Quote:
Originally Posted by kwkarth /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I will let them declare their intent, and whether or not they're trolls.
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Here's my intent.
When I started out in hifi, my brother and a bunch of his friends took the time to show me how things worked. They gave me advice based on their years of experience putting together stereo rigs, pa systems and designing speakers. They told me what mattered and what didn't.
Because of this, I made some very good choices of equipment very early on. I'm still using my first turntable and the first speakers I ever bought. That solid advice saved me a LOT of money... money I was able to spend on other things- like music.
The guys who mentored me also shared with me their philosophy of being a hifi nut. They told me it wasn't about fancy equipment to impress your friends, it was about making your music sound great. It's all about the music.
They taught me how to do a systematic and organized listening test. I can tell you that I have irritated many stereo salesmen when I plunked myself down in a listening room with a yellow pad and a pile of CDs and spent half a day deciding on what I was going to buy. But I've never been disappointed with any of my purchases.
Logical thinking and systematic approaches to comparing equipment is the way you efficiently determine the weaknesses of your system so you can address them. Randomly chasing theoretical and anecdotal improvements get you nowhere except broke. Discussion of logic and sound ways to compare and measure qualty of various components is totally germaine to the discussion of sound gear. Banning discussion of scientific testing principles because you personally find the concept to be wrongheaded is nothing more than an attempt to stack the deck. (Another logical fallacy.)
I hope that my ability to share what I've learned in the past 30 years helps someone make smart choices on their own. The audiophile press, web and sales community is doing a criminally bad job of guiding people. All they seem to care about is generating revenue selling snake oil. Someone has to stick up for the individual hifi nut and arm him with the info he needs to put together a great rig without going into hock.
See ya
Steve
P.S. Peelax's quote was great.