Audiophile Priorities and Recent Topics

@jjss49 All good points on the fundamentals - and the pinned threads which are very helpful in other forums.

Audio has definitely been and continues to be quite a journey for me. Some of my hallelujah moments which helped shaped my priorities have included: Class A amps, single-ended/triode tube designs, effective room treatment, amp/speaker synergy, tube gear in general, easy to drive speakers with high & flat impedance, isolation transformers in conjunction with tube gear, and the use of quality SUTs.

Some of my experiments that haven’t led to much increased sonic joy have included power cables (although my Sugden amp is the exception as it responds well), interconnects (I can hear a difference but it’s subtle), and speaker cables (I’m very hard pressed to hear a difference in any although my old Wireworld cables definitely sounded better lifted off the floor - lifting never improved the other brands I’ve tried). I tried a SR Blue fuse once and couldn’t hear a difference but it was worth a try. I can’t hear the difference between USB cables and feel silly having spent too much money on a couple.

Some areas where some benefits occur and are worth probably about what you pay for them - quality rack (I use Symposium), component isolation (primarily with tube gear and TT setup - I like Rollerblocks but only buy them used). Rolling tubes definitely can shape sonics but it can take a while find tubes that you connect with, it gets expensive with vintage, and figuring out what works well in any given piece of gear can take a bit of effort - some gear just doesn’t respond well).

No exorbitant cables, no risers, no fuses, no springs, cables are a mess, rooms not perfect, no fancy contact cleaners....and it's all good! 😁

That's the long answer. The short one is: What part of "rent free" do you not understand?

The whole part.  Remember, MC, we're not inside your head.

It is getting to hard to find a respectable Audiophile speaker for 
under $15 k , and to make it worse the internal Xover parts are not much better then C+ in quality ,myself having been doing upgrades or mods for years. My quest now is do I buy a high quality used speaker and just upgrade the internal Xover ?
either  way it’s over $10k  to start ,inflation ,supply in demand .
It’s just on my short list things to do after the New year .

@audioman58 I’ve been very curious for years about trying out something from the Living Voice speaker line. You can occasionally find used examples show up for very reasonable prices. They are typically 94dB 6ohm designs but the impedance curve is very tube friendly - which is important to me. They present a resistive load which translates to a flat impedance, and an inductive rather than a capacitive phase angle. So they provide tubes with a consistent and predictable load. Even new these speakers are well below $15K and I’d certainly call them "respectable Audiophile" by any measure.