Winding down

[Rodney Gold]

Well, I too have run out of the big ticket item funds so am concentrating on my room correction dsp and am making new bass traps..
A good room highlights small changes , essentially you get better bang for your gear buck with a decent room...whether it curtails box swapping is another thing.
Money , spent on the system if done wisely is really only loaned to the system , one should be able to on sell and not take a bath..its just not tied up in the bank etc and gives you more pleasure.
Reading what you write , its clear you have a boundless passion for your audio..im sure anything else you take an interest in will have that same drive ..

 

[GaryProtein]

An audiophile isn't completely done altering his system until he reaches the listening room in the sky.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Lol

 

[Rodney Gold]

Andro.. you have no idea how privileged it is to have a quiet yet soundproof room..mine is 19 db ambient and I play at ungodly levels as and when I want to.
I was looking to downsize my home but realised I would never get near what I have now in terms of a listening room and decided its better to just close off parts we dont use and keep the house rather than me compromise my music.

 

[Joe Whip]

I have felt this way for many years and got off the upgrade wagon in the early 2000’s. My equipment is long in the tooth but still sounds fantastic. We remodeled our home and I moved my 2 channel into a newly built room 2 years ago. The room is just a room and must function as a bedroom for whoever buys this place when are gone. It is still a great sounding room even though it wasn’t built using the latest software analysis, just simple tricks with the slope of walls and ceilings I have learned over the years. Stuff you won’t notice in the room but makes a difference in sound. The only thing I upgrade is the DAC and considering it is a Yggy, we are not talking big bucks. Damn happy with the sound in the room and after tweaking the speaker placement ever so slightly with the aid of pink noise last week, I can happily live with the sound for many more years. In short, welcome to the club. I will be back in London again in June. If it isn’t too hard to get to your place, I would love an invite!

 

[andromedaaudio]

I know i m jealous .
I could afford it ,its Just i never did it yet.
My new appartement sounds very nice, but its not the ultimate solution

 

[cjfrbw]

Have you started the habit of daily mortifications of the flesh by lashing yourself with $15,000 cables? I hear it helps.

 

[Empirical Audio]

Nothing wrong with those Zu speakers. I personally don't spend much on tweaks that make small differences.

I think the last thing one should do is consider how to break all of the ground-loops in the system to lower the noise floor. I have a digital system with zero ground-loops. If you are 100% analog, then the only option is to use transformer isolators, like the Final Drive. You can also change everything to balanced, but this does not alleviate the need for isolation. The transformers also have the benefit of creating "true-balanced" signals, which most are not because they are created using SS electronics. SS balanced tends to have different amplitude on + and - and even the dynamic gain/response can be different on + and -. This is all eliminated once you have a transformer in the circuit. The destination device, preamp or amps usually like this signal better, and they sound better as a result.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

 

[thedudeabides]

It actually IMO takes more guts to make this decision, and then sit back and enjoy the system.

With all due respect, when one finally reaches the point when one is "happy" with one's system, what is the problem with just sitting back and enjoying the music and no longer feeling neurotic about the issue of "is it good enough"?

I'm there and I find it liberating not to mention the positive impact on my personal finances.

 

[Legolas]

A good friend jumped off the audiophile upgrade path and is very happy. He sold his complicated system and bought a McIntosh/Zu/Transrotor combo for his living room. He is singularly focused on collecting vinyl records now, deleted his Audiogon account.

Sounds like wife trouble? Joking there. Seriously, it is key to look at the rose bushes, not the weeds between the rose bushes....

 

[Uk Paul / Z:Axis Audio]

With all due respect, when one finally reaches the point when one is "happy" with one's system, what is the problem with just sitting back and enjoying the music and no longer feeling neurotic about the issue of "is it good enough"?

I'm there and I find it liberating not to mention the positive impact on my personal finances.

Couldn't agree more with this.. The music takes over and the 'hifi' thoughts fade..

Marc has a big enough LP collection to spend many many years simply enjoying what he has, let alone exploring more via digital streaming which is where i'll probably head next..

Good decision Marc!

 

[spiritofmusic]

Guys, I don’t want in any way this thread be viewed as criticism of the hobby, ongoing buying/upgrading etc.
And I don’t want to come off as holier than thou, or as some kind of evangelical anti-audiophile rant.
Hey, I’ve been a card carrying audiofool for a good couple of decades, and haven’t blinked at spending a lot, and often.
Sorry if I’ve come across as somehow seeing the light. Because I haven’t, other than finally realising the room is the biggest upgrade of all.
I’m still going to be doing some ongoing spending and accumulating: remaining upgraded power cords, remaining RollerBlocks isolation under cdp, monos and analog psus; I have real interest in U.K.-Paul’s Z Axis Audio spkr platforms; I’m curious about trying Townshend Maximum super-tweeters; I have strong advice to try some GIK Gotham diffuser panels in my room; and 2019 is the year I finally get that streamer.
I’m also looking to root out noise in my system via tubes choice, star grounding and Faraday Cage treatment of my Zu sub amps.
But I’m looking at these as completing directions I’ve already gone a fair degree down the road on, and are manageable, incremental purchases (the streamer being the only “big ticket” purchase planned).

 

[microstrip]

With all due respect, when one finally reaches the point when one is "happy" with one's system, what is the problem with just sitting back and enjoying the music and no longer feeling neurotic about the issue of "is it good enough"?

I'm there and I find it liberating not to mention the positive impact on my personal finances.

Why should someone feel neurotic just because he wants to have an evolutive and dynamic hobby?

 

[KeithR]

A good friend jumped off the audiophile upgrade path and is very happy. He sold his complicated system and bought a McIntosh/Zu/Transrotor combo for his living room. He is singularly focused on collecting vinyl records now, deleted his Audiogon account.

I still haven’t heard his system...despite giving him Zu jumpers for his Mac

 

[Al M.]

Why should someone feel neurotic just because he wants to have an evolutive and dynamic hobby?

A few years ago I would have disagreed, but now I see the merit in this perspective.

 

[Hi-FiGuy]

With all due respect, when one finally reaches the point when one is "happy" with one's system, what is the problem with just sitting back and enjoying the music and no longer feeling neurotic about the issue of "is it good enough"?

I'm there and I find it liberating not to mention the positive impact on my personal finances.

The timing of this thread is impeccable, kind of blew me away actually. For me its always been about the music and its journey, hands down ahead of all else.

This weekend as I was building a wall mount turntable shelf, looked pretty badd a$$ according to everyone and it solved my foot fall problem 100%, it just was not working for me, AT ALL.

I sat in my listening chair silently for two hours contemplating all the angles. At the end of the meditation I simply got up, moved my turntable to my theater room, plugged it into my AVR7200 (a beast) and packed up the 2-Channel kit into its appropriate boxes.

No hard feelings, no remorse, just is where I am at at the moment.

Fired that bitch up in two channel mode (system is 7.3) and my all Infinity Interlude system kicked some ass! Done and Done for now! This is also where my SACD player resides, I have wired network access to my server, got it all from my chair.

I can now share music with friends as there is room to mingle and I can get back to watching concerts, which I love to do. The system more than adequately pressurizes the room.

My listening room is now my music library/server room/home office. The vinyl stayed in the room.

Such a great vibe in the theater room, the sound is way more than adequate, my cigar bar/ patio is right on the other side of the door,kitchen to the right, just need to figure out where to put the Bourbon!

Am I out of the game, not hardly. Will the 2 channel live again, absolutely! I have set some goals for myself, when I hit that point, and I will, there will be a purpose built room, just not to uber insane levels.

I do not find this thread anti-WBF, I find it very refreshing and non-judgmental. I find it as us sharing our journey of music and equipment in all phases, I love this place and it just happens to have a fantastic group of members that overall get along famously.

A great thread!

 

[Iamrael]

Some Psychiatrist hopefully will write and publish a paper and eventually be an official subcategory diagnosis in the DSM. Seriously.

 

[XV-1]

Good luck Marc. I am not sure if you will make it, but have fun trying to abstain.

I can quite easily stop buying the hifi, except when your cartridge needs replacing.

But what I cannot do is stop buying new music. I still seem to be buying 20 - 30 album's a month. There is soo much fantastic new music out there and not enough time to listen to it all.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Should I be embarrassed to admit that there had been a GF during my hot house upgrading/spending period that wagged her finger at me, whom I showed the door. No one was going to get btwn me and my ever depleting bank balance LOL. I was in maximum spending/chasing my tail mode.
Fortunately I started making some more informed decisions around 2012, finally nailing the kind of sound that most suited me, and got more out of modding current components than just buying the next best/pricier thing, eeking out maxumum performance w tweaks/system optimisation, initially grounding, then balanced power, the right cables, and vibration isolation that worked rather than merely promised.
This period of 2012-2015 coincided with the system signature I still have in 2018, current muse Ra looking at me wondering about my sanity, but critically not getting in the way of how I throw my cash about (just shaking her head in disbelief repeatedly LOL).
However our move to the chapel feels like getting married, having six kids, looking after older relatives, needing to find medical bills, all at the same time, and I realised that I would have to rein in purely personal spending in this hobby.
In other circumstances this would have been a negative stress, but one, the chapel is so personal to us, I feel great about diverting funds to her, and two, critically I’d got the system signature sound to my liking, and now the once in a lifetime opportunity of getting something like a perfect listening space became possible.
Now I had a choice/dilemma/stab in the dark.
The main space, 35x30x20 (useable 27x22x20)? Hmm, maybe, highly tempting, but Ra does not want to listen to my objectionable genres, the cats would love my cables and burning hot tubes, and I would need so much acoustic treatments that all the architectural features would be obliterated by bland panels. NO GO.
The spare bedroom, 18x13x10, well out of the way, and maybe easier to make sound right, but was I really going to swap my batchelor pad audio lair in London for a space only 25% the size? NO GO.
Final option, the loft space. Now I have the potential for same floor area as in London, out of Ra’s way, the ability to get a symmetrical layout for the system. But it did mean spending a stack of cash to carve it out, the same money I’d have spent on components upgrades to gear back in London.
I looked at Mike Lavigne’s, JFrech’s etc rooms, all the other guys who said they were going to get THE space, and decided to take the punt. GO.
Well, I like my system signature, who knows, maybe it’ll sound better up there than back in London. Or I have bought myself a White Elephant.
Fast fwd 9 months of stress, moving in, setting up roughly, switching on, and listening with absolute bated breath/high anxiety...and Ra will tell you I ran down w the biggest smile on my face! Fast fwd another 15 months, and I set up this thread...

 

[spiritofmusic]

I also wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Audiophile Bill and Blue58 (Barry). They’re both friends of mine, Barry who I’ve really become close to over the last 4 years, Bill chats w me both days by text (how very 2018 LOL).
Both have excellent sounds, logical thought processes, and zero feel for a lot of the flim flam in the high end.
They’ve both put up w so much ongoing “Yes, but...” angst from me, esp Bill who must have torn his hair out as yet another text or email winged his way.
Their calm replies, hands on my shoulder, and deterring me from poor decisions, has been so invaluable, and I know they’re truly relieved those “Yes, but...” emails are calming down for good LOL.
Friends are for backing you up. But critically for also saying “No, STOP!” even if you don’t want to hear that.