[FeetAsleep]

I really like my 009, I would never sell all my stereo equipment for them. I use them for late night listening, can not disturb my wife or baby
 
I will have to disagree that one has to spend 009 amt of money to get that level of resolution. I am a new 009 owner, had them for about a month. I also have the 007 m1 and BHSE, I have owned the 007 for a long time.
 
To be honest I can not hear anything more with the 009 over the 007. Every time I think "ah that's something I have not heard before!" I switch to my 007 and sure enough it is there in the recording as well. My main interests are in jazz and classical since I have been a piano player for the past 25 years. I also have HD800 that I use at work, and those resolve details just as well as the other 2.
 
I think what it comes down to is these are my new toys so when I am listening to music I am really listening. So obviously I am going to hear things in the music since my level of attention has been increased. I found them fascinating in this regard, but going through my Cds and Sacds I can honestly say I have not heard any new information on them
 
If someone cares to point me to some particular recordings where you do feel you are hearing something new on the 009 please let me know. I don't really like other genres besides those 2, but I might be willing to take a chance and live on the edge

 

[Radio_head]

An interesting point - the "I'm hearing things I've never heard before" experience can sometimes be boiled down to your attentiveness to the music - more and more people listen to music too passively, as a sort of a fuzzy background to their lives - evaluating it with new gear can serve to bring it back into focus.
 
I'd add- as a musician, you're often listening for the way something is played, to break down the notes, or for some other applicable musical reason - when I listen like this what I'm listening through doesn't seem to matter as much - it's only when I'm focused on evaluating how it sounds as a whole that I start to pick up "audiophile" things.

 

[Chodi]

Quote:

Absolutely. I actually only make...Maybe $15,000 - $16,000 a year. I just have my priorities. 

 

This comment actually floored me. I could write the check for the 009 (it would be painful) but that isn't the point. I get so much enjoyment out of my music as it is with my current systems I just don't see any reason to go for it. I often "tweek" my system with modest upgrades and enjoy the equipment side of the hobby but I try to keep it within reason. Maybe because I spent twenty years on the manufacturing side of this the high end audio business I realize the diminishing returns after a certain level. I gave up chasing that last 5-10% when it ceased to be a business for me.

 

[MorbidToaster]

I was honestly really not planning on picking it up. I thought I was at the end with the HD800. It was so good. Tried it on multiple amps, picked my favorite and that was all she wrote...
 
Then I borrowed Alex's LL + 009 for a week and tried to go back after a few days. Couldn't do it. It was a significant difference to my ears. Had to have it. 
 
I don't make that much and I'm honestly sick of spending it on gear instead of music. Once I invest in a decent TT soon I'll be spending it all on music. 
 
Again, priorities. When I heard it and Alex told me there were a few left I knew it was time to sell fast and buy it. When I put my mind to something, it happens (most of the time).
 
Quote:

This comment actually floored me. I could write the check for the 009 (it would be painful) but that isn't the point. I get so much enjoyment out of my music as it is with my current systems I just don't see any reason to go for it. I often "tweek" my system with modest upgrades and enjoy the equipment side of the hobby but I try to keep it within reason. Maybe because I spent twenty years on the manufacturing side of this the high end audio business I realize the diminishing returns after a certain level. I gave up chasing that last 5-10% when it ceased to be a business for me.

 

[Shubar]

Quote:

Absolutely. I actually only make...Maybe $15,000 - $16,000 a year. I just have my priorities. 

 

 

 

[MuppetFace]

Detail extraction is only a small part of the whole picture of the SR-007 and SR-009. It's the overall listenability of them that makes the appreciation of that detail extraction even possible for me personally. Many other "detail monsters" are simply too painful and fatiguing on a lot of setups for me to listen to them for an extended period.

 

[David1961]

Quote:

 Maybe because I spent twenty years on the manufacturing side of this the high end audio business I realize the diminishing returns after a certain level. I gave up chasing that last 5-10% when it ceased to be a business for me.

 
True, but there are diminishing returns on almost all audio equipment or anything else for that matter, [ unless you own the HE-90 ] and the further up the ladder you go the worse it gets. But if I was worried about how much I was going to lose every time I bought anything, my money would stay in my wallet.

 

[verber]

Something I have come to really respect of people who have figure out what is really important to them, and then optimize life around those passions.  I have friends whose audio gear or musical instruments cost more than their annual salary. They live simple lives that are dominated by music. Related are friends who love the outdoors and long distance hiking. Easily 60% of the money they make a year funds hiking trips which often last nearly 1/2 the year.
 
I think the diminishing returns is common in almost every field. It is a specific example of the more general Pareto principle. In multiple fields I have watched people take three approach.  The first is the incremental upgrader. They slowly climb the ladder until they hit a point they like.  Sometimes this works great because they figure out that they are completely happy with middling performance and stop there. For some, upgrading never stops because they enjoy the game of trying to a get just a little better but are often unwilling to take the final leap in the name of "containing costs". My observation is that most of the people I have watched doing this end up spending more money than if they would have started at the top and been done with it.  The second is the ROI specialist.  They aim to get to the 80% performance with the expectation that they will spend  20% cost of the top end and then the stop... normally. Sometimes they experience something at the top performance level and decide that the 20% more is worth the spending 5x what they have.  And then there are people who decide that they aren't going to mess around and just shoot for the very top so they can be done and move on.
 
My personal take is that the ROI specialist, and sometimes the go to the top people spend less money over time and have more time with quality gear than the progressive upgrader / tweaker. I have several friends who started buying audio equipment at the same time (late 1970s). In that time I have purchased  2 pairs of speakers for my main rig. I have gotten nearly 20 years of enjoyment from my current speakers. In the same time period I have lost track of how many pairs of speakers my friends has purchased. I would guess that it's 3-5x the number of purchases I have. I will bet they have spent as much money as I have, maybe more, but the end result is that they still look longingly at my Martin Logans and say "I wish I had those speakers".
 
--Mark
 
Quote:

This comment actually floored me. I could write the check for the 009 (it would be painful) but that isn't the point. I get so much enjoyment out of my music as it is with my current systems I just don't see any reason to go for it. I often "tweek" my system with modest upgrades and enjoy the equipment side of the hobby but I try to keep it within reason. Maybe because I spent twenty years on the manufacturing side of this the high end audio business I realize the diminishing returns after a certain level. I gave up chasing that last 5-10% when it ceased to be a business for me.

 

[rgs9200m]

As you get on in years, music/high-end audio is one of the sources of joy and pleasure that persists and may even get better, unlike most other things you can do when you are younger.
So I feel blessed that I found something I really enjoy. That puts all the money spent in perspective. 
 
Fancy cars, travel, etc. really don't interest me, and you have to be careful of what you eat, and other things are best left for the more able younger folks, 
but music keeps the happiness engine for me revved up, and high end audio is therefore a relative bargain in the grand scheme of things for me.

 

[Mr.Sneis]

I ask myself this question every now and then. Maybe I'm just crazy for owning the stupid amounts of gear that I own.  Then I find myself constantly hunting and re-hunting the same items again and again.  I know in my mind that there's no end to the journey, I just can't sit still in this hobby.  At the end of the day it's best just to love the music for what it is - it's the best cure imo.

 

[reddragon]

As you get on in years, music/high-end audio is one of the sources of joy and pleasure that persists and may even get better, unlike most other things you can do when you are younger.
So I feel blessed that I found something I really enjoy. That puts all the money spent in perspective. 

Fancy cars, travel, etc. really don't interest me, and you have to be careful of what you eat, and other things are best left for the more able younger folks, 
but music keeps the happiness engine for me revved up, and high end audio is therefore a relative bargain in the grand scheme of things for me.

Hey I'm a 20 years old but doesn't hearing also deteriorate as you get older?

 

[rgs9200m]

Quote:

Hey I'm a 20 years old but doesn't hearing also deteriorate as you get older?

Not mine as far as I can tell. I hear just like when I was a teenager it seems to me. So I wouldn't even think about that. Thanks and good luck to you and happy listening.
And I wish someone told me when I was 20 that high end audio was a lot less expensive, a lot less frustrating, and, over the long term especially, more fun than women
(hard to believe at 20 I know, but you'll learn). All the best. :-]

 

[verber]

Quote:

Hey I'm a 20 years old but doesn't hearing also deteriorate as you get older?

 
Yes, most people progressively lose high frequency as they age (and lower frequencies to a lesser extent). This is called presbycusis. Lose varies greatly depending on a number of factors... including a personas genetic predisposition, various medical conditions, use of ototoxic drugs etc.  but there is one thing that you have control over. Noise induced hearing lost. The longer you spend in noisy environments, the more likely it is that you will see your hearing degrade. Damage is accumulative, so you won't typical notice something immediately. If you do notice your hearing thresholds shift, say after a particularly loud concert, you will typically find you ears in the short term return to exactly how they were before being exposed to such loud sounds, but it's quite likely you moved yourself one step closer to degraded hearing as you age.
 
My wife was an audiologist. My memory is that she told me that of the people she screens at public events (rather than people referred to her for hearing related problems), than a healthy majority of the 45-65 people screen clear, and more than 50% of the people over 65 screen clear.  That isn't to say that there hasn't been some hearing lose, but that the lose is insignificant enough that the basic screening doesn't detect it.
 
--Mark
 
 
--Mark

 

[reddragon]

Quote:

Not mine as far as I can tell. I hear just like when I was a teenager it seems to me. So I wouldn't even think about that. Thanks and good luck to you and happy listening.
And I wish someone told me when I was 20 that high end audio was a lot less expensive, a lot less frustrating, and, over the long term especially, more fun than women
(hard to believe at 20 I know, but you'll learn). All the best. :-]

 
 
nice, my moms not an audiophile by any means, shes comfortable using her ipod earbuds. shes 50-ish but can hear the mosquito tone!!! i too can hear it but again im only 20 about to turn 21, dont know what will happen when i turn older, hopefully i dont have any hearing loss, it will suck since im now into this hobby... and i dont know about women, not that i have any but im never good with even talking to them in the first place... yes you would expect a 20 years old to be a party animal but me is a different story... and happy listening to you too, im still waiting on christmas to get my fostex hpp1 to go with my ipod, and high end audio is expensive!!! i hope i have a high end system soon...

 

[reddragon]

Quote:

 
Yes, most people progressively lose high frequency as they age (and lower frequencies to a lesser extent). This is called presbycusis. Lose varies greatly depending on a number of factors... including a personas genetic predisposition, various medical conditions, use of ototoxic drugs etc.  but there is one thing that you have control over. Noise induced hearing lost. The longer you spend in noisy environments, the more likely it is that you will see your hearing degrade. Damage is accumulative, so you won't typical notice something immediately. If you do notice your hearing thresholds shift, say after a particularly loud concert, you will typically find you ears in the short term return to exactly how they were before being exposed to such loud sounds, but it's quite likely you moved yourself one step closer to degraded hearing as you age.
 
My wife was an audiologist. My memory is that she told me that of the people she screens at public events (rather than people referred to her for hearing related problems), than a healthy majority of the 45-65 people screen clear, and more than 50% of the people over 65 screen clear.  That isn't to say that there hasn't been some hearing lose, but that the lose is insignificant enough that the basic screening doesn't detect it.
 
--Mark
 
 
--Mark

 
 
thats interesting, and screening like letting them hearing high frequency tones?