Satisfaction Guarenteed?

Musicians listen to the performance first while the reproduction is a secondary thing. Audiophiles tend to let the reproduction detract from the performance and sometimes rob themselves of the great enjoyment that a lesser recording may be possible of giving. Sad but true. I'm guilty of it too. Sean >

Hi Jmora; I don't think most audiophiles are seeking "intellectual or spiritual satisfaction". Those are too grandiose goals, IMO-- at least for most? To me it's just a highly enjoyable hobby, and there's nothing particularily noble about it. I have two audiophile friends who are polar opposites when it comes to their approaches to audio. One put a very good system together quite a few years ago, and he seldom makes changes, ie he's really in it for enjoyment of the music-- classical, opera, and jazz-- equipment to him is secondary. The other guy is an upfront obsessive and is constantly buying, selling, and trading equipment-- never satisfied, yet he refuses to spend money on acoustic treatments, vibration control, AC clean-up etc. To him it's almost purely an equipment "chase", and he only occasionally enjoys the music. But I guess that's what HE likes. As for me, I'm somewhere in between these two extremes. I can be an equipment junkie, and like to try out new "stuff", but having admitted that, the equipment or tweak has to serve the music for me to be satisfied. At age 57, my philosophy is to "never go backwards" regarding music quality. And right now I'm very satisfied with my system, but as I still like to try new components and tweaks, I don't mind "going sideways" occasionally, ie I want to try a good tube amp. And for sure, I want to end up with Vandersteen 5 speakers. So, to pull all this drival together, I am satisfied with what I think is a balanced approach to this hobby-- it suits my temperment and is enjoyable. BTW, all these approaches can be done at radically different budget levels. So the approach each of us takes in an attempt to reach audio wonderfulness(unattainable)comes down to personality, character, temperment-- intensely personal "stuff", IMHO. Cheers. Craig.

I was going to respond but Garfish said it all and so well. He always does that.

In the last year,in no particular order, I upgraded my power amp (same mfg, newer model); my cd transport (from digital out on multiplayer to dedicated transport); my speakers (from floorstanders to monitors, both english designs but diff mfgs) and my preamp (from mfg's best of budget line to older model at the top of the premier line). And after all this, *drum roll please* I've stopped combing the sites and looking at ads! Now all I do is listen. There's a rightness to it that I'm certain could be improved but I no longer feel the need to change it. Kinda like the whole system has gone from 'is that right?' to 'that's it!'. However there seems to be a downside: listening is no longer a casual passtime but more of a sacred experience. Anybody else experience this acute reverence phenomenon?

Jmora, interesting question. For me, at times, the hobby of putting together a system can be spiritually (whatever that is!) and/or intellectually satisfying. Mostly it's a means to some kind of an end (I hope). I only started into setting up a system about 2 years ago. I'm one of those musicians who lived with a boom box or a mishmash of friends stuff. I listened only rarely. And then, it was for the performance. It still is the predominant reason. Only now I realize that it is truly more enjoyable and involving when there is more fidelity (DUH!!) Sooo, when I find myself listening to gear for protracted periods of time, I put on something I love and just enjoy. I've asked my wife to shoot me if I spend big $$ on speaker cables. What the hell, whatever makes you happy (and doesn't hurt somebody else!) I'm out