[DefQon]

His got a point too. I mean a lot of people here just upgrade and buy more gear within a small time frame, just be happy with 1 or 2 set ups and stick with it. In fact I think most people here with a lot of gear prefer the enjoyment of more gear than the enjoyment of music listening itself. I know I'm one of these people, the satisfaction of getting that extra 5-20% sound improvement from mods or complete DIY or buying new gear than enjoying the music completely itself.

 

[KingStyles]

I would agree that some like the equipment as much as the music, but the part about they need to do that to fill there lonely lives was unnecessary.

 

[IceClass]

We all spend our disposable incomes trying to fill holes in our lonely lives.
Frankly, if I'm going to be lonely, I'd rather be doing it with headphones on.
Long may it continue!

 

[DefQon]

Me too, if I was going to have a lonely life, my music, gear and a soldering iron is all I need.

 

[En_R]

They are gearheads, not audiophiles. When you spend more of your disposable income on high end equipment to fill in the gaps in your lonely life, you are no longer an audiophile. They forget that the music is what is most important.

I'd say digging up a 2 month old (dead) thread, and resurrecting it counts as lonely.

Your cry for help has been heard. I shed a single tear for you ='(

 

[tankteh]

Quote:

That is quite the generalization.

I was specifically referring to people that spend more time posting pictures and staring at their equipment than listening to the music itself. I'm not saying that all people with money are like this. It is a very specific group of individual that know who they are. But hey, everybody's got their own king.

 

[tankteh]

Quote:

We all spend our disposable incomes trying to fill holes in our lonely lives.
Frankly, if I'm going to be lonely, I'd rather be doing it with headphones on.
Long may it continue!

I'm not referring to headphones. That is a necessity for music listening. I'm referring to those that drop 20 thousand on a rack. Ten thousand plus on a per power cord, 5,000 for a chair and buy every headphone/headphone amp that ranges from 20 dollars to 7000 dollars. They can do what they want with their income, but there is a point where one of their friends, (assuming they have any) tell them to chill out and just appreciate the music. When you have a blue hawaii and a 009, why do you need a hd800 and a p1u?

 

[DefQon]

It's all about the listening mood and the different music you listen from time to time. Who says we can't enjoy the many things at our disposal? There is no 1 headphone that can please every user and perfect the sound reproduction for every genre and type of music out there. No two things are the same, that's why when and if we can, we can choose from a variety of things and enjoy it.
 
But I have to agree, when it comes to electronics, audio and video especially, there is a lot of unbacked up claims and bullschit that floats around. For what it's worth no audio rack that has been mentioned here are worth the cost they are marketed at, even counting in labour costs and materials, a $10000 wooden audio rack can be easily made with $500 or less worth of materials. Audio racks have no serious engineering behind them and those that believe some special unicorn myth maple base anti-vibration blocks offer night and day difference or any difference contributing to the sound have been taking too many red pills.

 

[tankteh]

Quote:

It's all about the listening mood and the different music you listen from time to time. Who says we can't enjoy the many things at our disposal? There is no 1 headphone that can please every user and perfect the sound reproduction for every genre and type of music out there. No two things are the same, that's why when and if we can, we can choose from a variety of things and enjoy it.
 
But I have to agree, when it comes to electronics, audio and video especially, there is a lot of unbacked up claims and bullschit that floats around. For what it's worth no audio rack that has been mentioned here are worth the cost they are marketed at, even counting in labour costs and materials, a $10000 wooden audio rack can be easily made with $500 or less worth of materials. Audio racks have no serious engineering behind them and those that believe some special unicorn myth maple base anti-vibration

When you have the income to purchase the best headphone in existence. (not even subjective) And yet try to convince yourself that you need all of these other cans for different moods is really distracting and starts to make music listening a second priority. Maybe you are a bass head, so you buy the best closed headphone. They are considered to be the best because of how accurately they reproduce the original studio recording. Not because they are colored or have a certain finish or extra super special cables. The 500 dollar claim is correct. It could maybe be built for less, but when you have the money why bother? It may be a slightly generalized observation, but there is indeed an obnoxious level of pretentiousness and arrogance that these snooty pseudo audiophiles get away with when they post pictures in a headfi thread. There is a strong presence of loneliness, no matter if they have lots of friends, a wife, kids a nice job. It's still there. I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, but nobody calls them out on it. In fact, they are comforted and showered in compliments. As if they actually took the time to design or hand craft any of the products that they are so eager to post pictures of. I'm not trolling or calling anyone out. I just feel that it needed to be voiced.

 

[DefQon]

It's all about marketing and branding at the end of the day. A seriously well known company can slap there logo brand on something made out of $100 worth of materials and price it at $2000 and there are still audiophools out there that would believe the hype and buy it. Virtual Dynamics is one prime example here when there $350 power cables were exposed by pictures to be using nothing but $20 worth of material. I can second half of what you said or most, I wouldn't exactly call those "kind" of people lonely or whatever, I actually know a few people who have almost 200-500k worth of audio/speaker equipment, top of the line statement stuff even for something as simple as an RCA cover, 2/4 of these people I know live by poor standards (not as such to those living in third world counties) but which I mean, they put all there money and effort into there audio gear only, they live on cheap food, wear cheap clothes, the purpose of living for them is just buying non-stop audio gear or overpriced crap and an overall poor living standard compared to how the average Joe lives. I actually feel pity and sorry for these kinds of people. Beyond OCD in the hobby no doubt. 
 
But hey if you have the money, them by all means, you can spend it anyway you can. If I had the power I would shut down all those companies that ride on the slogan bandwagon of non-backed up claims the companies products offer or deliver, because a very large % of the mythical unicorn stuff out there are all bogus and it's sad to even see wealthy people drop $3k for some shoddy $50 rack or $5k for 1m worth of Nordost Valhalla interconnects. It's almost virtually a reality scam most are unaware of.

 

[tankteh]

Quote:

It's all about marketing and branding at the end of the day. A seriously well known company can slap there logo brand on something made out of $100 worth of materials and price it at $2000 and there are still audiophools out there that would believe the hype and buy it. Virtual Dynamics is one prime example here when there $350 power cables were exposed by pictures to be using nothing but $20 worth of material. I can second half of what you said or most, I wouldn't exactly call those "kind" of people lonely or whatever, I actually know a few people who have almost half a millions worth of audio/speaker equipment, top of the line statement stuff even for something as simple as a RCA cover, 2/4 of the people I know live by poorstandards which I mean, they put all there money and effort into there audio gear, they live on cheap food, wear cheap clothes and an overall poor living standard compared to how the average joe lives. I actually feel pity and sorry for these kinds of people. Beyond OCD in the hobby no doubt. 
 
But hey if you have the money, them by all means, you can spend it anyway you can. 

 
Amen.

 

[TheAttorney]

Quote:

... but there is indeed an obnoxious level of pretentiousness and arrogance that these snooty pseudo audiophiles get away with when they post pictures in a headfi thread. There is a strong presence of loneliness... I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, but nobody calls them out on it. In fact, they are comforted and showered in compliments. As if they actually took the time to design or hand craft any of the products that they are so eager to post pictures of. I'm not trolling or calling anyone out. I just feel that it needed to be voiced.

 
I'm rather concerned that it does bother you so much. Maybe these people are just much more passionate about their hobby than you are. Maybe they just like to play with their toys and share their enthusiasm with equally passionate enthusiasts. Even if you don't agree, it's rather disturbing that you should put such an extremely negative slant on it.
 
The vast majority of the world's population would think you're weird if you spend more than £10 on any headphone (certainly anything more than Beats). But you probably feel completely justified in spending that extra. You may say that the people with £10 headphones are ignorant of what is possible. But what gives you the right to tell anyone else what the upper limit should be? The high enders probably think you're just ignorant of what is possible. 
 
I think it's great that people can make their own racks for next to nothing. It's also great that you can get well made racks for a few hundred dollars (as I have). It's also great that there are some weird and wonderful racks for tens of thousands of dollars, which are dubious VFM, but have at least the possibility of great performance. I'll probably not go for one myself, but it's good that the choice is there if I ever go a bit wild.
 
BTW, I've never posted pictures of my setup, but I do enjoy following such threads. It's fun. 

 

[SR-71Panorama]

I finally bought a commercial rack.  Its not off-the-charts expensive, but I believe it to be high end.
Its the hyper spike HS4 from SolidSteel.
 
It uses MDF shelves, but there is a rubberized compound paint on the top and some sort of polished paint on the bottom.
I also have a diy 'flexy' with MDF shelves and the difference in vibration is mind boggling.
 

 

[colinharding]

Racks?  You guys are talking equipment shelves 

, this is what a rack looks like (also free if you can find an old decommissioned theater).
 
 
     

 

[agentsim]

I finally bought a commercial rack.  Its not off-the-charts expensive, but I believe it to be high end.
Its the hyper spike HS4 from SolidSteel.

It uses MDF shelves, but there is a rubberized compound paint on the top and some sort of polished paint on the bottom.
I also have a diy 'flexy' with MDF shelves and the difference in vibration is mind boggling.

I don't mean to be a downer, but be very careful with the finish of these shelves. If they seem to have a matte finish, it may be a waxy coating they use, that it is very very very fragile and easily damaged. If on the other hand, you have a glossy finish, I'm told that should be ok.