There is no cure... right?

maybe just avoid listening to the mobil rig and save the ear time for home rigs?

Shoot for neutral reference gear and call it a day. A lot of audiophile gear is designed to grab you immediately with some novelty. That's what makes people buy - it sounds different and exciting at first.

Then you get used to it and start off looking for something else that will give you the same feeling of excitement again. Usually, you'll buy something more expensive under the assumption that more money=better. You'll get tired of that, too.

It turns into an expensive treadmill, where you eventually get bored with every upgrade.

Getting well-made classics and/or neutral reference gear is the best way off.

The problem with a lot of that gear is that it does not sound exciting at first. Further, you have to go through a lot of gear before the realization sets in that you're just trading one novelty for another.

Once you hit that point, get the most resolving, neutral gear you can find and focus on the music instead. The neutral gear might seem boring at first, however, you won't get bored with it in the long run. It's a paradox, but ai think that's the only way to find long-term enjoyment from listening to music without perpetual upgrades and cash outflow.

I've settled on five or six headphones for this, and think I'll include the Sennheiser HD-800 shortly by selling some others off. The Quad ESL-63s are in for the long haul, and I think the Orion+ speakers will be, too. Then, I'll just continue building a music collection. I'll keep building amps, too, but those are more like a complicated jigsaw puzzle to me. They're great to listen to, but almost more fun to puzzle out how to build them.

stop reading headphone sites and you will be cured!!

Blow all your money in Vegas, declare bankruptcy, and cut off all internet. Done

There is a cure, you will need the assistance of a surgeon to amputate from the neck upwards, LOL

Poverty and drunkenness.

This is actually a good idea. I find that when I deprive myself of my rig during the day, it sounds even more impressive at night. Like when I get home from a long day of work without any music, it's like heaven to sit on my lounge chair and listen to some good piano solos / concertos

Come join the dark side. The lust of audio perfection will fuel the force within you.

Well said Uncle Erik.. something I've been realizing and confirmed after Can Jam.

Thanks! And you're another person I wish I had run into last weekend. Sooner or later.

Another way to kill upgraditis is to go back and read past issues of Stereophile and the other trade mags. Don't read six months ago, go back to 1999 and earlier.

You're going to find the same superlatives thrown around about the "night and day" difference between the 1999 model and the 1996 model. After digging back for awhile, you'll notice that you're seeing the same thing over and over again.

The reviews are generally for two types of buyers. The first type is someone who is making a one time purchase. They'll see the "improvements" over the last model and assume that the latest'n'greatest is a safe long-term purchase. The other type hangs onto every review to make sure that they have the latest models.

Not so many people look at the continuum of reviews going back for years. I suspect that the audio industry would prefer that you didn't.

As much as I love some of my headphones, I still feel the need to upgrade. After a couple auditions at CanJam, the SR Omega, Omega 2, and R10 were the three headphones I felt had a certain "magic" to the sound that I'm seeking. It's hard to describe exactly what that entails, but it's a specific midrange tonality I very much enjoy. The first time I heard the Quad 57's I knew that was exactly what kind of sound I was looking for. I have absolutely zero desire to upgrade my speakers and probably never will (outside of maybe trying different preamps/sources); can't say the same for headphones quite yet.

The cure is time and experience. When I just got into the hobby everything was new and exciting, and I was so hung up on good sound that I couldn't listen to anything less than a stellar headphone rig. But that was some years ago. Now, my definitions have simply changed from where I started out: my idea of "good sound" is a serious audiophile setup, and my idea of "bad sound" is your typical consumer setup. But, I can happily listen to either, and even the stock Bose stereo in my car gets plenty of playing time. I can certainly hear the flaws in a bad system but I just don't mind as much anymore.

I suggest spending a lot of time with different sound signatures. You're not going to really know what you want out of a system until you've covered the gamut of what's possible, and your preferences can and probably will change several times throughout your headphone journey. Which is why it will pay to explore as much as possible and not get fixated on any one particular headphone, brand, or sound. As you go through the upgrade/sidegrade/exploration phase you will learn just as much about your own preferences as you will about what different headphones/amps/sources sound like.

I agree about the neutral gear thing; colorations get old and after a while you just want your headphones to let go and let the music do its thing unhindered and uncolored. Transparency and tonal accuracy have become the ultimate standards for me; I don't want to hear the system, I want it to disappear so I can only hear the music.

x3

Hated the HD800 at first because I was so used to the colored signature of Denons. It took me a few days to warm up to the HD800, and after I found the perfect amps for them at CanJam, I knew I wouldn't be taking them off my head much.

Neutral gear FTW.

Another excellent post.
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