The Music or the Gear?

[TooCool4]

For me it's music first, good kit is just icing on the cake to enhance the musical experience.

 

[LL21]

For me, definitely both. I genuinely enjoy music...3000 CDs or so...but when I listen on the system, it also has to be RIGHT. Otherwise, it really bothers me...because I am listening to music I really enjoy...but not the WAY I expect to hear it. The nuance is not there, or the bass is missing, or something. And it bugs me when you've invested all this time and money into being able to listen to your favorite music in the best possible way...and somehow the system is not performing. (We have had some reliability issues in the distant past...I suspect many of us have been there.)

Fortunately, these days the system has been exceptionally stable and is playing beautifully. And then TWO things happen...you REALLY get into the music, and you REALLY enjoy that your system is also doing a beautiful job in reproducing it. Two for one.

 

[Chop]

The system is the servant of the music. The music comes first.
The system makes the music more enjoyable. I listen to a wide range of music and the system has to be able to make all of it as convincing as possible.
My LP's are probably worth as much as my stereo. I enjoy fiddling with the stereo to maximise its performance, so I can't with hand on heart say its only about the music. So lets say that for me its a 60 / 40 split music vs gear.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Here’s another way to slice and dice this question: distinguishing the value of the time spent listening to music versus the value of the time spent thinking about/researching/auditioning components. In other words I am sure I spend three times, five times, maybe 10 times as much time thinking about/researching/auditioning components as I do listening to music. But the value to me in terms of pleasure and emotional connection of even a short time listening to music vastly outweighs the value to me of hours of talking about/researching/auditioning components.

 

[Audire]

I definitely spend more time listening to the music than contemplating what gear to purchase. While I have a list of gear I desire to evaluate, it‘s just that, a list. It’s not something that consumes me. And when it comes time the gear will be purchased. But all along the way music is the reason and what I’m seeking to enjoy to the utmost. It’s the reason for better gear.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...how else could I get all the music I enjoy into my life, my home, if not through the use of my audio gear? It seems symbiotic to me.

Even if I had one of those "Honey, I Shrunk the Philharmonic" ray-guns, the soundstage would be puny.

So, I think the music drives the gear for me ...but I really love the gear itself, as objects d'art and as engineering devices.

Sometimes I look at my set-up and think: how the hell does this stuff make such sweet music? I know how, but it's still amazing. Like looking at a jet-plane: no way that freakin' thing flies. But of course it does.

Seeing inside the components is also very cool to me. The symmetry of the design, the intricacies of the pcbs, the wires and other bits. And it makes music? Amazing. I love it all.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Music and gear perfectly integrated , the new Honda Goldwing

 

[Rensselaer]

Both, but not

It used to be the music. I recall as a kid back in the late 50's (and throughout the 60's) loving the music I heard over the car radio. The music was in mono, the radio just a stock transistorised unit that came with the car as original equipment with perhaps one speaker in the top of the dashboard. I loved the all the music in those days, and thought it all sounded wonderful over the radio in my mom's car. I would crank it up (and she would turn it down, sometimes).

Others must have thought the music from a car radio sounded great too because I have read many times about someone trying to set up a home audiophile system based upon DC using batteries.

Then one day (while listening to a bassoon playing Mozart in a small stone chapel) I experienced something quite odd, but wonderful. I saw sound. It wasn't the same, but was sort of like colours and shapes in my head (chromesthesia) when very pure notes are heard (like from that bassoon, and more often with clarinet and oboe). It was only momentary, but instantly addictive. I wanted to experience it again, but it doesn't happen very often, hardly ever in fact.

So I started down the equipment route. I subscribed to audiophile review magazines and hoped that the sales patter I read was true, that being, if I bought the reviewed piece and put it into my system, I would be able to suspend my disbelief and hear the musicians right there in my music room playing live before me.

There was some gain, but it was reverse as to what one would think (in regards to the nicer the nice, the higher the price). I found at first that if I doubled what I previously spent I would get a return of about 4 or 5 times the improvement. But soon thereafter I found myself spending more and more for less and less improvement. Pretty soon it seemed as if I was spending everything for nothing. I then started buying "audiophile" recordings, thinking they would bring the chromesthesia, but no, they just sounded more "hi-fi" (and few were of music that I knew and loved).

I don't know about the rest of you, but I never seemed to get as good from a recommended piece of equipment as the reviews implied I would. I suspected that it was because the rest of my equipment wasn't up to snuff, so bought even more. Why is it that the audiophile magazines sing the praises of an item in isolation without suggesting a complete system that would work best with that reviewed piece (they include their own review system details, but that that is not what I am talking about)?

I then went onto internet sites hoping that those with more experience will help me step over the equipment upgrade merry-go-round and instead direct me to "a symbiotic system" that would deliver what I was looking for. To date, just one symbiotic system has been suggested by a member (bonzo75, around a SET and Devore Orangutang's).

In this process I have become an "equipment audiophile" owning very expensive (not the most expensive) and highly respected equipment. With such I get the adulation of my wife and guests who are invited to come over and listened to my system. But, in my heart, regardless of the expense and sophistication of my equipment, none of the music I loved back in the 60's sounds "right" over it (like what LL21 says).

And the episodes of chromesthesia? Still mostly eluding me.

 

[mtemur]

To date, just one symbiotic system has been suggested by a member (bonzo75, around a SET and Devore Orangutang's).

I heard Devore O/96 speakers in many systems and I have those speakers too. I recommend using simple, relatively cheap components with that speaker. Especially cheap but good cables. For example Belden 9497 and 8402. Additionally lots of shun mook stuff will help a lot.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Then one day (while listening to a bassoon playing Mozart in a small stone chapel) I experienced something quite odd, but wonderful. I saw sound. It wasn't the same, but was sort of like colours and shapes in my head (chromesthesia) when very pure notes are heard (like from that bassoon, and more often with clarinet and oboe). It was only momentary, but instantly addictive. I wanted to experience it again, but it doesn't happen very often, hardly ever in fact.

Do you remember what drug you were on? Maybe just take it again?

PS: I heard recently for the first time O96s with EAR electronics. That speaker is now a standard recommendation for me for a small speaker which sounds natural, organic and genuinely musically involving.

 

[Rensselaer]

Do you remember what drug you were on? Maybe just take it again?

PS: I heard recently for the first time O96s with EAR electronics. That speaker is now a standard recommendation for me for a small speaker which sounds natural, organic and genuinely musically involving.

perhaps you should look it up first to learn about a known psychoacoustic phenomenon?

 

[bonzo75]

Do you remember what drug you were on? Maybe just take it again?

PS: I heard recently for the first time O96s with EAR electronics. That speaker is now a standard recommendation for me for a small speaker which sounds natural, organic and genuinely musically involving.

EAR are not well suited for that. I have heard them with Jadis 100w, riviera 50w hybrid, another 20w 300b amp, a Silvercore 20w 833c, airtight el34, Kondo overture 30+ watts

i only liked them with NAF 2a3 and airtight 300b, both around 10w integrated.

they should have a very simple set up like mtemur said. And pulled out from walls including side walls. Sound awful at Munich

 

[Skanda]

my answer to the question is simple: por que no los dos

 

[Ron Resnick]

EAR are not well suited for that. I have heard them with Jadis 100w, riviera 50w hybrid, another 20w 300b amp, a Silvercore 20w 833c, airtight el34, Kondo overture 30+ watts

i only liked them with NAF 2a3 and airtight 300b, both around 10w integrated.

You are a lot pickier than I am.

 

[Rensselaer]

my answer to the question is simple: por que no los dos

Si, por que no?

 

[bonzo75]

What’s your goal as an Audiophile? The music? The gear? Both? And why?

Am just here to forum post

 

[bonzo75]

What’s your goal as an Audiophile? The music? The gear? Both? And why?

There is a stage when the digital guy who has never heard analog properly says he does not want to get in (to be differentiated from the guy who has heard both and chosen to stay digital for convenience).

This digital guy then listens to analog done well and gets in. What I am trying to give an example of is that there are steps you don't know exist and as you experience more and realize it exists you explore more.

Then there are various OCDs that set in...comparing AR Ref 3 to Ref 5 to 5SE to 6, or Lyra Etna to Atlas to SL to Lambda to Lambda SL, or CH 1, 2, 3...10, cables, footers, etc.

There is a sub hobby that hits both the OCD and the music and helps us understand gear better. Comparing, say, a violin concerto or a symphony on Decca vs RCA vs EMI or ED1 vs ED2 vs test press vs reissue vs japanese pressing. How does the digital recording of Winterreise sound on Melodiya vs Philips vs Eterna....you can go on forever. Heck, even Decca London vs UK vs Germany and so on.

When you start doing this, you end up comparing also performers and performances. Heifetz, Kogan, Oistrakh, Milstein on different labels. Hoelscher, Du Pre, Rosty on different ones. While doing these compares you realize heck, conclusions with gear that I analyzed with digital and reissues now is being assessed differently. You start hearing differences between performers on some systems, not all, and you hear differences in the recordings on some systems, not all. All of sudden the gear, music, performers, recordings, align.

 

[Audire]

There is a stage when the digital guy who has never heard analog properly says he does not want to get in (to be differentiated from the guy who has heard both and chosen to stay digital for convenience).

This digital guy then listens to analog done well and gets in. What I am trying to give an example of is that there are steps you don't know exist and as you experience more and realize it exists you explore more.

Then there are various OCDs that set in...comparing AR Ref 3 to Ref 5 to 5SE to 6, or Lyra Etna to Atlas to SL to Lambda to Lambda SL, or CH 1, 2, 3...10, cables, footers, etc.

There is a sub hobby that hits both the OCD and the music and helps us understand gear better. Comparing, say, a violin concerto or a symphony on Decca vs RCA vs EMI or ED1 vs ED2 vs test press vs reissue vs japanese pressing. How does the digital recording of Winterreise sound on Melodiya vs Philips vs Eterna....you can go on forever. Heck, even Decca London vs UK vs Germany and so on.

When you start doing this, you end up comparing also performers and performances. Heifetz, Kogan, Oistrakh, Milstein on different labels. Hoelscher, Du Pre, Rosty on different ones. While doing these compares you realize heck, conclusions with gear that I analyzed with digital and reissues now is being assessed differently. You start hearing differences between performers on some systems, not all, and you hear differences in the recordings on some systems, not all. All of sudden the gear, music, performers, recordings, align.

I agree that there are different types of audiophiles. And that’s good. Someone like me doesn’t desire to do all the testing you are doing. However, I can gain from all your testing and knowledge.

This said, it’s all about the music. My main goal is listening to the music. However, that means having gear good enough that it just lets me relax and enjoy and not think about upgrading, etc. ….

 

[andromedaaudio]

I agree that there are different types of audiophiles

Class A Horns and Sets
Class B Tubes and Planars
Class C Transistors and cones

Class A is the "uber " class ( or at least thats what they think are )

 

[andromedaaudio]

My main goal is listening to the music

You re a genius