Gear Swapping vs. Gear Hugging

For now, I'm a gear hugger, it took a year to get my system to sound "just right". I don't want to fiddle with the synergy just yet until I can spend at least a solid year goosing it and seeing where the shortcomings are. Just time to sit back and enjoy it for a while, know what I mean with that statement?
 
I agree with Myles as long as common sense prevails. Unless you're in the industry, if you're continually swapping gear without allowing sufficient settling & burn in time, you haven't really enjoyed any music or HT & it's probably time to seek counselling not consultation!

Several thousand hours later & over 1,000hrs on WW PE G7s now, my rig continues to improve, running most days for 6hrs+. I can't believe it, but its true. I can't contemplate wanting to change, only to build more on top of what I already have. :D


And quality cables need real time. If a cable vendor is releasing new models every year to replace or "improve" upon the snakes you recently bought, you really have to ask yourself why is that upgrade train chugging so fast? Excellence doesn't go through rapid generational cycles, only cr#p does.
 
I'm most definitely a swapper. in my early days i owned a lot of great gear by way of a dealer with a generous trade-in/trade-up policy, i nearly had an all new system every six months - and i didn't take many lumps (financially). nowadays i stick with fully depreciated and 'previously loved' gear and hardly buy new. i do get sellers remorse now and again. there was that one pair of NOS Quad ESl 57s, with orig boxes etc that i wish i never sold. this year I fell into two pairs of Martin logans CLSes, one set was a near-mint pair of IIz's. i had so little into them i should have kept one set, but that means having a crate made and finding the room to store them.
 
I guess in the past (early days) I was a bargain swapper. If something came along that looked like an improvement and met the goals I was shooting for I tried it out. Then I probably morphed into a DIY modder and learned a hell of a lot about the hows and whys of things. Now I'm a hugger, having achieved a relatively high standard and finding the equipment that gets me to where I wanted to be sond and price wise.

That's doesn't mean I am done, because equipment ages and circumstances change, but fundamentally I don't have any urge to change anything anymore. I'm mostly satisfied, except maybe I would want a biugger room. But if I got that I'm sure the sound would change, trigering those urges to try something else again.
 
I think of myself as a gear hugger, and when it comes to amps and speakers I pretty much am, but there have been a ton of source components through here over the years, many still around though inactive. Much like Bob, if I saw a good bargain in a 'table, arm, cartridge, disc player, DAC, preamp, tape deck, etc. I was likely to grab it, and it was not too long ago that I was still occasionally selling some of it off (a broken Nak Dragon 2-3 yrs ago). Come to think of it, I guess I'm still doing that with a couple of disc players, a DAC and some cables within the last year...
 
Steve said:
If a cable vendor is releasing new models every year to replace or "improve" upon the snakes you recently bought, you really have to ask yourself why is that upgrade train chugging so fast? Excellence doesn't go through rapid generational cycles, only cr#p does.
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Exactly!!! And this doesn't just go for cables. This is true of all gear. That was the point of my tongue in cheek post yesterday about gear improving massively. According to the reviewers, every new piece of gear they review pretty much is a huge improvement over last years model. How is it possible for that to happen over and over again year after year. If true, the compounding improvement would be gigantic. But it's all BS. Go buy a 10 year old amp or speakers and you will find it was pretty damn good. Maybe even better than the latest generation.

My point? Reviewers are evil. ;)
 
Ha! Not sure all are evil, but I do miss HP. He kind of told it like it was. MF is pretty blunt and honest. Just check out his review of the Anthem M1's. JA likes something if it measures well and sounds good, but can't seem to comprehend gear that sounds great, but measures poorly (or visa versa). But for the life of me, I can't figure out JV. As a friend of mine said, "how many of these old guys have had their hearing checked lately?" But once again, no one seems to EVER talk about the room. If the room is 50% (or more) - then shouldn't photos and detailed specs on their rooms be included? I digress...

This brings me to another point. An audiophile friend of mine said to me last night, "have you ever noticed that its just us guys with very high end systems that have 'room problems'?" He said, "Just look at Jack in our club. He has a pair of PSB Synchrony One's and a PrimaLuma integrated and we never hear of him complaining about 'room problems'!!"
 
Yeah! The reviewer rarely shows the room! Room acoustic treatment is the biggest upgrade you could ever do. The room is an instrument. It is the loudspeaker. In its space contains everything required to generate sound. If it hasn't been given the highest of priorities, then you are missing out & probably wasting money in the wrong areas to try & compensate the perceived deficiencies.

Most often, a few wall panels & corner bass traps will to the trick without getting all scientific about room reaction characteristics.
 
Mike said:
This brings me to another point. An audiophile friend of mine said to me last night, "have you ever noticed that its just us guys with very high end systems that have 'room problems'?" He said, "Just look at Jack in our club. He has a pair of PSB Synchrony One's and a PrimaLuma integrated and we never hear of him complaining about 'room problems'!!"
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hahaha!! this is true, i dont think my system is revealing enough to be able to say "oh i need different cables" or "oh my room needs bass traps here and a panel there" that and the fact is, if it did need something like ralph said above i wouldnt know it.lol. . my listening room is my livingroom, so there is more sound being soaked up than bouncing around im sure.
 
You really don't want to see the room that most reviewers use for their auditions. You would most likely wroite them all off as fakes.
 
I feel 95% of all audiophiles and those plain old people that like music have room problems but attempt to overcome this room limitation with power (large speakers and killer amps) and money. Like the old saying you can't fix stupid,(not saying anyone in our wonderful site is stupid) but you can make an attempt to fix a poor sounding room for a lot less than spending huge sums of money on amps and speakers..

As an example, I friend of mine 4 doors down, has this $$$$$$ home, with tiles floors a few fancy $$$ rugs and 25' ceilings. He has KEF 207's. He was asking me , it's so bright sounding /harsh in here. So what does this guy do, he went out and bought Focal Grande Utopias. Now he is complaining, something must be wrong with my speakers he said, its' so bright sounding .....:olga:, I said ya think, how about some acoustical panels, Oh NO they would not look good. I shook my head and told him, man you should have bought yourself a pair of quality headphones, a head phone amp and just set and listen to music. Your not going to fix your problem with big speakers and amplifier power.
 
And how many people have good sized leather furniture in their listening rooms? Every audio consultant I've read or talked to makes a point of how reflective leather furniture is compared to cloth; especially important considering how "live" most home listening rooms are. And don't forget cavities in furniture and the various things in a room like windows, cabinet doors and some furniture coverings which can act as vibrating membranes, further changing the sonic character of a room.
 
Yeah, leather couch is not the best, I sometimes cover the headrests with a towel. Also took a recliner out altogether. The visitors can sit on the floor... :o

I even trialled an electric massage chair once as a listening chair. Therapeutic, but a listening & comfort disaster.
 
Not against room treatments (I have a few) but I also put a bit less stock in them. Yes, they work, but i actually like a bit of liveliness to the room. Live music has to deal with room reflections as well. Im not suggesting an empty basement with concrete floors will sound good, but a room does not need to be dead to reflections to sound good. In fact, I don't like that.

The biggest room problems tend to be below 200hz anyway. For that room treatments are much less affective. DSP would be far superior at treating those issues. A product like DSPeaker would be a better use of money IMO then bass traps (although I've not tried it).
 
jaxwired said:
Not against room treatments (I have a few) but I also put a bit less stock in them. Yes, they work, but i actually like a bit of liveliness to the room. Live music has to deal with room reflections as well. Im not suggesting an empty basement with concrete floors will sound good, but a room does not need to be dead to reflections to sound good. In fact, I don't like that.

The biggest room problems tend to be below 200hz anyway. For that room treatments are much less affective. DSP would be far superior at treating those issues. A product like DSPeaker would be a better use of money IMO then bass traps (although I've not tried it).
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I can't completely agree with some of this. Yes, live music sometimes has reflections (not much in true outdoor amphitheaters) but even indoors the distances are much greater and the reflections therefore much more delayed and usually of less importance.
I don't think DSP can deal with the sound pressure buildup in room corners which are a result of reinforcing standing waves, nor can it deal very well with room nulls.
 
I don't like leather furniture, so no worries there. I think the room is the biggest element in sound reproduction. As a non-audiophile, but music lover I also disagree with the method of more power or pricier gear equals overcoming room issues. All it that does is make things worse. One can take a pair of $100k speakers from a good room and put them in a different room and they will sound completely different (often times no good due to the room). The opposite is true as well, one can take a $400 pair of speakers and in a good room they will keep up with the best.
I believe in room treatments, but done correctly, that is very important. I've read (and seen pics) about so many people just either throwing corrections into a room willy nilly or filling the room with them and then wonder why the sound is still screwed up or worse. I think a little goes a long way with room corrections. I believe in speaker placement first and then testing the room with your ears (testing equipment can be helpful as well, but there is a steep learning curve and I have not learned it myself and I don't think many have) and then making use of items already on hand if one can before plunking down money on corrections. Purpose built corrections if needed, need to be placed carefully or efficiently/effectively in a room. Slowly adding corrections is the best route in my opinion. Start with one issue or correction and you can always add later if needed. If items on hand don't do it then I think often times one will find that usually 1 to 4 pieces of purpose built room correction is all that will be needed in lots of cases unless your trying to build a recording studio or anabolic chamber or trying to treat an impossible room in which case your wasting time and money. (My current room is a good example of that).
Just my 1 cent.
 
MusicDirector said:
I don't like leather furniture, so no worries there. I think the room is the biggest element in sound reproduction. As a non-audiophile, but music lover I also disagree with the method of more power or pricier gear equals overcoming room issues. All it that does is make things worse. One can take a pair of $100k speakers from a good room and put them in a different room and they will sound completely different (often times no good due to the room). The opposite is true as well, one can take a $400 pair of speakers and in a good room they will keep up with the best.
I believe in room treatments, but done correctly, that is very important. I've read (and seen pics) about so many people just either throwing corrections into a room willy nilly or filling the room with them and then wonder why the sound is still screwed up or worse. I think a little goes a long way with room corrections. I believe in speaker placement first and then testing the room with your ears (testing equipment can be helpful as well, but there is a steep learning curve and I have not learned it myself and I don't think many have) and then making use of items already on hand if one can before plunking down money on corrections. Purpose built corrections if needed, need to be placed carefully or efficiently/effectively in a room. Slowly adding corrections is the best route in my opinion. Start with one issue or correction and you can always add later if needed. If items on hand don't do it then I think often times one will find that usually 1 to 4 pieces of purpose built room correction is all that will be needed in lots of cases unless your trying to build a recording studio or anabolic chamber or trying to treat an impossible room in which case your wasting time and money. (My current room is a good example of that).
Just my 1 cent.
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I do like your comment which is key for room treatments
done correctly
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.
 
If you have a reflective wall, you would be amazed what a difference a loaded clothes hoist (drying rack) will do to tame it down. You can start with moving an item around like this to get a feel for your room to begin with.
 
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