If you could travel back in time, what would you tell yourself as a young audiophile?
- Thread starter Lee
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Don’t forget that family and friends are more important than an OCD hobby.
Trust your own ears … reviews are for entertainment, not decision making.
Don’t buy anything you can’t pay cash for … and then only if it has no impact on the true expenses of your family life.
I pretty much followed these rules, but I did have to remind myself from time to time along the way. The difference between a good system and a great system won’t be important to most significant others.
Trust your own ears … reviews are for entertainment, not decision making.
Don’t buy anything you can’t pay cash for … and then only if it has no impact on the true expenses of your family life.
I pretty much followed these rules, but I did have to remind myself from time to time along the way. The difference between a good system and a great system won’t be important to most significant others.
I have found generally that buying what I want initially, almost no matter how much it costs, actually saves money in the end by avoiding a series of losses on incremental but ultimately unsatisfying intermediate upgrades. But I am not a box swapper, so that dauntingly expensive item I buy initially is something I am likely to keep for 10 or 20 years.
Can you explain how? You have swapped out your dream 100k plus speaker for another because that speaker had the same attribute you wanted to avoid, you swapped out your 100k turntable, the rack was up for sale at 66k, you have changed amps and preamps and amplification strategies,. So how are you not a box swapper, and how did spending initially save you money over the longer run.
You did not spend much on digital when you started and seem to be benefiting there by realising you want digital and now slowly paying up for it after research
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... and digital will keep changing. Lesson? A stable format will save you a lot money.
If you could travel back in time, what would you tell yourself as a young audiophile?
Dont go in that audiostore juist walk by .
A kind reminder of the inevitable cost of this obsession .
My M15 A tape machine has an issue one channel not working ,,,,.
I switched it off a month ago all fine and now this again , probably a small issue but still .
Luckily i have 2 machines more my studer B62 just got back from a recheck
Some thoughts:
1. Just because the item you want is absurdly expensive does not guarantee that it will be the best, or even good, for any specific length of time. So why commit to keeping it a long time?
2. You use this “box swapper” term quite a bit. You’re the only person I’ve ever heard introduce this term to a discussion … and you always use it in a way that infers that the box swapper is foolish and just generating entropy. As @bonzo75 points out, you’ve had plenty of turnover. Some of it could be argued to be wasteful… but who cares? Your ears, your money, your system … your hobby!
He does. He seems to be interested justifying the story that his purchase behavior and process was rational, when it was far from it. He also seems to be encouraging people to go big early on when they know the least.
- If your objective is to ACCURATELY reproduce live music in your home, pick another hobby.
- If you are trying to impress your friends, pick another hobby.
- If you really are a true music lover, spend way more attending live music events and way less on a [new amp, new preamp, new cables, etc] that you think will allow you to finally achieve audio nirvana.
- If it's really JUST about enjoying music in your home, it won't cost an arm and a leg to do so.
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- If you are trying to impress your friends, pick another hobby.
- If you really are a true music lover, spend way more attending live music events and way less on a [new amp, new preamp, new cables, etc] that you think will allow you to finally achieve audio nirvana.
- If it's really JUST about enjoying music in your home, it won't cost an arm and a leg to do so.
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I would tell myself to keep my 901VI and stay away from audiophile weirdos.
On the equipment level, this is true.
Vinyl and tape are stable formats. If you want to have anything to play, you’re going to shell out plenty. Even at a used record store, if the content is known to be good, other “money savers” drive prices up. Even in cases like my own, it was not free to build my collection over the last 60 years. When new albums cost $5 each, an engineer made about $6/hour.
Digital streaming is far less expensive per piece of music, even if you add Roon. Qobuz and Prime are always serving up something new … often from old favorites. It is really fun to have the instant access.
It took a long time and a lot of effort to sort out digital here. But it was well worth it. I love my vinyl too … each has its proper place.
Happy New Year, Glen!
No, this is an incorrect assumption.
I consider "box swapping" one of the several sub-hobbies of the hobby. Each of the sub-hobbies is totally legitimate, including box swapping.
In addition to putting together a stereo in the first place and listening to music, and maybe collecting records, some audiophiles enjoy as a deliberate and separate but related activity trying many different components, and different combinations of components, and putting different systems together. This is what I mean by "box swapping" -- nothing pejorative about it in my meaning and use of this summary term.
Please let me know if you think any other one word or two word term would better describe this sub-hobby.
Of course I completely agree. I write all the time that the most expensive audio component should not be assumed to be what your ears find the most emotionally compelling.
Imaginations seemed to be running wild in trying to interpret what I wrote.
Let me give y'all an example:
Let's say an audiophile is looking for a preamp, and a manufacturer whose preamps you know you love makes an entry-level model, a mid-level model and a flagship-level model. If you won the lottery you know you would buy the flagship level model in a second. You know you like the sound of all three models -- the goodness just increases, with diminishing returns, as you go up the line.
So you buy the entry-level model thinking (correctly!) that you can get most of the sonic goodness of the flagship model for a fraction of the price. Many people do precisely this, and I think that's great. (I did this myself with the entry-level LampizatOr Baltic 4, targeting high sound quality value for minimal investment.)
But a subset of audiophiles who get the entry-level model will still have a hankering for the flagship model, and then they will decide to upgrade to the mid-level model because they decide they want a higher fraction of the flagship capability in return for putting in more money than the entry-level model cost. But now they have to sell the entry-level model they already bought.
The mid-level model gives them more of the maximum goodness of the flagship level model, without paying the full flagship level price. So they have the mid-level model for a while, but the flickering desire for the flagship never goes out. So they sell the mid-level model and buy the flagship model. Now they have their dream preamp, and they are happy -- hopefully for many, many years.
My only point is that if an audiophile is this kind of person, then he/she is best off buying the flagship model in the first place, rather than buying and selling the entry-level model and the mid-level model over the course of the journey to the flagship model.
I should have given this simple explanatory example in my original post. I apologize for writing so generally in the original post.
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In my experience, you are unique in having defined this “sub hobby.” I have never met anyone who was practicing it.
I do know people who become dissatisfied fairly quickly with something they’ve bought. They either live with it, get something else, or leave the hobby.
I agree that there are people whose hobby is the equipment. They generally have a very modest play list, even if they hide this by having extensive “collections.” Love of gear is a legitimate sub hobby, or maybe even the main hobby, for many.
What word to use? I dunno … this idea almost never comes up in my circle.
And, most certainly, happy new year
I tend to agree with this if you always buy new. With used equipment the “cost” of trying different gear tends to be lower since much of the depreciation hit was taken by the original owner. Also, the habit of upgrading a piece only to have it reveal shortcomings in another piece of the chain is pretty much a given and is an unavoidable part of the hobby.
1) When I wrote "generally" I was referring not only to audio but also to other hobbies I have enjoyed over the course of my life. I was thinking in particular about amateur radio equipment when I was younger -- when I wanted the top-of-the-line transceiver but could afford only the entry-level transceiver, and over years eventually got the top-of-the-line transceiver.
2) As it relates to audio, my post applies much more accurately to my first system journey culminating in the system which was static for literally about 16 years (Martin-Logan Prodigy, Aesthetix Io, VPI, Graham, Benz Micro, Transparent, VTL MB-750s).
3) The recent system journey has not been nearly as straightforward, unfortunately. At least the tape machine was "one and done" (except for the future possibility of an outboard tape repro).
After a lot of commotion and befuddlement the vinyl playback system (Brinkmann Balance, Reed 5T, Opus 1, Aesthetix Io) finally is totally static and done.
DAC is stable for the foreseeable future, except if you are buying me a Christmas present I'd like to upgrade to a Pacific 2, please.
Interconnects and power cables are pretty done. I have ordered new speaker cables to compare to the speaker cables I have presently (Absolute Fidelity mixed with Purist Audio Design).
I am having a lot of pure hobbyist fun with my line stage preamplifier search -- my first new component search in several years.
Eventually I hope to switch the JA100s for JA120s with EL34s -- or maybe try Absolare Push-Pulls or Mastersound PF100s.
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Well life happens ready or not.
Not having a lot of money in my 20's - 30's prevented many potential audio mistakes...
Looking back at the 1980's - 1990's not a lot of decent choices compared with today. I was 20 years old in 1983 when I bought my first real hifi setup. By 2005 I was finally caught up with my expenses and had a lot of surplus cash in which to finish my hifi and amature astronomy hobbies.
I regret buying a McIntosh MR85 tuner. One of the worst stereo tuners I've ever listened to.
The audio shop didn't have any tuners in their shop but could order them.
I bought that in 2006 and sold it in 2010. I now have only vintage McIntosh stereo tuners which are fantastic.
Not having a lot of money in my 20's - 30's prevented many potential audio mistakes...
Looking back at the 1980's - 1990's not a lot of decent choices compared with today. I was 20 years old in 1983 when I bought my first real hifi setup. By 2005 I was finally caught up with my expenses and had a lot of surplus cash in which to finish my hifi and amature astronomy hobbies.
I regret buying a McIntosh MR85 tuner. One of the worst stereo tuners I've ever listened to.
The audio shop didn't have any tuners in their shop but could order them.
I bought that in 2006 and sold it in 2010. I now have only vintage McIntosh stereo tuners which are fantastic.
I can't comment on point 1 amateur radio. On point 2, that is no all out, but would probably have been a better system than your current.
On point 3, you are leaving out big expensive mistakes such as a 100+k speaker, a 100k TT, and a 66k rack.
And it is still not clear whether you have settled with your amps and preamps, as you might just be thinking your current state is final (time will tell) but there have been many changes there. Either way, none of these add up to not box swapping, nor to spend right first and then you minimize changes. There seems to be a big disconnect in what you are doing vs what you think you are doing.
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