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Good Advice

As an old mid-fi'er seeking to upgrade both my old Onkyo receiver and Boston Acoustic speakers, it was great to find this advice in Epinions.

"Dancing on the Diminishing Returns Curve: Choosing Stereo Speakers
Dec 15 '05 (Updated Feb 18 '06)

The Bottom Line Don't go overboard and turn into a "tweak." Buy something inexpensive but good, dial it in, and enjoy the music.

It happened again the other day.

I was at someone's house and they were showing me their $20,000 stereo. Tube amplifiers. Elite CD player. $6,000 speakers. It sounded...great. And boring. Precise imaging. Tight bass. Unbelievable delicacy. And the whole was...less than the sum of the parts. I was unmoved by the music.

And so was the owner, I think.

He had the furrowed brow of someone with audiophilia nervosa, obsessed with achieving audio nirvana and spending his listening time noticing imperfections that could only be improved with a different amplifier, or different speakers, or maybe different interconnects or speaker wires.

He could never be satisfied with his system, and he could never slow down and enjoy the MUSIC.

At home, I have a modest but good system consisting of $1000 speakers, under $1000 worth of solid state amplification (and a $600 tube integrated amplifier which I sometimes use), a modest CD player, turntable, tuner and subwoofer. And the thing is DIALED! It sounds great to me.

Yeah, the imaging is a bit diffuse, inner detail is only good, and the mid-bass is a little round. But who cares? When I listen to music, I enjoy the music. And I'm not thinking about what component to get next, even when I'm sprawled on my bed reading Stereophile magazine.

What did I do right?

I gave up on finding sonic perfection and found components that work well together. And I made sure the cost of each component was on that part of the diminishing returns curve where things flatten out: where large increments in amount spent lead only to small increments in sound improvement.

The bottom line is this: You can have an excellent stereo system for a fraction of what the "tweaks" are paying, and you'll probably enjoy your music more than they do. The speakers are probably the most important component in a home audio system, so shop around and figure out what kind of sound YOU like.

Then have fun assembling an inexpensive system that's 80% or 90% as good as the best out there. After that, forget about the system and enjoy the MUSIC."

Truth is, whether you're spending a 1K or 100K the bottom line (or what should be the bottom line) is the MUSIC and your enjoyment of it. If you lose sight of that, then I would really wonder "what are you spending your money on and what are you trying to accomplish?".
cleaneduphippy
kthomas
911 posts
 
I've never understood why enjoying the music and sound quality are characterized as opposite ends of the spectrum so often. When I'm listening to music, I'm loving the music. I notice, sometimes, how it all sounds. Sometimes I get focused on why it sounds the way it does, get interested in trying something different, focus on the gear for a bit. That's fun too. Then a new batch of CDs comes in and I get focused on listening to them.

I know at least a dozen people who are really into music, and I know only a couple of people who would even consider spending money on a modest system, much less an expensive one. From my perspective, the world is properly balanced in favor of "it's the music!" over audio nervosa, but it's fun to indulge in the nervosa on the occassional basis.
tgrisham
1,179 posts
 
The balance between owning something for the sake of owning it, because its expensive, pretty, or exotic, vs. the pure enjoyment and pleasure it brings to you. They are not mutually exclusive, nor incompatible, just difficult to balance in equal measure. They are yin and yang. You must have some quality in the reproduction (which costs) and you must be able to let go of the objects to enjoy the music. We all suffer from the same illness: wanting to get closer to the music and the artist through our equipment. May we all eventually get to the state where we can forget about the things we have purchased and just listen. (at least for a little while) Now where did I put my Stereophile magazine??
french_fries
735 posts
 
my 1st really good set of speakers- ADS-L810's, looked great and sounded wonderful. at the time they were an expensive investment for me- $900. words cannot express how much i enjoyed them; to this day i miss them. now i have a pair of speakers that cost 60X as much. they are astonishingly good of course, but i have mixed feelings about WHY i do what i do.
if the goal is a lifelike presentation of even the most complex musical signals, i have no problems with what i've done- the dream grew in my consciousness every time i went to hear a live concert. but way before i even had a STEREO, i was happy listening to a tape of beethoven #5 on my concord-220 (mono) reel-to-reel. the other "component" was a blaupunkt am/fm/sw radio. so it's all psychological as far as i'm concerned.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
Cleaneduphippy has just said what many of us know is true. equipment is equipment.....spending more won't get you your 'musical' soul back.
avguygeorge
2,300 posts
 
I get more enjoyment as my system gets better. This has been going on for me, for many years. My money; my choice but thanks for the input. I don't expect Wilsons where I'm going in the afterlife,probably they will have Bose? Thank God in this life we get to make our own choices and I have no problem with this concept.
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