"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
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"Norman M. Schwartz" wrote in message
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"Gary Rosen" wrote in message
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"Jenn" wrote in message

As do musicians.......

Yes. I'm a musician, and I don't see how subjectivists obsessing
about barely audible (if really audible at all) differences are ever
able to just sit back and enjoy the music.


They don't care to. Their interest (and hobby) is to make the music
SOUND
good or at its best. Perhaps when and if they ever reach satisfaction
with
the performance of their systems, they do sit back and enjoy the music
for
a
short while at least. Soon some new piece of equipment or tweak comes
along
and they are back to fine tuning their systems and probably get equal
or
bigger kicks doing so. You might have to be careful to not catch the
bug
yourself as I understand some musicians do get infected. The very fact
that
musicians, including yourself, are reading here appears to prove that
this
is true.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a high quality audio
system
to enjoy music.

Then shouldn't they be upgrading speakers, since that's what the evidence
clearly shows is the weakest area and the one that makes the biggest and
probably only difference, along with room EQ?


I assume you mean they *should* be upgrading speakers. See my comments
below.

And frankly, you are simply speculating that people who are
"into" the hobby are constant, hopeless upgraders.

My experience with people who buy into the high end mythology is that
they
ARE hopeless upgraders.

And what about people who don't view the high end as a mythology, but
rather
just a collection of gear, some very expensive and some not so expensive,
that as hobbyists they assemble into a music *system* within their means
that they find gives great pleasure?

They appear to me to be few and far between, and they are not nearly as
vocal as the other kind.

Did it ever occur to you that there are times in assembling a system when
replacing a component makes sense?

Of course, if something is broken and not worth fixing would surely qualify.

And that there are times in one's
learning curve or income level or audio goals when replacing one or more
components in a system might make sense? This is the way hobbies tend to
work. Toy railroads. Amateur photography. etc.

Not so much. Unless you are upgrading a turntable or a preamp to add more
functions, such as HT applications.


Many of us love music,
and stick with equipment for many years if it is musically satisfying.

Glad to hear it.


Speaking personally, before I upgraded to five channel three years ago,
I
lived with a system that had a 20+ year old arm, cartridge and
turntable,
a
25 year old preamp, an 8 year old power amp (and a 15 year old one
before
that), a 10 year old CD system, a 20 year old tuner, and 13 year old
speakers. I remained an avid, interested audiophile as well as music
lover
despite the lack of upgrades....primarily because I had used and trusted
my
sense of "musicality" when I had made previous choices and was very,
very
happy with the sound.

I have never understood the term musicality as it relates to audio
equipment. The electronics are essentially perfected and the only
musicality would be in the performance and possibly loudspeakers.

I suspect there are many other audiophiles out
there
in situations similar to this.

I agree, but for different reasons.

Perhaps there are more of you than we know, but there certiabnly are
those
endless tweakers and the mission of the high end magazines seems to be
that
there is always something better coming down the pike, even though
evidence
of better is sorely lacking.

And they are the ones who seem to yell the loudest and are the most
snobbish, IME.


I rather think that is a prejudicial and cynical POV held by some here on
the newsgroups who simply can't understand why other people make the
choices
they do, whether due to different levels of knowledge, of income, or
musical
taste. See my comments about magazines below.

I don't think it's anything other than a reaction to the vocal and sometimes
nasty people who don't quite get that audio is science.

I suspect if you explore Stereophile and other magazines of the last
decade,
you would see that speakers more than any other category appeared in the
magazines, coincident with ongoing improvements in that area in general
and
the rise of multi-channel sound. So what's your beef.

You really don't want to get me stared on my beef with audio magazines like
SP.
The short version: Snake Oil.

Most of the articles
extolling improvements in amplifiers and phono cartridges were in the
'70's-early '80's and those improvements were real at that time.

And why haven't they disappeared?

I have never felt that any magazine was "urging" me to upgrade...only the
weakest and uncertain ego's would interpret a favorable review that way.

Then I don't know what you're reading, since that seems to clearly be the
aim of virtually all of them in my view.

They are simply presenting/evaluating what is new on the market that their
editors and staff feel might be of interest to their readers.

Perhaps if more people spent some time reading the research that has been
done about what is audible and invested in some digital EQ, there'd be a
lot
less criticism of the high end and a lot more happy audiophiles.

Last first. Most of the audiophiles I have run into are quite happy,
thank
you. What makes you think otherwise.


Because they complain so much and because they think they are upgraidng
simply because they bought something new and more expensive.

Digital EQ is a two-edged sword. You'd probably be unhappy that there is
not
universal belief that the "improvements" it gives are actually
improvements.

Not unhappy, many people seem not to like accurate sound, hence SET amps,
etc.
It's true that you can't have all the adjustment one could possibly need,
but, I have yet to hear a system that has been properly EQ'd both actively
and through passive means, that did not sound better, to me.