I'm a cranky old man who's hearing ain't what it used to be. And my system never makes me breakout in tears or jump up and start to dance, but great music on a table radio can. At least on a vintage radio with cryo'ed tubes and an upgraded power cord.
Music first for me. I try to get out to hear something live once per week so I keep my ears tuned. The gear comes second as that just passes the time and is an effort in itself sometimes not really having anything to do with music. I don't have an unlimited budget but have enjoyed the better gear for most of my listening and have been able to acquire some nice pieces to own in addition to usually having 2 systems going at once. However with that said some of the best times are in my bath listening to my Tivoli radio and hearing a favorite tune come on.
I have visited other audiophiles (some pretty wealthy) and it's clear they don't have the ear or even know what a particular instrument is supposed to sound like. They just connect things up because they are the "best". But that's fine. For them it's about the style of the enterprise not the substance. The way I look at it there's room for all and makes it interesting.
Satisfied audiophile. My system has been stables for a few years and I have zero desire the update or upgrade my gear. I happen to think my system is quite good. At this point it's all about the music because I'm not putting any $ into gear.
Music has taken a back seat these past few days. I have family in Houston and both sets had to be evacuated. My brother was missing in action for 24 hours. Good news is that he surfaced unharmed and everyone is settled in with friends after a stint in shelters.
What type of Audio Guy are you? - Was there a Eureka moment? If you have figured it out, when and how did it happen? “… Interventions? How did you rein yourself in?”
Nice thread!!
Previous type: unreasonable. Pretentious. Erudite and arrogant. In short, the typical audiophile. Wearing blinders and running with scissors, seeing only what IMO is the correct item, design, or brand.
Current Type: Reasonable. More often than not. Still, dogmatic, fearful, and a severe need for my ego to be stroked routinely. Albeit, in the absence of being totally accepted by any and all, have learned, the end of the world is still a ways off.
Am a card carrying audio nut. Certifiable, yet requires quite limited supervision.
Without any financial constraints, I’m all about buying things I can’t afford, with money I don’t have, to impress people I’ve not met yet! Thankfully, I have fiduciary restrictions, and have gathered better perspectives on life.
In all, I’ve learned limitations can be an ally not strickly nemesis.
I was a budding musician playing horns from grade school thru high school and beyond. It was not cool to be a horn player. I wanted to be a Sax player but a coronet and trumpet were cheaper.
Out of the military in ‘78, the obvious choices laying before me were, to open a recording studio, pursue a career in professional Drag Bike racing, or join the Pro Bowlers Association and tour the national circuit.
Deeply pondering and thoroughly ruminating on these life altering options a woman walked into my life and I got married instead. She was my first love and music was relegated to slot number two. Racing fell by the wayside, eventually, following a few years of concerted but unsponsored ‘sportsman’ efforts.
Following life style changes and a divorce in 2002 I felt pursuing a quality audio setup was in order.
All was well, until a salesman at a local audio equipment dealership told me about this venue for buying and selling audio gear.that was the ‘epiphany’ or Pandora’s box, depending.
Six years later tons of re-education, several suprises good and bad later, I had a used BMW sitting in my living room, so to speak, effectively. Best sounding array I’d ever owned!
So I sold it.
Built one based on tubes then instead of SS. This became my second ‘epiphany’ and THE very best sounding rig I have owned to date.
Of course, I’m wide open now and the ONLY focus for me is how to improve my system. Around 2012 or so life ‘intervened’. On several fronts and my rig was laid waste to put funds to home security, self defense, and some major medical concerns cropped up.
Life has a way of setteling the playing field from what is thought to be, and what is, important.
This next affair is going to be about musical enjoyment. Having a rig which enables playback of as much media as is possible, rather than a system which plays but SOME media incredibly well and most others just plain aren’t worth putting on it.
Or…. Having a highly resolving extremely detailed outfit that is superior with some media, and one Bose rig for all the other files the main system only reveals as substandard.
That said, I’m still a kid in a candy store IF sufficient funds are in place and I’ll have little issue with rubbing old shoulders with previous narrow perspectives! Albeit, IF synergy itself can prevail front to back so jaw rests solidly on floor time and time again during playback sessions.
Am looking for enough detail and transparency so I can tell what perfume the female singer is wearing but not so much as to know if the band is working ‘commando’ style or not. See? Now, that is being reasonable.
Some one shoot me now please.....what kind of question is this ? Music comes from birds...surely I'm a dope for spending goofy amounts of money for decades on playback equipment and then at some point becoming dissatisfied and spending more...contentment alludes the insecure....
I'm definitely not a "follow the herd" type, either in music or equipment ... or life.
Music-wise I'm a metal-head, with side trips in many directions ... acoustic guitar, rock, progressive, ambient, etc. I can go from the heaviest of metal to the polar opposite, like Sade or Pentatonix. Metal has been with me from the beginning because it fits me. I'm a "power" guy ... bodybuilding, long drive golf contests, fast boats, etc. Occasionally I might want to "audiophile out" with some Pink Floyd, but power always draws me back to metal. However, currently I'm on a major Buckethead bender.
I'm a bedroom musician, with pretty decent equipment, who noodles (more before than now) with electric and acoustic guitar. So I have a good idea what those instruments should sound like.
Equipment-wise I'm an objectivist when buying and then forget about it when listening. I use my objectivism as a filtering mechanism on speaker purchases. Not knowing any better, when I started as a budget audiophile in my early twenties I bought whatever I could afford that the magazines or my audiophile friends suggested. Later, as I grew in my career (software engineering) I became more "scientific" about things. I stopped listening to hearsay (about any subject) and started reading. Even now I read. I'm partially through Ethan Winer's The Audio Expert and just received the latest edition of Floyd Toole's book ... mostly to study how I will set up my room (acoustic treatments and layout) in the new house I'll be building.
I participated in a couple of blind amp tests (where everyone utterly failed) and that shaped my thinking about ignoring electronics (with the usual caveats). And I read all the other blind tests, which had the same results, and listened as my audiophile friend incessantly switched equipment, hearing only a difference between speakers and cartridges, whereas he claimed to hear a difference in everything (but would not risk taking a blind test). So I never got to the point where I spent a lot of money on electronics, cables, interconnects, etc. Speakers, DSP and acoustic treatment are the only things I pay much attention to, although I do have some vintage electronics for decoration and nostalgia. My two-channel system currently runs on a used Paradigm SW amp, for which I paid $290. For a light show I switch to a vintage Pioneer SA-8800, for which I paid $450.
I'm much more an investor than a consumer, so I'm always looking for maximum value, which has led me into my current audio project - building my own speakers. I'm not into it enough to design my own. Too many other responsibilities for that involved of a learning curve. But I love the idea of taking a design of a designer whose knowledge and objectivity I respect and see what comes of it for minimal cost. I plan for these to become my last speakers.
So why am I even here? Well, since I've bought equipment here I signed up and get a weekly email summary of discussions ... and I read it because I get a kick out of some of the stuff that people focus on. I guess you could call it an interesting study of human nature.
I read that the definition of an audiophile is someone who has more money invested in their equipment than in their music. Long ago, I decided not to be that guy. However, this year, after 25 years, I did an equipment upgrade (CD player and speakers).
I was contemplating another DIY speaker project but the cost of the components and materials is roughly the cost of a good pair of used speakers. Instead of another DIY, I bought a pair of Sonus Faber Auditor M’s on Audiogon. I know first hand that there is a lot of satisfaction in DIY projects but I have other things to do.
The good and the bad of great audio gear is that it reveals the quality of the recording. My on-going challenge is to find the great recordings. I suspect others are pursuing and enjoying the same goal.
Loved live music from my dad playing most of the greats on the piano (gave a few concerts and practiced regularly 3 hours a day) and participated in the Wisconsin Youth Orchestra as a kid playing bassoon. The epiphany came when I heard a system that could reproduce the live experience in the Sony Center in Berlin. From that moment on I attended shows, dealer listens, read voraciously and saved until I could get what I wanted. All my friends thought I was nuts. It's a great hobby that can be enjoyed life long. I wish there were more standards being followed for high end recording and production. It is magical when you get a great piece of music recorded properly playing on a high end system.
I wouldn't consider myself an "audiophile" by any means.
What I am cursed by is good ears. Yes, I said cursed. I have friends that can't hear the difference between crap and great. I envy them. Would make life so much easier. I could buy inexpensive gear and be happy. I definitely don't listen to audiophile music either. I'm not listening for instrument placement or width of soundstage or any of the other terms used for great systems. But unfortunately, I can hear when they are lacking.
I also don't consider myself an audiophile because I don't think about system design constantly and I very rarely change components. I can be happy with what I have, with one caveat. It has to sound better than what I spent on it...from my perspective. I know this will sound blasphemous to this group, but I went one day about 8 years ago to the Magnolia store when my A/C was broken and it was oppressively hot. I listened to every speaker which I had an interest in and still didn't find any that I liked more than what I already had. Successful day.
I also know how much I am willing to mess with things, which is a lot less than I ever would have imagined now that I have means to do so. I just want to listen and have it not bug me in any way. I go to friends' houses (where stereo listening is not the objective of the visit) and say "How can you listen to it sounding like that? Let me do some tweaking and let me know if it sounds better. If not, I'll put it back." I never end up putting it back. The sad part is they lacked both the ear and the technical ability to get even a basic system to sound as good as it could, which most of the time is still barely listenable after the tweaks.
My best friend lives in Texas, so I haven't had the opportunity to hear his system after he's made some upgrades. But I know it sounds good as he has a good ear...and most importantly, his ear agrees with mine. Maybe it's because we've been listening to and building systems together for so long that we have a shared agreement on what "right" is.
I'm curious if we truly have a particular sound signature that sounds best to us innately, or if it is colored by our learning along the way. I would ask yourself how much of the reading and listening you have done, and who you chose to believe as your mentor(s), accounts for what you feel is the way a system should present itself to the listener? It's almost a nature vs. nurture argument and one that will be very hard to ever prove, but it interests me.
Audio is a very slippery slope. About 15 years ago I heard a HT system with Dynaudio towers (the 6', $50K versions) with the matching center channel powered by Sunfire amps and with Sunfire subs. Was worth about $150K at the time. That system completely ruined home theater for me, but in retrospect, was the best thing to have ever happened. I realized I could never re-create what I heard that day, as I would never spend the money to make it happen. But it felt good to know that there were halo products out there and it was nice just to have experienced them. I love cars as well. I don't have to own a hyper car to appreciate it's existence. Just to see and hear them makes me happy.
Every so often things change and I feel it's time to upgrade one or more parts of my system. About a year ago I did so after downgrading substantially to a receiver from separates a few years prior. I never was happy with the receiver and rarely listened to music on it, but it fit where I needed it to and was simple. Now I have separates again and a much different speaker setup and am once again satisfied. It's not what I would want if I was concentrating on audio, but when I listen, I'm content and not annoyed. And that is a great place to be, even if it isn't perfect.
I'm a cheapskate with gear. I always buy used or discounted and I look for gear where I'm paying for the components, not the name. I also love DIY where knowledge and time permits..
Also, I tend to find stuff I like and keep it for years. Being a student of yoga, I try to practice contentment so I don't drive myself batty..
As for music, I have so much and don't mind dropping coin on great releases. That's where I find satisfaction in the chase.
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