What are your goals with this hobby?

[PHC1]

Curious as to how audiophiles quantify their audio goals? For the longest time, I was just going with the flow. Reading all the reviews from all the sources starting from the mid 80's and continuing being interested in gear to today. I have pretty much stopped reading reviews over the last decade. Not going to get into the politics of it but let's just say I am no longer interested in the not so unbiased opinions. The specs, measurements, features, functions, overall take on the product are obviously still useful but can be found elsewhere.

So my question was formulated out of analyzing my own experiences over the three decades plus and asking myself the same question. What is your goal with this hobby?


Now, the answer may be very obvious. Why, the best quality music I can afford! I want the truest, most accurate, most realistic reproduction of sound that is possible. I want all the emotional content, all the heart and soul the musicians poured into that piece of music and all the careful and hard work the sound engineer put into the mixing and mastering process to be reproduced in my listening room as if I was there.

What do you need for that? Why I need the best speakers, the best amps, the best preamps, the best cables and all the tweaks I can afford!

Do speakers sound different? YES! Absolutely! Do amps sound different? YES, Absolutely! Do cables make a difference? Oh Yes! I need a power cord the diameter of a 20 foot South American Anaconda!

So if all the components make a difference AND sound different brand to brand, model to model..... How do you know you are getting an accurate reproduction of music?

Easy! Joe, John, Peter and Malik have confirmed on the forums that my new power cord sounds MUCH BETTER than what they were running before. We are all in agreeance.

Define better please.... The bass is tighter, the soundstage is deeper and wider... The noise floor is lower... The piano sounds more realistic...

Do you realize the sound engineer was NOT using the same power cord or cables for his mixing console? He did not use your speakers. Eeeeh.. So what? Do you think he heard it the same way you are? NO... But the engineer used EQs and other sound processing to master your music... It is not the exact copy of what the music sounded like in the studio... Do all the studios use the same speakers/cables/microphones and do they all sound the same? NO... Do all audiophile rooms sound the same, even with the same gear? NO...



Ok, so then we agree there is no UNIVERSAL GAUGE.

The "this sounds better" argument is purely subjective and means absolutely nothing. Worse yet.... we all hear differently and have a difference preference for sound. Musically untrained, pitch imperfect ears of the average audiophile are no gauge for musical instrument's truth in timbre. Even the professional musicians mistake a Stradivarius to a modern violin blindfolded. No argument there can be made.

But.... Let's assume that one speaker, one cable, one power cord is actually the defining standard of ALL that we envision as being the perfect instrument of accuracy of what the musicians wanted to achieve as they pulled the bows across the strings of their violins....

If one of those power cords, speakers, amps, preamps, cables, etc.. ARE RIGHT, then ALL THE REST are WRONG... Now there is a dilemma...


So what do you realistically want to achieve with this hobby? Do you admire the state of the art gear? Do you covet big, brawny amps costing as much as a Porsche? Does music even matter all that much?

Perhaps if being honest with oneself and saying, I am a gear junky and there are worse habits out there, would more accurately describe a typical audiophile?

I've certainly been guilty of it myself over the years and had a lot of fun along the way.

I have been much more involved with the actual music aspect of the hobby the last decade for sure. I have just enough gear and of adequate performance where my music is quite enjoyable, emotionally gripping and offers satisfying enough fidelity of playback. Whether it is accurate or not, I personally could care less. To my musically untrained but experienced audiophile ears, I am quite satisfied with end result!

How about you? What are your goals and do you view it differently?

[George Prentice]

Interesting question. One that off and on I have pondered. I started my pursuit of a better system in the 70's. When I was able to begin putting together a fairly good system in the 80's it was bass, and magical imaging. I took some of my favorite disks with me and auditioned equipment. I realize that they were electronic and that optimizing them was at the expense of other music. But for a couple decades it was to capture the magic... dynamic range, imaging... something that appealed to me. I think I struggled with objectives for a while... but wanted good imaging, bass, and a more natural sound. I changed my disks to more natural recordings.

Then about ten years ago I started going to the symphony regularly... season tickets. I managed to move into 7th row center... well actually in the Oregon Symphony hall 8th row left center is better... 7th row is a bit too low. Anyway, this subconsciously started to give me an objective yardstick with which to compare my system. It was completely subconscious... but i switched from ribbon speakers... where trying to capture that sound space and "magic" of transparenc to Sonus Faber. I liked the seamless audio spectrum and natural sound of them. I migrated to better versions and my system closed on reproducing natural unamplified instruments.

I spent a lot of time thinking about rock and other music that is never heard unamplified. Realizing, I think, that one would probably have to get a set of JBL or other speakers to accurately reproduce the genre of the time. I also realized I hate the distortion related to concerts... My system now does a good job of all different kind music while not optimizing any category too much. But is very good at natural sounding.

My goal remains the same: the most pleasing musical sound... rhythm and pace have always been really important to me... if you don't have that you have dry unemotional sound reproduction. Incredible levels of detail are not important if it takes away from the emotional expression. But it has converged somewhat accidentally on reproduction of high fidelity of the original. But with less emphasis on the edges of the sound space as on the musical sounds themselves. The edges of the soudspace is no longer obvious in my system but the natural sounds just come out of silence and take up a large extended sound stage. The lack of the excess high frequency that defined it... I say good to have it gone... it would show up in other placed and cause fatigue.

I could probably write pages on the subject. That is just a quick unstructured response.

[PHC1]

George, a very logical approach. You enjoy live music and you want a similar experience at home. So your goal is the “most pleasing musical sound” as you worded it. Let’s assume live music is very pleasing if you are in attendance often. I like live music myself but I am not always pleased with various venues.

I myself am not looking for accuracy as much as I am looking for a musically satisfying moment. Realizing that all the Classical, Jazz, Rock and Blues I have heard live sounded different in various venues and acoustic spaces, I am not a big critic nor would I know how to gauge the recording I am hearing over my system to the way the recording engineer or the musicians played and heard it live.

So does it matter if it is not exactly accurate? Do you spend more to get closer to the more realistic reproduction, whatever that concept may be, do you spend more on the more “pleasing aspect’, so that it sounds good to your ears or both as much as possible. Again, we should take into account the divergence of the reality of the studio and what we hear in our rooms.

This of course helps to evaluate the priorities and the focus of what the system means to us, what would help to get closer to and enjoy music even more if we are spending money and often not an insignificant amount.

Thanks for your input

[George Prentice]

Originally Posted by PHC1

George, a very logical approach. You enjoy live music and you want a similar experience at home. So your goal is the “most pleasing musical sound” as you worded it. Let’s assume live music is very pleasing if you are in attendance often. I like live music myself but I am not always pleased with various venues.

I myself am not looking for accuracy as much as I am looking for a musically satisfying moment. Realizing that all the Classical, Jazz, Rock and Blues I have heard live sounded different in various venues and acoustic spaces, I am not a big critic nor would I know how to gauge the recording I am hearing over my system to the way the recording engineer or the musicians played and heard it live...

Thanks for your input

Thx for the response... my approach is logical? Funny, I guess you can’t take the scientist out of me. I think we are looking for the same thing... I am looking for a really enjoyable experience... definitely the most important thing. What I think I learned, is that if you can accurately reproduce real music (acoustics) then you are not sub-optimizing other genre and I end up adding to the pleasure I get from all the music. Cuz when I optimized the satisfaction I got from electronic... it negatively impacted most other... when I optimized for rock, then classical suffered, etc. What I needed and found was an empirical ruler... classical: unamplified acoustical that spans the spectrum from the quietest sound to max spl and all in between, individual instruments, massed instruments, bass instruments, triangles... OK, I heard it there, the scientist... and my philosophy background is showing also.

Interesting, I hadn’t realized that before... why this approach has worked for me. This is actually why I like forums. When I write about stuff my strategy or observations that were not conscious become so. Kind of like I get to learn from myself... what I was thinking.

[bart]

Originally Posted by George Prentice

Then about ten years ago I started going to the symphony regularly... season tickets. I managed to move into 7th row center... well actually in the Oregon Symphony hall 8th row left center is better... 7th row is a bit too low. Anyway, this subconsciously started to give me an objective yardstick with which to compare my system. It was completely subconscious... but i switched from ribbon speakers... where trying to capture that sound space and "magic" of transparenc to Sonus Faber. I liked the seamless audio spectrum and natural sound of them. I migrated to better versions and my system closed on reproducing natural unamplified instruments.

I spent a lot of time thinking about rock and other music that is never heard unamplified. Realizing, I think, that one would probably have to get a set of JBL or other speakers to accurately reproduce the genre of the time. I also realized I hate the distortion related to concerts... My system now does a good job of all different kind music while not optimizing any category too much. But is very good at natural sounding.

My goal remains the same: the most pleasing musical sound... rhythm and pace have always been really important to me... if you don't have that you have dry unemotional sound reproduction. Incredible levels of detail are not important if it takes away from the emotional expression. But it has converged somewhat accidentally on reproduction of high fidelity of the original. But with less emphasis on the edges of the sound space as on the musical sounds themselves. The edges of the soudspace is no longer obvious in my system but the natural sounds just come out of silence and take up a large extended sound stage. The lack of the excess high frequency that defined it... I say good to have it gone... it would show up in other placed and cause fatigue.

I could probably write pages on the subject. That is just a quick unstructured response.

George, this approach parallels mine.
My wife and I go to 20-25 concerts a year, mostly classical, a few jazz and blues, and we want to reproduce our experience there as closely as possible in our living room.
Nothing beats the live experience: you see the musicians, no you rather feel them. There is a connection that is almost always much more intense than a listening session at home.
But quite often, what our system reproduces is really able to move me to my core. And that's what I look for in this hobby.

I heard all the gear I bought.
We even went further.
For our Vivid speakers, we travelled to England to hear them, as they were not yet demoed in our country.
That way we met Laurence Dickie, we even became kind of friends (he's stayed with us a couple of times) which adds to the connection we have with our gear.
Same goes for our tube amps.
And we've met and spoken to the producers of our streamer on several occasions too.

It's a beautiful hobby, and I adore the music, but I also like to know more about the gear.
AudioAficionado has brought me friendship and a lot of very agreeable experiences: we've got several visitors from the States and Europe, and we visited members and the Master himself on both sides of the big pond.
Every day, I get inspired by what my audio buddies here post in the music threads.

Music and all things related to it - we have organised concerts also in our house - are really important in the life of my wife and me.
It heals us and uplifts us.
It amuses us, touches us, makes us curious to find out more.

Goal reached, every day!

[PHC1]

Excellent post Bart. Thanks for sharing your experiences. It can be a very rewarding hobby in many ways indeed. I’ve also made quite a few friends through audio as well as other hobby forums. Common interests do have a way to bond people. I also admire how you are into music as a couple. My wife enjoys music being played although not necessarily participating unless we agree on a listening evening over wine and cheese. I think that’s good enough for now

[bart]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Excellent post Bart. Thanks for sharing your experiences. It can be a very rewarding hobby in many ways indeed. I’ve also made quite a few friends through audio as well as other hobby forums. Common interests do have a way to bond people. I also admire how you are into music as a couple. My wife enjoys music being played although not necessarily participating unless we agree on a listening evening over wine and cheese. I think that’s good enough for now

Wine, cheese, music and *** are a terrific combination!

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by bart

Wine, cheese, music and *** are a terrific combination!

Morse code Bart?

[George Prentice]

Originally Posted by bart

George, this approach parallels mine.
My wife and I go to 20-25 concerts a year, mostly classical, a few jazz and blues,
It amuses us, touches us, makes us curious to find out more.

Goal reached, every day!

Thank you for sharing. Sounds like you are the social version of myself and my partner. She and I are very private and are quite happy... well enjoying being at home for the pandemic.

This is a little of a rehash. But it is helping me articulate what I learned and the process of how I got to where I am. I am constantly delighted with how well my current system sounds with all music types. It has definitely not always been that way. That was a problem I struggled with for a long time.

Talking about this has been illuminating. I realized that a problem I had in my early search for bettering my system was I had no empirical ruler with which to compare components and systems. I had ribbon speakers which made some of my electronic and recordings with only an instrument or two with a well defined sound space really magical. So, I carried with me a few test disks of that type. I was trying to optimize the magic of a very specific set of parameters. After a while I realized doing this was detrimental to other forms of music. One day I woke up to this. So I changed the mix I was using to a variety of music. This was difficult, one album would sound better to the detriment of the others. But I did my best.

I traveled a lot for business and would end up in concerts and we used to go to jazz concerts and occasionally classical. I tried to learn from these and take home memories of the sound and it was helpful. But how to optimize my system to sound the best for all music wasn't a problem I really understood how to solve.

We started going to classical concerts for enjoyment. Not for comparison with my home system. But it had a that effect on my system choices because I heard it all the time. Week after week, month after month... concert home, concert then home. The influence has been staggeringly good for me and my system. Over the last few years I realized why. If you optimize your system to reproduce only unamplified music this can help you zero in on the solution that screws up as few types of music possible because you are zeroing in on accurate sound reproduction. It is too hard to figure out how to individually sample and optimize electronic, jazz, rock, world, hip hop, and classical. So many music types are dependent on things you cannot know (like electronic... you'd have to have the original artist and the equipment upon which they created it). But classical... has every aspect... softest to loudest, individual to massed instruments, triangles to heavy drums, stringed instruments. So, if you optimize for classical it is the easiest way to have your system really good way to reproduce everything without the analysis mess of individual optimization. For a few weeks I worked on determining how to have the right volume level... one of the many parameters. One concert had a couple pieces of music that started from the very softest start... an oboe or something from the absolute limit of hearing to crescendos that literally overload your ears. So, I realized that for many pieces there is a "correct volume". Anyway, there is so much to learn from live classical... others also. But classical has it all.

Looking back, I think I remember someone from The Absolute Sound a long time ago saying something about classical being the best measure... so what I am saying not new, but my own rediscovery of the value of this approach. While I have been writing this I have been listening to electronic music and just blown away by the richness and depth of the recording. It has been a really long journey to get here. I am really enjoying it.

[bart]

Originally Posted by George Prentice

Thank you for sharing. Sounds like you are the social version of myself and my partner. She and I are very private and are quite happy... well enjoying being at home for the pandemic.

This is a little of a rehash. But it is helping me articulate what I learned and the process of how I got to where I am. I am constantly delighted with how well my current system sounds with all music types. It has definitely not always been that way. That was a problem I struggled with for a long time.

Talking about this has been illuminating. I realized that a problem I had in my early search for bettering my system was I had no empirical ruler with which to compare components and systems. I had ribbon speakers which made some of my electronic and recordings with only an instrument or two with a well defined sound space really magical. So, I carried with me a few test disks of that type. I was trying to optimize the magic of a very specific set of parameters. After a while I realized doing this was detrimental to other forms of music. One day I woke up to this. So I changed the mix I was using to a variety of music. This was difficult, one album would sound better to the detriment of the others. But I did my best.

I traveled a lot for business and would end up in concerts and we used to go to jazz concerts and occasionally classical. I tried to learn from these and take home memories of the sound and it was helpful. But how to optimize my system to sound the best for all music wasn't a problem I really understood how to solve.

We started going to classical concerts for enjoyment. Not for comparison with my home system. But it had a that effect on my system choices because I heard it all the time. Week after week, month after month... concert home, concert then home. The influence has been staggeringly good for me and my system. Over the last few years I realized why. If you optimize your system to reproduce only unamplified music this can help you zero in on the solution that screws up as few types of music possible because you are zeroing in on accurate sound reproduction. It is too hard to figure out how to individually sample and optimize electronic, jazz, rock, world, hip hop, and classical. So many music types are dependent on things you cannot know (like electronic... you'd have to have the original artist and the equipment upon which they created it). But classical... has every aspect... softest to loudest, individual to massed instruments, triangles to heavy drums, stringed instruments. So, if you optimize for classical it is the easiest way to have your system really good way to reproduce everything without the analysis mess of individual optimization. For a few weeks I worked on determining how to have the right volume level... one of the many parameters. One concert had a couple pieces of music that started from the very softest start... an oboe or something from the absolute limit of hearing to crescendos that literally overload your ears. So, I realized that for many pieces there is a "correct volume". Anyway, there is so much to learn from live classical... others also. But classical has it all.

Looking back, I think I remember someone from The Absolute Sound a long time ago saying something about classical being the best measure... so what I am saying not new, but my own rediscovery of the value of this approach. While I have been writing this I have been listening to electronic music and just blown away by the richness and depth of the recording. It has been a really long journey to get here. I am really enjoying it.

George, I agree. Classical (and some acoustic jazz) is the best way to evaluate a system, especially when you are familiar with the concert hall where the music was recorded.

We also enjoy the calm moments now - our life was too hectic anyway - but we do miss the live concerts.