steve hoffman forums, C or D?

ouch.

perfect sound forever, though!

Thx for the gift link. A good reminder of “the important things in life,” I guess…

usually at the end I wind up thinking, wouldn't I rather just have a well curated CD collection that would cost a fraction of that and maybe bring me equivalent joy, or perhaps more joy albeit considerably less cool points?

This is me, basically. To look at how many records and CDs I own, a person might assume I'd have a top-of-the-line system to play it on, but nope. I always went for "decent," and when I couldn't afford decent, I just acquired hand-me-downs and bought Goodwill stuff, and I've never felt any particular urge to upgrade my system. It isn't that I don't think I'd enjoy having a nice setup, but, to your point, there are about a hundred things I would rather spend my limited disposable income on than audiophile equipment - like CDs and records, for example.

It’s almost as if you like music rather than equipment. Crazy!

My entire audio setup has been cobbled together from various sources. My wife's Teac amp, my Project Debut III, a pair of Bowers and Wilkins matrix speakers I won in a weird work raffle a dozen years ago, plus my Onkyo single CD player. I definitely have a few friends who have gone for really really pricey equipment, like thousands of dollars, and I just can't do it. I mean it would be a financial stretch and psychologically I'd feel like I was getting conned somehow. I think the audiophile snake oil thread has me paranoid!

I mean I do love vinyl records obv. right now I'm listening to the led Zeppelin self-titled, the triple vinyl reissue from a few years back, and it sounds pretty great. Just don't tell me that actually there's this 1985 pressing exclusive to Japan that's really the best one haha.

But there's something about the simple pleasure of driving around with my kid listening to the first cracker CD, which I found for two bucks and bought because he's really into them and CVB now. That also sounds great!

. My wife's Teac amp, my Project Debut III, a pair of Bowers and Wilkins matrix speakers I won in a weird work raffle a dozen years ago, plus my Onkyo single CD player. I definitely have a few friends who have gone


^this is all really good stuff I bet it sounds great

I also have a pretty mid-fi setup. I live in a studio apartment on a road with plentiful traffic, and with the clanking trucks and car subwoofers rattling my windows, the best way to improve my setup would be to move. But I have cheap rent and am within walking distance of my job and most necessities, so it's hard to give those things up in pursuit of optimal listening conditions.

a pair of Bowers and Wilkins matrix speakers I won in a weird work raffle a dozen years ago

I got a pair of B&W headphones for Christmas, they're outstanding.

Haha I don't work there anymore but basically the guy who ran the company was emptying out his house of all this gear he had, it was a whole mess of laser disc players and DirecTV boxes, plus those speakers. We each got a ticket and then the numbers were called, I was called third. I took the speakers not having looked at them closely but needing better ones than the thrift store fodder ones I owned. They're the matrix 804. Couldn't believe it when I saw what they were and when I looked them up.

Holy moley

“I need you to die slow, m-----f-----,” he told his father. “Die slow.”

If you ever wade through the Hoffman forum, the pathological toxicity on display in that article becomes no surprise. I mean, I care about good sound, but I care about it as much as I care about good-tasting food and act accordingly. Imagine if you treated your meals the way a hot-stamp, one-step lunatic treats their music listening.

As he got older, Fritz sometimes wondered if he could have made space within his own vast ambitions to consider other people’s goals and wishes.

Huh, yeah.

man if I was Kurt I'd have peaced on Fritz so many more years earlier, idk how he lasted that long.

I think that people predisposed to this kind of obsessiveness will find and object of obsession not sure it's much to do with stero equipment at the end of the day

oh yeah, I mean you could pretty much substitute "restoring a classic car" and it would it fine

*fit

Find any collectible, and you'll find the extreme end of obsessiveness. I probably have the low end version of that genetic predisposition, I used to collect baseball cards when I was a teenager, and definitely enjoy having a large library of books. But I'm also someone who hates to have overflowing shelves so I'm kind of self-limiting there. When things start to overflow, I start to sell or trade in.

I wonder how many people who post on that forum are dudes.

I knew a guy once who used to frequent the local record store. Fussy collector dude, we all know the type. Anyway, one day he announced to us that his wife was pregnant, but he made her promise to keep the news from her family until after Christmas because he didn't want all the Christmas gifts they received to be for the baby. I've never forgotten that.

The guy in this article reminds me of that guy

I seem to have an innate feeling of unease whenever the amount of time/energy I devote to anything, an activity, a hobby, collecting something, etc, start to creep up. it just kind of instinctively makes me take a pause. that's not necessarily a 'good' thing in that it usually happens even when I'm healthily enjoying something, but it's why for instance I sold my Xbox One. just one weekend of spending like ten hours in front of it and I was unnerved by how much time I'd easily wasted.

xp jfc

see also Walter Benjamin's writing on the obsession behind collecting: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/10/26/walter-benjamin-history-collections-and-archives

My dad's most treasured collection was his record collection. He had about 4000.

He gave them all up without hesitation when mom pointed out they didn't have the space and they needed the money they could get unloading it

Never complained about it once afterwards.

Things are just objects

Even more damning is this line from that article:

Was it truly “wow?” Or merely loud?

The goal was never worth it to begin with, but he ended up torching everyone close to him for literally nothing.

and following on from that, "maybe he had it on the wrong setting" because there are so many variables he can't even keep track any more

The part that really got me was how his kid, who had for decades helped him work on it probably at the expense of his own sanity and life, just wanted to stay up and listen to some music on it and he wouldn't let him do it. He made that kid toil away for something and wouldn't even let him experience it.

Yeah. It was a layup and he still fucked it up

Fritz is a dud

I wonder how many people who post on that forum are dudes.

I've seen maybe three women total post on there, so, basically all of them. and when a woman starts posting the amount of obsessive attention she gets is cringeworthy, particularly if she posts in a Rush thread or something.

Whenever I lurk there I feel like "the kid" (I'm in my late forties)

https://stereocentral.freeforums.net

Imagine if you treated your meals the way a hot-stamp, one-step lunatic treats their music listening.

I feel seen.

My dad's most treasured collection was his record collection. He had about 4000.

He gave them all up without hesitation when mom pointed out they didn't have the space and they needed the money they could get unloading it

Never complained about it once afterwards.

Things are just objects

― Disco Biollante (Neanderthal)

This - and post above - both contain heaps of cautionary wisdom for me, a male human who has had bad collector brain since childhood (was it Star Wars toys? Doctor Who books? Bubblegum cards? It was some fucking thing that did it).

I actually feel really fortunate to have lived in the time of eBay, cos 20 years ago when it was still new and nifty to sell things globally I tried it out - and found both financial and karmic reward from selling stuff - and that opened up a life-saving little neural pathway

Still a terrible accumulator though - recently have been looking at my record collection and thinking that if liquidated it is probably a decent overseas holiday for my family - if not more - and once you put it in those terms (and consider that there’s only a finite amount of above-ground time…)

* ”post above” = previous Neanderthal post re unease about collecting impulse

I sold the majority of my record and CD collection because I was moving in with a woman and just wouldn’t have the space and didn’t want to move it either. Most of 30+ years of accumulation. I regret it sometimes, but not a lot.

https://i.imgur.com/Rkxu5nw.png

The elderly audiophile story is extra sad because that guy probably hasn't been able to hear above 12k since the mid '80s.

I wonder what the newest album in his collection was? Mentioned are the Countours (1962). I can just barely make out mid-80s Moody Blues and Kinks live albums from the spine. I would love it if he had like, a Target-exclusive color of Miss Anthropocene in there.

mid-80s Moody Blues

I can't imagine anyone with those albums having decent taste in anything later on.

the classics are the folks who buy whatever sounds good from an audiophile perspective rather than having personal taste.

you either buy equipment to listen to your favorite music or buy music to listen to your favorite equipment.

"In Your Wildest Dreams" is great

that was a favorite when I was a kid, used to enjoy that one coming on 105.1 while cruising in the back seat of the station wagon

Oof, I don’t know…it kind of sounds like something that could’ve been a theme song to a family-friendly sci-fi show from that era. Which to be fair, could be a great thing to some, but it’s not to my taste.

I <3 ums, my musical doppelganger.

Another vote for IYWD. It was clinched for me one night when these 2 ancient hippies got up at the open mic I was hosting & played a rickety, broken-down but heartfelt version. Agreed the production is of its time — in a way that isn’t necessarily flattering.

As a kid I liked "The Voice" more than "IYWD" — it's got kind of an Ultravox vibe. I thought they were a New Wave band!

TIL!

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/cecilia-ann-by-the-pixies-yes-i-wrote-recorded-the-song-as-the-surftones-with-my-buddy-frosty.272578/

When two cranks collide.