Talon4 and Tvad are making very real points that shouldn't require Nomex suits in order to voice safely.
For 18 months during 2004-2005, I was living as an expat in an apartment in Holland, and had to "make do" with a simple Linn Klassic system that cost about $1,700. Somewhat to my surprise, I really, really enjoyed it. Almost everything sounded at least acceptable on it, and many CDs were quite sensuously pleasing. Sure, it wasn't "high-end." And it was obviously rolled off in the top. But I had a lot of happy sessions with it, nevertheless.
In the 2 years I've been back, I feel like I've been in a constant battle with the high-end system I left behind (and its various successors) to obtain a consistently pleasing and pleasant sound (as some of you may have noticed from my other posts). I've been using some darn good equipment, that too often tells me (a) how lousy some recordings sound, or (b) how lousy some mastering jobs are, or (c) both at the same time. I have really had to step back and ask myself, why am I doing this? Maybe it's just me, but finding equipment that tells you about the detail in a recording, without rubbing your nose in the all-too-frequent negative aspects of that detail, seems to be a major, major challenge. And I feel very sympathetic to those that seem to suffer from that same frustration, and am very glad to have the resource of the Audiogon forum in which to vent those concerns.
