Author Topic: Enjoying music again  (Read 9231 times)

Offline ejk

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Enjoying music again
« on: February 19, 2022, 08:32:50 AM »
I haven't sat down and listened to music in my system in about 5 years. I recently sold off my whole system down to the cables. I have gone through plenty of gear over the years. I held on to my Marantz receiver, Bluesound Node, Schitt Modi DAC and picked up a pair of Def Tech BP9020's just in case I ever wanted to listen again. I thought this move through for a while. I was tired of the tweaking and constant changes being made in search of the holy grail. I hooked it all up and I am impressed with my budget system and actually have been listening every day and not fussing around with everything. I'm actually enjoying it again. the Def Tech even though marketed as a HT speaker is pretty impressive. Who knows maybe its old age. I posted some before and after pics.
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Offline S Clark

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2022, 09:49:44 AM »
Glad you're enjoying your music again.  Expensive, budget system... just isn't that important.
It took me a while to figure it out, but the most important piece of equipment you own is your mind. 
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2022, 01:12:51 PM »
I haven't sat down and listened to music in my system in about 5 years. I recently sold off my whole system down to the cables. I have gone through plenty of gear over the years. I held on to my Marantz receiver, Bluesound Node, Schitt Modi DAC and picked up a pair of Def Tech BP9020's just in case I ever wanted to listen again. I thought this move through for a while. I was tired of the tweaking  :thumb:and constant changes being made in search of the holy grail. I hooked it all up and I am impressed with my budget system and actually have been listening every day and not fussing around with everything. I'm actually enjoying it again. the Def Tech even though marketed as a HT speaker is pretty impressive. Who knows maybe its old age. I posted some before and after pics.

That’s great that you got back into listening and you downgrading is a good solution. There was a guy here maybe 10 years ago… and I forgot his user name… who decided to quit audio because it was becoming such an obsession for him. He wrote me a nice note telling me so. Glad you are enjoying music once again   :thumb:
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Offline Emil

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2022, 02:18:30 PM »
Good luck.
The temptation to upgrade will always be there. It's a disease. :lol:
Stay strong

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I got to say it was a good day"
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Offline James Edward

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2022, 03:02:20 PM »
Yeah… I stopped listening ‘critically’ a while back and it’s delightful. I figured out what I wanted, got close enough, and relaxed quite a bit.
Having said that, if I won lotto, oh boy. But I don’t play, so…
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Offline rollo

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2022, 11:03:07 AM »
  So good to hear Evan. Enjoy !!

charles
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Offline P.I.

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2022, 04:08:44 PM »
Evan, your realization of simply enjoying the music is something that comes with experience, age (in my instance the diminishing ability to hear the things that fed my obsession) and simply going back to our roots that started us  in the quest - the love of music.  Tom is right.  This is all about the music.

Enjoy  :thumb:
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Offline ejk

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #7 on: March 12, 2022, 03:31:55 AM »
Good luck.
The temptation to upgrade will always be there. It's a disease. :lol:
Stay strong



 





Damn you Emil... I got sucked backed in. I just picked up a Project Carbon Evo. keeping it simple Now I'm buying TT  accessories I tossed out all over again :duh
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Offline Triode Pete

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #8 on: March 12, 2022, 06:37:14 AM »
I haven't sat down and listened to music in my system in about 5 years. I recently sold off my whole system down to the cables. I have gone through plenty of gear over the years. I held on to my Marantz receiver, Bluesound Node, Schitt Modi DAC and picked up a pair of Def Tech BP9020's just in case I ever wanted to listen again. I thought this move through for a while. I was tired of the tweaking and constant changes being made in search of the holy grail. I hooked it all up and I am impressed with my budget system and actually have been listening every day and not fussing around with everything. I'm actually enjoying it again. the Def Tech even though marketed as a HT speaker is pretty impressive. Who knows maybe its old age. I posted some before and after pics.

Keeping it simple & reasonable is the way to go... if you can, but if you got Audio Nervosa, fuhgettaboutit!

I remember my second hi-fi system in my first apartment in Glen Cove, LI... Picked up all used for $920 total... McIntosh 2100 amp, Klipsch Cornwalls, Yamaha C2 preamp, Kyocera turntable with a McIntosh cartridge, Onkyo Tuner with all interconnects & speaker cables included! Man that system would rock out. My apartment mate had a first generation CD player (Sony) that we wedged telephone books around it to keep from skipping when we rocked out... Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" CD would skip all the time without the telephone book wedge!

We had such great parties and just enjoyed the music! In those days, we had two refrigerators in the kitchen... with an old GE one (late 1950's) with a beer tap coming out of it and frosted mugs in the upper freezer section. It was easier to get a mug of beer than a glass of water or milk!

Also, I remember at one party, a guy asked why I had copper tubing coming out of the McIntosh amp! (It was the Monster Cable interconnects!).

Sorry to ramble, but Evan's post brought back some memories!

Cheers,
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Offline tmazz

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #9 on: March 12, 2022, 08:25:58 AM »
$920?????  That blows my mind. Today a used Mac 2100 alone would cost you in the area of $1600, and that for an amp that had a list price of $599 when it was new.

It is amazing how happy we were back in the day listening to equipment that we would now characterize as mediocre at best. probably because we were more concerned with the software then the hardware. Somewhere along the line we went from buying equipment to help us enjoy the music more to buying records and CDs to help us evaluate the performance of our equipment.

My big epiphany came when Meredith ad I got married and moved into a new house. We felt that getting my sons out of the house that they grew up in would help them deal with their mother's passing and it actually did. But the downside of moving was finding a house then met all of the space needs for our blended family resulted in me loosing my dedicated listening room and having to deal with a space much smaller than what I previously had. With the downsized room I had to downsize my gear and this brought me to the realization that with the new space limitations I would most likely never be able to get the same level of SQ that I had gotten in the other house after 25 years of tweaking that room. But what did pleasantly surprise me is that although it was not as good as the old system, the new set-up was still quite good indeed and more than good enough to sit back and really enjoy the music. Knowing that my room became the limiting factor and I would in all likelihood not be able to achieve that last 1/2 percent of SQ allowed me to get off of that hamster wheel mentality of constant equipment upgrades and get back to why I started in this hobby in the first place, to enjoy the music.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that spending time and money upgrading your system is a fools errand, all of that work got me to the point where my system is today and provided me with the ability to sit back and enjoy it. But there comes a point for many of us where for any of a number of reasons a change in available space, a decrease in disposable income from retirement or a career change , the inability to physically move around heavy gear, etc, that it is time to stop building and harvest the fruits of your labors.  (I think we had a thread going a few years back on when does good become good enough.) And like most everything else in this hobby, that point is different for each of us and there are no wrong or right answers.

But I do have to say, that at least from my perspective getting to the point where you are content with your system and can put your focus on just sitting back and enjoying it without stressing out about whether or not you can hear the flea fart in the third row is a good place to be.  :D

Of course I do have to admit that one of the things that also got me to this point was the introduction of high quality streaming services like Qobuz and Tidal. This allowed me to transfer my Nervosa from finding better gear to finding new music. I am having a blast exploring all kinds of vintage jazz and classical recordings that I never would have access to without these services. It is real easy to click on an old Blue Note recording that I never would have explored without streaming since most of those recordings are only available as vintage LPs that get very high prices on the collectors market. I would never pay $50 for a jazz LP that I never hear or know nothing about, but on Qobuz I can try it at no additional cost so I am finding all kinds of stuff I never would have experienced otherwise.

So Evan, I don't think that your current take on stereo equipment and music is due to old age, it is due to wisdom.   8)

And Pete, it seems like more and more of us are starting to increase our focus on music over equipment. Kinda sounds like Earl, doesn't it? 

I'm beginning to wonder if that is because we are all approaching the age that Earl was when we first met him.   :rofl:
Remember, it's all about the music........

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Offline ejk

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #10 on: March 12, 2022, 10:12:19 AM »
Good luck.
The temptation to upgrade will always be there. It's a disease. :lol:
Stay strong







Damn you again Emil.
Was picking up a lot of resonance through my turntable. Cabinet isn't the greatest Had some isolation footers and tried them under the TT. Still heard some ringing in the sound. Ran to Homegoods and found a nice cutting board to separate the cabinet and TT. Tap test still heard through speakers but no ringing

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Offline Emil

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2022, 07:42:36 AM »
Good luck.
The temptation to upgrade will always be there. It's a disease. :lol:
Stay strong









Damn you again Emil.
Was picking up a lot of resonance through my turntable. Cabinet isn't the greatest Had some isolation footers and tried them under the TT. Still heard some ringing in the sound. Ran to Homegoods and found a nice cutting board to separate the cabinet and TT. Tap test still heard through speakers but no ringing

Unless you stop visiting AN and other sites, you were bound to relapse :lol:
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I got to say it was a good day"
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Offline jimbones

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2022, 09:08:34 AM »
@emil perfect so true!!
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Offline ejk

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2022, 09:37:23 AM »
Well I guess I went to an AA meeting vinyl sucks. Too much work up down flip the side. I'm sticking to my streaming and that's that turntable returned I knew I got out of it for a reason

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Offline rollo

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Re: Enjoying music again
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2022, 10:05:25 AM »
  I like streaming but IMHO does not equal the shiny disc. If one is content look no further. Enjoy

charles
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