I think where trouble enters into the scenario, is when upgrades beckon when one has no clear target in mind.
If you wander into any high end shop you will no doubt be enamored with a lot of the goods on offer there. A different sound is not necessarily an upgrade it is merely an alternative presentation.
If you go in seeking either better resolution, wider soundstage or some other pre set goal you're experience tends to be much different than if you go in just looking.
A little bit of understanding can make a lot of difference as well. Sure interconnects can make a difference. Usually it comes down to a case of impedance matching or a capacitance change, that does not make the cable "magic" it simply makes it a better match for your given system. This follows all through the audio chain so doing a little homework before jumping into the circling sharks can save a lot of grief and misspent money.
^ Well, this is part of the message. Aimless shop-aholicism (for lack of a better term) in a hi-end audio shop is deadly for one's wallet. The combination of sight and smell of new and "better" gear, is sometimes too much to resist. Interestingly, people are generally not too concerned with actually hearing the new in-store gear and gadgets -- they may read the "reviews" and make a short-list, then get even more swayed by the glitter of a new amp or cable in the store. Rarely do many people ask to actually listen to the gear. Maybe they know that listening conds in a store's audio showroom are less than ideal (they're right). It's ironic than males predominate amongst audiophiles -- men are generally very good at the "commando" style of shopping -- we know exactly what we want, we go in, get the item, and make a quick exit. Unlike women, who love to browse, etc etc. And yet, we're the ones who succumb to audiophilia nervosa in an audio store or online. A reversal of gender shopping roles?
The demo is still...everything. Listen if you can, then buy if you like what you are hearing.
^ Well, this is part of the message. Aimless shop-aholicism (for lack of a better term) in a hi-end audio shop is deadly for one's wallet. The combination of sight and smell of new and "better" gear, is sometimes too much to resist. Interestingly, people are generally not too concerned with actually hearing the new in-store gear and gadgets -- they may read the "reviews" and make a short-list, then get even more swayed by the glitter of a new amp or cable in the store. Rarely do many people ask to actually listen to the gear. Maybe they know that listening conds in a store's audio showroom are less than ideal (they're right). It's ironic than males predominate amongst audiophiles -- men are generally very good at the "commando" style of shopping -- we know exactly what we want, we go in, get the item, and make a quick exit. Unlike women, who love to browse, etc etc. And yet, we're the ones who succumb to audiophilia nervosa in an audio store or online. A reversal of gender shopping roles?
The demo is still...everything. Listen if you can, then buy if you like what you are hearing.
The fact that even a less than perfect shop demo is still above satisfactory for a purchase. Purchases have nothing to do with better, it's a conditioned response which has it's pleasure in obtaining for the sake of obtaining.
I think you're almost on the mark. Pleasure and the desire to maintain it is certainly the stimulus for buying. But I think the perception that a product is newer and better than what one already has, is somewhat essential to complement that stimulus for completing the purchase. Chase vs. capture.
Perception of "newer, better" --> Pleasure sensations --> Desire to buy to maintain the pleasure --> Decision to buy
My Dad was a teen father, but when I was 13 he married a 23 year-old gal with an other worldly record collection. So I spent Christmas and summer vacations alone with this loud stereo and record collection. It had The Moody Blues, The Beatles, The Doors along with hundreds of other cool and up-to-date bands. It turned out my step mother was really into music and her profession finally went into music.
The stereo was nothing but really good mid-fi for the day. Big Advent speakers, an ADR turntable and Sansui amp. I just remember it was all about the music. Each album was a journey and a unique experience. The stereo was secondary, as it was just the method to create the music. In hind-sight maybe the speakers were a little boxy. Still none of that mattered because, I simply didn't know what boxy was. I could care less. At this stage in the audiophile game it was the music, this priceless music. The stereo was able to get loud, and sounded better than anything I owned at the time. So in many ways maybe the equipment DID matter but it was a thrill being an upgrade? So it's about where you are from in regards to admiring a system.
Truth was I had time and a lot of ground to cover.
Today much is the same only 41 years has passed. I still have this curiosity. But my equipment is good enough. I primarily use an Asgard, Cambridge Audio DAC and Denon AHD 7000 headphones. The above posts about the attitude in places here are true. It's easy to convince yourself that stuff just is not good enough. We started down the Head-Fi road because the sound was not good enough, and we wanted more.
In reality though we must never forget that the music and time to enjoy it is what is priceless. The stupid equipment is just a set of devices to get from A to B to C.
Yes, the better the sound the more your involved. Still if it's good enough, it really is good enough. And yes, a group of members are experiencing advances, and the advances can be breathtaking. Still you have to wonder how many have just up-scaled to an expensive side-step? it's only breathtaking because it's a new and different signature. Just a stepping stone to another signature, and another and another.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I had the same system for 20 years, as a postdoc (Sony receiver, bookshelf spkrs, TEAC player), and I didn't notice any decrement in SQ. I did feel an occasional urge for better sound even back then, pre-phile days for me. But 20 yrs....
Then I had the means to upgrade, thought about it, realized my CD collection was then big, and decided to do it. Upgrade. But has my prioritiy changed? I don't think so. It's still about my music and enjoying it -- albeit now with much more SOTA gear that lets me hear everything.
There is a story about Glenn Gould, the Canadian Pianist. Here it is:
"In 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould, the piano prodigy is maybe eight years old. He sits motionless, head in hands, next to an AM table radio as it blares out a slow, graceful symphony. The sound is just awful, the strings distorted into a whine of white noise. But for the young Mr. Gould, that's quite beside the point. When he lifts his head, he's tearful, distraught, and powerfully moved by the music. Gould reached through the sound into the music, and then through the music into the composer's soul—and he found something powerful. Sonic fidelity (or lack of it) was incidental. He could have listened to that music through a tin-can telephone". But you won't hear anyone talk like this in an audio salon, or in the audio mags. Those magazines are not called The Audiophile's Neurons or The Absolute Auditory Cortex or Neurophile. They're mainly about equipment, and they reinforce our habit of externalizing our auditory pleasures.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I had the same system for 20 years, as a postdoc (Sony receiver, bookshelf spkrs, TEAC player), and I didn't notice any decrement in SQ. I did feel an occasional urge for better sound even back then, pre-phile days for me. But 20 yrs....
Then I had the means to upgrade, thought about it, realized my CD collection was then big, and decided to do it. Upgrade. But has my prioritiy changed? I don't think so. It's still about my music and enjoying it -- albeit now with much more SOTA gear that lets me hear everything.
There is a story about Glenn Gould, the Canadian Pianist. Here it is:
"In 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould, the piano prodigy is maybe eight years old. He sits motionless, head in hands, next to an AM table radio as it blares out a slow, graceful symphony. The sound is just awful, the strings distorted into a whine of white noise. But for the young Mr. Gould, that's quite beside the point. When he lifts his head, he's tearful, distraught, and powerfully moved by the music. Gould reached through the sound into the music, and then through the music into the composer's soul—and he found something powerful. Sonic fidelity (or lack of it) was incidental. He could have listened to that music through a tin-can telephone". But you won't hear anyone talk like this in an audio salon, or in the audio mags. Those magazines are not called The Audiophile's Neurons or The Absolute Auditory Cortex or Neurophile. They're mainly about equipment, and they reinforce our habit of externalizing our auditory pleasures.
And hence you make the point I have been harping on for years and why I link to the Evelyn Glennie talk. There is a world of difference between active and passive listening. I suspect that most who walk into an audio shop are passive listeners who want to have the experience presented to them. The active listener takes the time to understand the music and most likely hears through the equipment itself to achieve the experience Mr Gould did. A much harder person to sell to .
Nonsense. The Marketing End Fi is a mythical enterprise. The truth is endgame Hi Fi has existed for decades, we choose to, and are hyped to ignore the fact.
And hence you make the point I have been harping on for years and why I link to the Evelyn Glennie talk. There is a world of difference between active and passive listening. I suspect that most who walk into an audio shop are passive listeners who want to have the experience presented to them. The active listener takes the time to understand the music and most likely hears through the equipment itself to achieve the experience Mr Gould did. A much harder person to sell to .
Nonsense. The Marketing End Fi is a mythical enterprise. The truth is endgame Hi Fi has existed for decades, we choose to, and are hyped to ignore the fact.
It's still a question of emersion. Yes, we can watch a movie on a 6 inch standard definition TV with a 2 inch speaker and mentally become amazed by the plot, it's what the human mind is good at. But this hobby is maybe built on experiencing the subtle things, the little things you can only notice with either an expensive stereo or the magnification of headphones.
Feeling the music has to be at a SQ level for myself. I have a minimum of sound quality I need, or I get bored.
Our thread here is maybe to introspect about the emotional upgrade triggers. The fact that it is a hobby infused with lost consumerism and false hopes. The facts are we are all gullible to HI/FI sales lingo and photographs. The obsession to buy to fill a spot in our souls. The warmth of a big purchase and the auto generated chemicals which infuse our body and minds before leading up to, and after the big purchase. All the falsehoods in perception of sound, how we tell ourselves the sidestep is better, validating our expenditure and new placement in the hobby as well as stature in life.
As an aside. Spielberg once said in an interview. "If you want to tell whether it is a good film or not turn off the sound". Film being a visual art he maintained, it should be able to tell the story without dialogue or sound effects.
I think what we have lost is the "explorer's mindset" here. The high end is being looked at as some neverending reach to present a sound experience that frankly does not exist but in the minds of marketers. The ability to resolve every bit on a CD or every groove on an album was reached ages ago.
It leaves me with the question of just what then, are we being asked to pay for?
As an aside. Spielberg once said in an interview. "If you want to tell whether it is a good film or not turn off the sound". Film being a visual art he maintained, it should be able to tell the story without dialogue or sound effects.
I think what we have lost is the "explorer's mindset" here. The high end is being looked at as some neverending reach to present a sound experience that frankly does not exist but in the minds of marketers. The ability to resolve every bit on a CD or every groove on an album was reached ages ago.
It leaves me with the question of just what then, are we being asked to pay for?
Some members I have met are film sound people and some are computer programers and electrical engineers. Head-Fi seems to be filled with a detailed science minded member.
With the purchases they are exploring. How would you not be exploring if you had three CD players or DACs. We are questioning the possible commen sense, maybe?
If you have ever hung out with 80 year-olds a hobby they had, before our electronic age of mass influx of stimuli, was simple poetry.
I don't know maybe it still goes on in small circles. Along with reading and conversing in groups, reading poems was a big entertainment thing in the past. Folks would entertain friends by knowing a poem word for word, or a long poem would be read outloud in a family or group. As in listening to someone read, the imagination was called into play, maybe much like nightly entertainment was enjoyed by mankind for 100s or 1000s of past years. Today we are flooded with home cinema, in contrast.
As an aside. Spielberg once said in an interview. "If you want to tell whether it is a good film or not turn off the sound". Film being a visual art he maintained, it should be able to tell the story without dialogue or sound effects.
I think what we have lost is the "explorer's mindset" here. The high end is being looked at as some neverending reach to present a sound experience that frankly does not exist but in the minds of marketers. The ability to resolve every bit on a CD or every groove on an album was reached ages ago.
It leaves me with the question of just what then, are we being asked to pay for?
Some members I have met are film sound people and some are computer programers and electrical engineers. Head-Fi seems to be filled with a detailed science minded member.
With the purchases they are exploring. How would you not be exploring if you had three CD players or DACs. We are questioning the possible commen sense, maybe?
If you have ever hung out with 80 year-olds a hobby they had, before our electronic age of mass influx of stimuli, was simple poetry.
I don't know maybe it still goes on in small circles. Along with reading and conversing in groups, reading poems was a big entertainment thing in the past. Folks would entertain friends by knowing a poem word for word, or a long poem would be read outloud in a family or group. As in listening to someone read, the imagination was called into play, maybe much like nightly entertainment was enjoyed by mankind for 100s or 1000s of past years. Today we are flooded with home cinema, in contrast.
We are paying for new flavors of audio ice cream. Just the fact that some folks still like the 300b tube is an example of the technology being good enough when amps were first thought out.
Just the simple fact that people are now investing in vinyl again. Silly we believed that CDs would last forever like they were marketed to last, when in reality we know now they may only last 20 to 70 years at best. It may actually come to be fact that vinyl is and was the perfect sound forever. Now we are sold 24/96 as the next investment after we tossed our cassette tapes, 8 tracks, LPs and reels of tapes.
A day will come when everything on the forums will be looked at as substandard and obsolete. That's the machine we fuel.
300b and dht tubes in general have been preferred for decades---almost no one that experiences dht complains about the sound. Some technologies are worthy of obsolescence-like the poor old cassette, but others withstand the test of time: direct to disc lp, the big classic AR speakers like 10pi, david belles mosfet amps will always be considered worthy of the experienced audiophile.
300b and dht tubes in general have been preferred for decades---almost no one that experiences dht complains about the sound. Some technologies are worthy of obsolescence-like the poor old cassette, but others withstand the test of time: direct to disc lp, the big classic AR speakers like 10pi, david belles mosfet amps will always be considered worthy of the experienced audiophile.
I currently own 4 300b tubes with 2 in use at any given time. In many ways I have the deepest respect for the mega buck systems I have heard. Not only are they a product of a buyers passion, they are the sum of a ton of research and luck and of course funds. What ever way we want to describe that last 20 or 30%.......... it's absolutely there. Even if the signature is not exactly maybe where we're heading? How can you not hear the magnificence? I may sound like I'm in deep contradiction, but I'm not. Of course in the middle of all the hype and advertising there exists timeless formats and timeless technology. Who is not to say we are at the very start of some new era in digital quality. In many ways it seems like digital is heading somewhere? It's all relevant and all but maybe many just don't want to pay for the last 20% in either vinyl or digital?
The technology has given us choices and allowed us to be lazy. How much work was it to have to turn on the lights and thread a reel to reel for one album in the day. How hard was it to pull out the lost LP you just had to find. Only to have to take it out of the sleeve, the jacket and then clean it. Don't even bring up the hassle of looking into finding the correct side of a gatefold double album.
Still I have to think back and enjoy a chuckle at our myopic signature hints and how we all have fallen victim to them. The invent of the Yamaha DX7 and subsequent thinness and shine of early 1980s LPs, much in contrast to the thick heavy bass laden records of the mid and late 70s. The move in certain circles to smaller book shelf styles that further enhanced the signature of the era. Then the CD and those digital effect spacy Jazz fusion experiments which just seemed to accentuate the CDs natural character. IMO
We are paying for new flavors of audio ice cream. Just the fact that some folks still like the 300b tube is an example of the technology being good enough when amps were first thought out.
Just the simple fact that people are now investing in vinyl again. Silly we believed that CDs would last forever like they were marketed to last, when in reality we know now they may only last 20 to 70 years at best. It may actually come to be fact that vinyl is and was the perfect sound forever. Now we are sold 24/96 as the next investment after we tossed our cassette tapes, 8 tracks, LPs and reels of tapes.
A day will come when everything on the forums will be looked at as substandard and obsolete. That's the machine we fuel.
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