Or perhaps we are just conditioned to be enamoured with the "New Aesthetic" and the actual reproduction of accurate sound from the recording has take a backseat.
"Oh Ah, Fa Fa Fa Fa ,Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa, Fa Fa Fa Fashion."
The only significant advancement in quality from here on will incorporate virtual reality. As a former classically trained violinist, my ears tell me audio reproduction is near perfect providing the source is well recorded and mastered. VR headsets are destined to immerse us in the ful orchestra experience or bring us to the rock venue, as long as the headsets are well implemented.
The fact is this place is a double-edge sword, one you have people willing and able to get to a place in audio reproduction, but that same mindset will then take apart reproduction signatures,thus thinking they are getting an improvement when in reality it's a different tone. Make the equipment look new, add buzz words to the psudo-technology, make the technology seem new and confusing.........still nowhere else but a different town of tone in the end.
Aliens? I have stereo vinyl from 1960 which plays perfect and one or two CDs from 2005 which have failed. That is all I'm saying.
When I say perfect I'm stating at a point in sound quality too. My ramblings are just that ramblings. Hearing the Sony R-10 and the Sennheiser HD800, for most uses they sounded exactly the same. That point I'm trying to magnify is yes, the extra 20% is out there for those to chase it. Most of us simply dont have the funds. To delude ourselves that 100K does not get to that last 20% is just that a story some tell themselves.
The lies we tell ourselves which protect our ego from views of failure.
Mind you, this place IS all about the ego. The fact that few will disclose the fact that western man is held at worth by the size and cost of his toys. The fact that there is no better high then to go to the dog show (Head-Fi Meet) with the best dog. To come home with the biggest fish. To drive the nicest car. We are now at the point where our toys define if we are a good person or not.
And........others tell themselves.........
Something I will never achive is not worth getting to because it's so very far out of reach.
Still what we found out was even with maybe 5K we could get 80% there. That is all that is needed and the other side steps are just side steps untill the point when you really get there, if ever. IMO
5k gets you to 100% of where we were 10 years ago. The newest release of High End stuff is more of a side grade then an upgrade. Case in point HEK vs HE-6.
The fact is this place is a double-edge sword, one you have people willing and able to get to a place in audio reproduction, but that same mindset will then take apart reproduction signatures,thus thinking they are getting an improvement when in reality it's a different tone. Make the equipment look new, add buzz words to the psudo-technology, make the technology seem new and confusing.........still nowhere else but a different town of tone in the end.
Aliens? I have stereo vinyl from 1960 which plays perfect and one or two CDs from 2005 which have failed. That is all I'm saying.
When I say perfect I'm stating at a point in sound quality too. My ramblings are just that ramblings. Hearing the Sony R-10 and the Sennheiser HD800, for most uses they sounded exactly the same. That point I'm trying to magnify is yes, the extra 20% is out there for those to chase it. Most of us simply dont have the funds. To delude ourselves that 100K does not get to that last 20% is just that a story some tell themselves.
The lies we tell ourselves which protect our ego from views of failure.
Mind you, this place IS all about the ego. The fact that few will disclose the fact that western man is held at worth by the size and cost of his toys. The fact that there is no better high then to go to the dog show (Head-Fi Meet) with the best dog. To come home with the biggest fish. To drive the nicest car. We are now at the point where our toys define if we are a good person or not.
And........others tell themselves.........
Something I will never achive is not worth getting to because it's so very far out of reach.
Still what we found out was even with maybe 5K we could get 80% there. That is all that is needed and the other side steps are just side steps untill the point when you really get there, if ever. IMO
I'm not a fan of the CD physical support(and DVD or SACD are worst in that way, more data in the same space, more chances for something to go wrong). I was talking about the digital format. and I do have several copies of my audio library so that I don't lose it all when one hard drive decides to die on me, so in a way it's more efforts once every 2 or 3 years.
record a sound, press it and replay it on vinyl(even with the best turntable and calibration, weight, needle angle etc etc possible), you still end up with massive distorsions compared to the original that are so many times louders than what you'll get from a 16/44 played on a pretty random DAC. and that's when in fact you have EQed the album for vinyl, if you just press a CD release on vinyl, in many cases, it won't be able to handle the subs or the trebles(and maybe also not the dynamic for some not too dynamically compressed albums). you could just end up with the needle jumping in the air from having certain frequencies not attenuated before press, or in the best possible case, end up with differences in the loudness of certain frequencies compared to the the original (and should we talk about time errors and logical poor crosstalk?).
again I'm not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying vinyls, or finding some records more euphonic or whatever on vinyl, on a subjective level I sometimes agree with that in fact when background noise is not too obvious(I hate background noises, that's my audio war). but it's so very wrong to keep on thinking that vinyl is a fidelity format, or realistic sounding or any such idea. it has poor fidelity and that is a fact. I wish people would stop mistaking what they enjoy with fidelity.
now my listenings are mostly nomade, so crap IEMs, poor sources, I add EQ and crossfeed and use mp3, so I'm not exactly "hifi guy of the month"
. but I would never ever suggest that any of it is superior to something objectivelly superior. I enjoy it, and that's the end of it, no need for justifications, no need to be reassured, no illusion that it's better than it really is.
but when you talk about vinyls, you sound like you really believe it is objectivelly superior to the 16/44. and that, as I said in my last post, isn't a fact and has been disproved many times with magnitudes that leave no place to doubt.
about the general point of your post, I feel that the social element is another independant hobby, just like me doing measurements and reading how a damn DAC works is to me yet a different hobby. they do nothing to my joy of listening to a song. when I do those things, I don't feel like I'm doing audio, if that makes sense.
but clearly it's easy to get addicted to online fame. I believe people who are into this should do reviews. when you get to be some of the first to review the latest FOTM, it's better than the best day on facebook(well I guess, I don't do facebook, but I see the druggies around me). I find that "king for a day" thing very frustrating, but good or bad it's certainly rich in emotions. so I get why people can end up buying stuff only to stay in the social elite loop. IDK how many fall for that, but I'm very sure it does exist.
I'm not a fan of the CD physical support(and DVD or SACD are worst in that way, more data in the same space, more chances for something to go wrong). I was talking about the digital format. and I do have several copies of my audio library so that I don't lose it all when one hard drive decides to die on me, so in a way it's more efforts once every 2 or 3 years.
record a sound, press it and replay it on vinyl(even with the best turntable and calibration, weight, needle angle etc etc possible), you still end up with massive distorsions compared to the original that are so many times louders than what you'll get from a 16/44 played on a pretty random DAC. and that's when in fact you have EQed the album for vinyl, if you just press a CD release on vinyl, in many cases, it won't be able to handle the subs or the trebles(and maybe also not the dynamic for some not too dynamically compressed albums). you could just end up with the needle jumping in the air from having certain frequencies not attenuated before press, or in the best possible case, end up with differences in the loudness of certain frequencies compared to the the original (and should we talk about time errors and logical poor crosstalk?).
again I'm not saying there is anything wrong with enjoying vinyls, or finding some records more euphonic or whatever on vinyl, on a subjective level I sometimes agree with that in fact when background noise is not too obvious(I hate background noises, that's my audio war). but it's so very wrong to keep on thinking that vinyl is a fidelity format, or realistic sounding or any such idea. it has poor fidelity and that is a fact. I wish people would stop mistaking what they enjoy with fidelity.
now my listenings are mostly nomade, so crap IEMs, poor sources, I add EQ and crossfeed and use mp3, so I'm not exactly "hifi guy of the month" . but I would never ever suggest that any of it is superior to something objectivelly superior. I enjoy it, and that's the end of it, no need for justifications, no need to be reassured, no illusion that it's better than it really is.
but when you talk about vinyls, you sound like you really believe it is objectivelly superior to the 16/44. and that, as I said in my last post, isn't a fact and has been disproved many times with magnitudes that leave no place to doubt.
about the general point of your post, I feel that the social element is another independant hobby, just like me doing measurements and reading how a damn DAC works is to me yet a different hobby. they do nothing to my joy of listening to a song. when I do those things, I don't feel like I'm doing audio, if that makes sense.
but clearly it's easy to get addicted to online fame. I believe people who are into this should do reviews. when you get to be some of the first to review the latest FOTM, it's better than the best day on facebook(well I guess, I don't do facebook, but I see the druggies around me). I find that "king for a day" thing very frustrating, but good or bad it's certainly rich in emotions. so I get why people can end up buying stuff only to stay in the social elite loop. IDK how many fall for that, but I'm very sure it does exist.
That's a great point, to bring up the social loop. The fact that many members buy the same gear and experience it as a group. Maybe sales in general has humans favoring and experiencing certain products in group. It gives the person a feeling of group identity and maybe somehow lessens the fear of making a bad purchase.
The digital vs vinyl issue is such an old dead horse. To tell you the truth I don't actually care. I have more digital than vinyl now but enjoy both. They both offer something.
As far as hobbies go I would guess getting involved with DACs could be interesting. It's a fast moving area of Head-Fi now. They are getting better maybe. But then being able to purchase and feel apart of this DAC movement in audio, must be rewarding.
Not too long ago folks just had CD players. It is always fun to hear a talk about new formats in digital like DSD. The emotion they are revered with, the fact that it seems we are again living in this golden age. That is the thing, it has nothing to do with the steak, people are way more interested in the sizzle.
I am 60. I have gradually come to the conclusion that stuff does not make you happy.
At least, personally I find it quite hard to earn money and the more that I want, the more I have to earn.
Having stripped a lot of stuff out of my life, audio is my one remaining consumer weakness.
Over the years I have been involved in two channel, car and now HeadFi.
The one big myth of consumer two channel audio is, IMHO, that the performance of a 10k system is available ( or perhaps 90%) for 2k.
This, again IMHO is what drives upgradeitise in mid budget gear.
I have heard a couple of 10k speaker systems that have what I would call realism.
I have never heard a headphone system that has it.
Having been to a few meets, I have heard quite a lot of gear. Including the Sennheiser Orpheus. Many Stax systems and numerous others.
Some of them sound lovely. Detailed with spacious out of head imaging. Sweet treble, forward vocals, deep bass.
None of them fooled me for an instant that I was listening to anything other than a pair of headphones.
I listen mainly on the move so invested heavily in a pair of TOTL CIEM's.
Marvellous but never other than what they are.
I don't intend to now spend a fortune chasing chimeras.
I will still go to meets and enjoy listening to all the creative attempts to transcend the limitations of the medium.
I'm not completely immune but this thread has certainly helped!
Top of the list with a bullet is yes, stop trying to sell me something you know damn well you cannot deliver. Concert hall sound, yada yada yada. The physiologial way in which we hear precludes headphones from replicating it. Lets work from what they can do and go from there rather than try deception and outright delusion.
I have owned ER4's since they existed and consider them to be a very good isolating IEM. I can notice the change in the sound sig when I go from room to room or inside to outside. Anyone who bothers to pay attention can clearly do the same with any headphone. That should be telling us all something about how our hearing works and give more than a little insight into the actual physical limitations on a headphone reproducing accurate spatial presentation.
Every once in a while, I come across gear that stops me in my tracks-- clearly a notch or two better than anything previous. For me, I declare "enough" at this moment, at least temporarily. I've found far too many false reviews and overenthusiastic newbies to perpetuate the charade. I know what I'm chasing after. Having a goal in mind other than "perfection" is helpful.
I think I've pretty much hit my wall for audio stuff. I am quite satisfied with my STAX SRS-2170 system that I got for less than $700 USD (these days you can find it for around $500...), and I've found it to compete against other headphone/amplifier systems of double, triple, or quadruple that cost...so anything else is probably not worth it for me. I've spent a pretty penny on my DAC and digital stuff, so I'm pretty much done with that area too.
The one big myth of consumer two channel audio is, IMHO, that the performance of a 10k system is available ( or perhaps 90%) for 2k.
This, again IMHO is what drives upgradeitise in mid budget gear.
Top of the list with a bullet is yes, stop trying to sell me something you know damn well you cannot deliver. Concert hall sound, yada yada yada. The physiologial way in which we hear precludes headphones from replicating it. Lets work from what they can do and go from there rather than try deception and outright delusion.
I've found far too many false reviews and overenthusiastic newbies to perpetuate the charade. I know what I'm chasing after. Having a goal in mind other than "perfection" is helpful.
Agreed on all these points. Part of learning when enough is enough, is learning how to read past a lot of the "excess/crap" that is out there, be it from marketing or reviews. Not to go zen, but once you become at peace with that ability per se, it becomes far easier to say "enough" to yourself while still gleaning appropriate knowledge from what you enjoy reading. Borrowing from @krismusic, even though headphone tech has improved, it's still not to the level of speaker systems but more importantly, "marketing" has improved to a far greater degree. We all need to be increasingly aware of the latter in its various forms.
Every once in a while, I come across gear that stops me in my tracks-- clearly a notch or two better than anything previous. For me, I declare "enough" at this moment, at least temporarily. I've found far too many false reviews and overenthusiastic newbies to perpetuate the charade. I know what I'm chasing after. Having a goal in mind other than "perfection" is helpful.
Seeing a baby hear it's mother sing is an amazing experience. We have the child focused on the voice with no regard to the tallent of the singer. It does not matter if she is sharp or flat in her delivery.
This brings up an important point. Here we have audiophiles getting to understand sound reproduction. Everyone comes from a different place. A classicly trained musician is going to know real instument tone and look for that. A rock concert person may look for a different sound signature.
I have also learned that there is no real timeframe to a person understanding what is good reproduction, only that an unexperienced ear is much like the baby example.
So in that regard members should replace a part of the system if they feel they are now hearing in a more critical way. Even after all my years (and treble loss due to age) I have become very aware when a speaker system or headphone system is missing a tone or has distortion is a place in the reproduction curve. Before it was like "wow, that gets loud, huh?"
Don't get me wrong. Listening to music is a daily pleasure for me. Hearing it well reproduced is a joy.
As Hutnicks says. Don't try and sell me what you cannot deliver!
My CIEMs are my favourite possession.
Once you get to a certain level though. IMO. That's it. It doesn't get any better. Maybe different.
Another thing that I have come to believe is that listening to music is essentially a passive activity.
There is a tendency on here to try and turn it into an active hobby.
Carefully matching components in the quest for synergy. Tweaking with rarified cables and the like. Using components that the general public do not even know exist.
All this is fine. If you can afford to indulge.
I suggest that even then it is nice to keep in touch with reality!
My concern is for people like me who have a little disposable income getting mislead into spending needlessly.
Let alone those who get into debt.
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. but I would never ever suggest that any of it is superior to something objectivelly superior. I enjoy it, and that's the end of it, no need for justifications, no need to be reassured, no illusion that it's better than it really is.
I am 60. I have gradually come to the conclusion that stuff does not make you happy. 
