Happy Scale

Noone.  The lead singer with Herman's Hermits.

@hombre, a lot of my current stuff is pro audio.  It may not be 'pretty', but functionality is a tad more important for me....

That, and the specs are specs.  The 'pros' live and fail by them to a greater degree than we do.  You don't got to concerts to listen to 'meh' sound....

They Have to sound Great.  We just want to sound better...in our own ways and means.....;)

When my wife passed away five years ago I mistakenly thought if I spent over $30k on a new system it would help bring happiness back into my life. I did enjoy assembling the system, but when I sat to listen to my music it only brought back memories of times we were together. The memories are great, but the loss tore me apart. It didn’t provide the happiness I was looking for. Nothing would. Not for years. Looking back I realize I wasn’t thinking clearly and was grasping at anything to help pull me out of the depression I was in.

I now listen to that system every day for hours and hours. Every day.  For hours and hours.  It is my sanity.

abucktwoeighty,

"Looking back I realize I wasn’t thinking clearly and was grasping at anything to help pull me out of the depression I was in.

I now listen to that system every day for hours and hours. Every day. For hours and hours. It is my sanity"


I feel the same way. Music is one of the best ways I know of keeping those (seemingly automated) programs of periodic anxiety from dragging my mood down.

They can feel like, to quote Pink Floyd,

"There’s someone in my head but it’s not me."

At the very least I like to think it’s not the real me, cue images of the mid 70s Who...

Thanks for sharing.

When my father-in-laws ancient cheap stereo broke I decided to get him a new one for Christmas. With only a $1200 budget all-in we got a changer, integrated, bookshelf speakers, speaker cables, interconnect, power cord, and Cones for everything. With some improvised speaker stands it was set up on one wall of my listening room to check it out and burn it in. 

That little rig was so much fun! It was crazy how good it was! Every night for weeks my system sat unused as it was so much fun to hear how great this little rig sounded. 

We tried some crazy stuff just for kicks. Like people ask how much should I spend on cables? Who would ever stick a $1200 interconnect or power cord into a $1200 system? I did! It was great! Awesome! Even with the $75 budget wire it sounded real good. But the same components bumped up to almost $5k all due to wire and nobody but nobody could believe how good it sounded! 

Of course it was nothing like my reference system. Not bass, not midrange, not treble, not dynamics, not in any way whatsoever. And yet because it sounded so darn good for so little money in terms of happiness it was simply off the charts.