an AQ Dragonfly Red DAC. You know what...this stuff rocks & it's setting the right mood for a pretty sunny Spring morning in Seattle. That's the feeling that makes all of this audio nonsense worthwhile to me.
On the other hand, I've been building up a digital streaming front end, so I have been dong a lot of 'critical' listening which gets to be a PITA after a while. I just learned that running a Qutest DAC off of a car battery jumpstart pack makes a substantial difference on the clarity (lower noise floor), smoothness, resolution and sense of flow from the Qutest. I'm getting a Denafrips Pontus II soon as well to compare. I didn't love the Qutest with the standard power supply, but using the battery is a big transformation in sound quality To me, it's interesting to compare equipment...for a while. But getting things to sound "good enough" in order to be able to get back to enjoying music that consistently sounds good is "priceless". There will always be some piece of audio equipment out there that is "better". Accept that, but forget about it and you'll be much happier.