Nice to hear it worked out. Not familiar with that other one.
What Meatloaf and Beer Have Taught me about Audiophiles
Recently in life and online I've had some curious observations about human behavior I thought I'd share. To begin with, I have recently discovered that a surprising number of My Fellow Americans do not like meatloaf. As a meatloaf maker and meatloaf cognoscenti I was absolutely astonished at this. Some people who otherwise like burgers and the like hate meatloaf.
If you make meatloaf and love it your immediate reaction to this is "but you haven't tried _my_ meatloaf." That's our natural knee jerk reaction because we just can't imagine. Related to this I have a bartender. We'll call him Calhoun because his name is Calhoun. An otherwise respectable fellow who knows beer and tequila better than most. I would go in to see what the latest rotation of Indian Pale Ales were. About once a month they'd get some new "dessert beer." That is a brew made to taste like a sweet food substance. The least offensive of which were peanut butter and the worst strawberry shortcake beer. Calhoun would proceed to push me to sample these unholy abominations every time he could.
Of course I'd tell him "I don't like flavored beers." Which was partially a lie as a coffee or espresso flavored beer would probably be divine.. but we digress.
Sometimes he was so adamant that the latest beer flavor was the one that would change my mind I'd go ahead and try them. Of course, they were invariably disgusting.
My point to all this is that being on both sides of this argument. It's really hard to accept that our fellow audiophiles don't like something we feel is sublime and we will push our fancies onto them in the hopes of enriching their lives for the better. It's hard for us to respect that someone else can love music and the stereos that play it and yet not have found their happy place the same way we have.
By the way, I use the Betty Crocker meatloaf recipe and add a tablespoon of chipotle powder. Amazing.
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You pretty much nailed it. My wife makes great chocolate chip cookies and mixes that ever so gently with a wooden spoon, but when it comes to beatin' the meat...not so gentle! Smoked paprika comes in hot and sweet as I'm sure you know. Chipotle is smoked jalapenos which can have many different levels of heat. Plus I don't use very much. Try adding Stubb's Liquid Smoke some time, go easy with it. Regards, barts |
Every ear is different, and preferences are different. However, I do not accept snake oil claims, like a $1,000 speaker cable sounds any different than a coat hanger. Or tar'upgrading' a power cord will change the sound. Those are just lies, and people lean into their confirmation bias and believe it. |
@thecarpathian I think they are different. Chipotle is spicy and smokey, which adds a kind of bbq sauce like quality. |
@barts , You prefer chipotle powder over a good smoked paprika? I imagine chipotle adds a bit more 'kick'... |
@gdoke Excellent idea honestly, the problem is the portions. The powder makes it easy to control without waste. |
I inherited a Betty Crooker picture cook book with plenty of good recipes in it. I go for the Italian style as outlined in that book...which is essentially meatloaf with a small can of tomato paste in the mixture. I'm ashamed to admit that I just recently starting pre-cooking the onions and garlic prior to incorporating them into the mix. Plus I like an extra egg in there and light on the breadcrumbs please. BTW, I add Chipotle powder to almost anything, love that smoky taste. For some reason my SO beats the crap outa the mixture which causes it to be tougher that it should be. Go figure. Regards, barts |
Getting a handle on room acoustics should always be job # 1 for any serious "audiophile" before making any changes, but otherwise, biases in sound preference is perfectly fine. No need to control that any more than biases in people’s favorite soup recipe. It’s a matter of personal preference. Not to say objective sound quality of all preferences is equal. It isn’t. But room acoustics, objective performance of hifi gear integrated and working together in a system, plus (subjective) personal preferences, are the three things that together make the good sound world go round for sure. |
Regarding good sound and music genres, I tend to agree with what @atmasphere has asserted often over the years: a good system sounds good with all kinds of music and genres, acoustic or electronic. Having said that I get it where some lean towards acoustic music and like to season their sound for that. Personally, I find doing that almost always negatively impacts electronic music forms. Whereas if good with electronic music forms, results are also similarly good for acoustic, but not always optimal for all who prefer less attack and edge to the sound. |
Sure there are going to be some trade offs. The more you invest, in general the less tradeoffs. I used to go through periods when I would explore different genre of music. Rock was my first love, then jazz fusion, classical, traditional jazz... then electronic. I was going through a system upgrade during my electronic phase, I carried around five of my favorite electronic music CDs. They were just magical and often ethereal. I chose some equipment on the basis of those CDs. Wow, they sounded great... but when I would put on a jazz, vocal, or other album. They sounded terrible. I had inadvertently optimized for a single sound... one that often had no real touch points in reality. It was completely artificial, what a mistake. Well, unless I was listening to electronic. Ultimately that experience and some others drove me to find a ruler to measure sonic characteristics. Ultimately, I realized it was real acoustic music. If all you listen to is rock... then you can optimize just that (hint, go for MacIntosh + B&W). But if you listen to more... it is really worth shooting for the real thing. |
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Interested to hear the findings. I still have an original Chord Mojo that I use along with the Tempotec. The Mojo cost about 5x or so as much. The two sound way different. Mojo is warmer sounding. Tempotec delivers all the details better and is not warm sounding at all. Probably more neutral. Features do matter and are different of course. |
@tubeguy76 Maybe it's like sausage in restaurant culture, customers can't see what goes in so they make shortcuts. Now I am hungry. |
Because soup was mentioned I'll share my favorite: Mulligatawny soup. If you haven't heard of it, there are a lot of variations. I like the one that has sweet potatoes and apples in it. It's to die for! Don't skimp on the directions. The spices MUST be bloomed. Even my grandkids wolf it down. Happy listening and eating! Joe. |
I've been a vegan for nearly two decades but I still miss certain animal flesh foods. Back in the day I really enjoyed meatloaf. My Mom would make meatloaf with a mixture of beef, pork and veal with her home made tomato sauce which was absolutely delicious. A less health friendly meatloaf was a beef, pork and veal mixture with ketchup and mustard. It was good but I preferred the original by a significant margin. Of course mashed potatoes and green peas were the perfect complement for such a tasty meal. 👍 |
There is likely other things also wrong with someone who doesn’t like meatloaf. There are soooo many possible meatloaf recipes how is it possible that not al least one recipe would please even the most PIA of food critics? In my experience as a tested, unwavering and committed consumer of beer I find bad beer is most rare with the clear exception, however, of fruit/peanut butter, etc. flavored beer. The peanut butter flavored beer drinker is also likely to be the one who can't find a meatloaf he/she likes. |
@curiousjim yes |
A’gon is being buggy in a lot of ways including messaging. Leave me a comment on my blog, which won’t show up publicly because it’s moderated and I’ll get back to you.
https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2025/04/speaker-diagnosing-and-impedance.html |
That is what I mean... knowing what the real thing sounds like. However, you are making it sound way harder than it is. One listens to lots of live music, individual instruments, in small combinations, in concert halls. Sure they are all different, but the mind is a wonderful thing, you can hear and learn what differences in location in a concert hall sound like, what different concert halls sound like. What pianos sound like, violins, echos in halls. I have heard a number of Stradivarius violins from twenty feet... they are unique... unbelievably sweet. I can hear them in recordings nearly instantly. I have been to hundreds of symphony concerts... some in different concert halls. Small venue jazz, as well as Rock and other electronic music concerts. I know what the real thing sounds like. Then I have applied that general knowledge to curate my system. The fanatic part comes in the willingness to pursue understanding the real thing and in endlessly evaluating equipment an getting ever closer to the real experience... music that emotionally pulls you into the experience like the real instruments are there. Will audiophile does not require lots of investment... folks this dedicated to a pursuit tend to spend a lot... it part of the disease. But just putting together a bunch of powerful or flashy audio equipment, or stacks of subwoofers does not make an audiophile... There are lots of way to enjoy the pursuit of high end audio... home audio.
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I wish you a chocolate heart for your generosity and a chocolate smiley for your humor... Happy Easter!
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My wife dont like very much meatloaf but i like it to death. She cooked them for me... She improvise the recipe with the meat she have at hand this day and some basic... It is always delicious hot with sauce or cold in sandwich... As meatloaf all system are different for different needs and ingredients available... But as basic cooking acoustics had its principle we must go with as with meatloaf recipe which differ but with the same basics...
I will ask my wife for meatloaf this week... I did not know till today if i prefer it hot or cold... But i prefer my audio system hot.... Happy Easter and Happy meat loaf!
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