Audiophile peer pressure and the joy of gear

[Gothique]

@dB_Cooper

It occurred to me that when we listen to a system that is not our own. We’re hearing someone else’s implementation even if when comparing the same gear. The room, the cables, the listening position but most importantly the way the speakers are placed bears such an impact into the sound that comes out that we really can’t ever truly listen to a system unless we do the set up. Everything else is us hearing someone else’s interpretation of that gear and how they set it up.

I really like this insight. I think it holds true with headphones too. I would also go as far as to include the chair one chooses to sit in, what one is looking at. I do think music is such a personal experience.

[elementze]

@dB_Cooper

So I say all of this because when you listen to a system you don’t intimately know, that you didn’t put your blood sweat and tears into, there’s no what to fully understand the capability of the system or ever what direction the person that put that system together was shooting for.

For me this has been the Jekyll and Hyde part of the hobby. I LOVE overthinking each piece, placement of the piece, connectivity, … It’s very relaxing to me to take my system apart and put it back together a little bit cleaner. I feel that I really know each part of my system and the role it plays. I know what’s “next up” for an upgrade. And when I listen I like to think I know what each component is contributing (probably not true, but it plays well in my mind).

I really enjoy sharing (over sharing?) with people in my life the things I enjoy. Other people are part of my enjoyment of most activities. But with audio, it’s almost impossible to really share all of this. Partly because most of my friends/family don’t care . But even those that do care, will never really understand it the way I have. It’ll always be just in my mind. I’ve come to grips with this being a hobby that can’t be fully shared. But very odd for me in the context of how I enjoy most other things in my life.

[NickMimi]

I wanted somewhere to drop this link and rather than create a new thread for a simple link to some fun reading material i decided to revive this old thread and POOF . Plenty of enjoyment in the articles contained….warning, there’s allot of old outdated stuff in there, that’s OK, old stuff can be fun too.

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