RE: My audiophile experience and the power that drives it
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I see good old HW still disapproves of your work, but I think it has value. They can't take !BEER away from you.
I read a lot about audiophile gear in my youth, but never had the money for it. I know you can spend as much as you want on this stuff, but some of it does seem like snakeoil. One that made me laugh was a $500 wooden volume knob. Of course everything makes some difference, but could anyone detect it? I have some reasonable powered speakers on my desk that sound good (not little plastic things). I have a record deck hooked up that gets some use. What really matters is the music.
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Thanks for the beer! Yes HW doesn't like me, oh well, I appreciate your support as always! There is a lot to be said about the accessories. I spent a lot of time in Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and some of the products that were huge prices I consider snake oil as well. Especially when it comes to the esoteric cabling. You can spend literally thousands on cables, unless you can hear grass grow, I honestly don't believe them to be of any significance. I think the $500 wooden knob would only be valuable to the knob buying it :) I know what you mean about the prices when we were growing up, that's why I made a business out of my hobby, it led to greater things and now at my retirement I have the luxury of buying, selling and trading the trinkets in life that I always wanted. The problem with it all is my daughters will have a full time job ahead of them dispersing dads crap when I'm gone!
Where I work they deal with signals in the GHz range that need decent connections and their cables cost less than some of the hifi ones. People will still believe there is some 'magic' that can make things sound better. That applies to musical instruments too. In the case of guitars a lot of the sound is down to the player. I won't tell people how to spend their money though.
I believe most people think the higher the price of an item the better it should perform. While spending time in high end listening environments I found this quite fictional and now find myself purchasing vintage receivers that no one would touch in 80's that are now very sought after and considered audiophile grade equipment. As we become more engulfed in our depressed monetary systems, there becomes an appreciation of the older quality products that were built to last and withstand time. And yes, it all comes down to the player and the listener.