Awesome Audiophile Snake Oil

and that’s for the pair of speakers, btw

lots of ranges being represented. i will probably be able to do upper low end at some point. the bookshelf speakers that sfj eventually gets would be doable for me. spread out upgrades on that level over a few years and voila. it's just not a priority for me atm though.

what i really wonder is where are the women audiophiles?

every audiophile article or discussion i see feels like going back 70 years not just in terms of speaker technology but also in terms of women seemingly not existing

so true. every discussion of size / appearance inevitably veers into discussion of whether it is “wife friendly” etc. hi fi forums are actually super toxic in general (maybe because it’e a lot of ppl acting out their anxieties about buying the best equipment so that they can listen to the worst music) but that aspect always jumps out at me

my guess is that it has roots in how hi fi culture was linked to postwar “bachelor pad” culture. i think we forget that a lot of these things (nice stereos and record collections) were out of reach of many consumers (at least until the early 60s) so would have been heavily marketed toward ppl with disposable income (bachelors with professional jobs)

at least i forget that. maybe blame it on how we’ve romanticized the image of “midcentury living”

when my brother-in-law was in grad school he worked closely with two professors - one had an incredibly complex and expensive audiophile system and the other had insane amounts of expensive wine in his custom wine cellar.

He said they would argue with each other all the time because each thought the other's hobby was an elitist, pointless waste of time and thought the other arrogant or foolish to claim that they could hear or taste the subtitles and nuances they claimed to be able to detect. They were basically the exact same person with slightly different hobbies.

lol

the Hoffman forums is like an all-male prison planet, Beatles playing constantly on shockingly good speakers throughout the penitentiaries. One post I saw awhile back was someone bemoaning how his wife didn’t always want to listen to the music he wanted to play, and glumly concluding he wished he lived alone.

Not that ilm has the best track record wrt female posters either tbh

re affordability, nobody is going to write an article about my system but it is good enough for me (ie i am actively pleased with how my music sounds and don’t crave upgrades) - the basics (tt/amp/speakers) cost me about $100 total - at one point the most expensive item in the setup was a pair of 2 inch pre-post jumper cables made by QED lol

i spent heaps of time researching and learning about brands/models so i would know a bargain when i saw it - setting up classified alerts, haunting thrift stores and flea markets (i do this anyway) - so there is a definite labour component

to me the pursuit of good sound is actually pretty beautiful but the dick-swinging consumption aspect mentioned above is deeply yuk - one other thing is how all audiophiles are super-finicky about cosmetic condition, keeping original boxes etc. i know one guy who wraps his remote controls in clingfilm! so if you’re happy to go with beat-up vintage gear then it is a real advantage in this space - kind of like buying a NM record with a G cover - if you’re in it for the music then it’s fine

anyway my friends/peers always say how much they enjoy listening on the setup when they’re around, and it almost certainly cost less than the bluetooth speaker they make do with at home - maybe there is an element of “hey i am a good shopper!!” in this post but i would also say if yr audio-curious it definitely worth the effort to take yr listening up a couple of notches

audiophiles are always selling the new thing they bought 3 months later to buy the newer shinier thing they want to buy, so yeah if you have your eye on a piece of gear and are patient you can score good deals. hifishark is a good collator of listings and you can set up alerts too.

if i were to do it on a budget, a thrift store receiver + $50 bookshelves from a good brand off of craigslist + usb dac for your computer (assuming that's your source) would be the way i'd go. home depot cut-by-the-foot power cable for speaker wire. then killfile any thread that mentions 'audiophile', listen to your music in blissful peace.

i know one guy who wraps his remote controls in clingfilm!

was he from the middle east? because tbf my parents and all their peers would keep a new couch wrapped like that for a year or two. at that point you could unwrap the new tv remote but you had to put it in a ziploc bag (true story)

and yeah keeping the original boxes + clingfilm is because they know they are just going to put it up in the classifieds section of head-fi in a few months.

My most expensive component is my Cambridge Audio amp, think it was on sale for $800. I got lucky because my house got struck by lightning and burned out a bunch of electronics and the adjuster overvalued a lot of stuff.

Which is hilarious cuz I can't imagine anything sounding better but even a grand is peanuts in the scheme of things.

I think I have those same speakers, tlg, I just meant all the expensive Magic Alex stuff. That listening_room instagram account is frightening. Rooms filled with ugly electronics on one side and the other side of the room looks like a haunted 1 star motel room

oh yeah? do you like them? i’ve always had this mythical view of klipsch cause of mancuso + the loft, was thinking about getting some new speakers and was surprised how affordable these are, especially compared to many of the other “historic” speakers like jbl century, klipsch heresy, altecs etc

actually it’s the kp3.5 that I have, they sound really good to me but I’ve never done any a/b-ing or anything. also haven’t really been able to really crank them cuz neighbors. I like the looks of those kp4s.

kg

Y’all are talking too much about gear that a halfway normal person might buy and not $92,000 hand-magnetized hard drives

Does this guy think he has a first gen Beatles master tape in his collection?

I can't figure it out. At best, this would be a production master copped from a pressing plant, perhaps a 1/4 reel copy of an original half-inch (or 1/4 inch) mix-master. But he's acting like it's the holy grail of sound quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLWHPy9zdGs

“It sounds like Paul McCartney is singing right next to you!” No, it sounds like someone is talking over the music.

And anyway, wasn’t it the professional industry standard that 1/4” master tapes play at 15 ips (inches per second)? Because it looks like its playing a lot slower than that.

30 ips is generally better sound quality but you really eat through tape, 15 ips can be great too, but it's a little grittier, I guess it's more of a flavor thing. I'd imagine lower than 15 ips and it would get even more effected.

in the opening seconds he says "this is the original Let It Be master recording" while holding a 7" acetate, so his definition of 'master' seems to be pretty fluid. I LOLd at his stupid chart where he explains how blu ray only has a fraction the sound quality of LPs, because they are more generations removed from the master tape - as if people are dubbing music onto each new format from the previous format. guy seems like a complete idiot.

Lol that is the dumbest theory I've ever heard.

XP - Yeah, 7.5ips can be pretty grungy on 1/4 inch by comparison, better if mono though, using the entire width of the tape.

I'm wondering if a lot is being lost in translation here

this looks cool (and probably not snake oil, but this is the active thread) and a collected vintage newsletter for audiophiles seems up our alley:

https://www.dopefromhope.com/

Went to Axpona on Friday. Best room to my ears was Acora Acoustics. Here was the equipment list:

https://i.imgur.com/6t3mrOz.jpg

I should say I am not an audiophile and went with a friend purely as an exercise in curiosity. Sadly most listening rooms did not have posted price lists like this.

Nice. I guess it's the old adage, "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

Did you have fun?

Yeesh. For those prices, they should specify room dimensions and specifications while they're at it.

It was a fun experience, yes. Just to be able to listen to some of these systems was a treat and definitely made mine feel wholly inadequate!

Based on what most rooms were playing, my tastes are miles away from the audiophile community. More bluesy guitar quartets and solo classical guitar than I knew existed.

Saw this company's network streamer/DAC in lots of rooms:

https://eng.hifirose.com/

lol 5 grand, suck my dick

Playing ethnicky jazz to ease my snazz only five grand stereo

I am so glad I bought a spare Google Chromecast Audio before they discontinued it

*brings reference album to audiophile listening party*

*Album is Propeller by GBV*

haha

when I tested out turntables many years ago, I brought that Gastr Del Sol 7" on Teenbeat and a Thelonious Monk promo LP, something else too but I forget what

five grand stereo

spent a few mintues on that website trying to work out if any of their gear indeed had speakers on it... and still not sure. I know there was a DAC + streamer product for way more than my whole system costs. I'd like to one day be in a city where one of these events is taking place, cuz I just don't believe my ears would find much difference. (... then I lose all my money)

BTW the Bureau of Labor Statistics says five grand in 1980 (date of Holiday in Cambodia) is worth nearly $20,000 today.

solitary posts that effortlessly summarize the spirit of ILX

lol bravo

I’m flattered

Nice to see I'm quoted in that thread, talking about the Nirvana baby's penis!

The box for my Audioquest Dragonfly Cobalt has a sticker that says the Cobalt needs 100 hours to “burn-in” (their quotes). “Please be patient as the chips come up to speed.”

99-hour warranty?

To be fair I’ve noticed that with new computers too, they’re all sluggish and veiled until they’ve burned in - the mouse becomes more responsive, more analog in feel, and the pixels on the screen acquire a depth and clarity that really opens up the display.

i can't tell if that's a joke.

wait, yes i can.