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The Obsessive, Compulsive Audiophile

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The Audiophile’s obsession and compulsive thinking and behavior always get worse before they can get better. The OCD audiophile will find himself obsessing about his speaker wires. He will consider an FM transmission of the frequencies sent from the amplifiers to the speakers via an FM transmitter hooked to the back of the power amplifier to transmit to a receiver connected to the speaker’s input lugs. He thinks, “after all, the best wire is no wire at all, right?” He will then surmise that the signal transmission from the power amplifier transmitter is longer to the left channel than to the right channel because of where his components are placed, and therefore, the left speaker will get signal information a nanosecond later than the right speaker, thus throwing the sound out of phase, so he dismisses that idea as lunacy. And so goes such thinking only by an OCD Audiophile.

Here are other common thoughts of OCD audiophiles I have taken note of over the years via their discussions with me in person (while in therapy), from their articles in hi­fi rags, blogs, commercial advertisements and in electronics shows: Be prepared for what audiophile insanity is really like. And yes, some of it is truly hilarious.

A thin gauge wire works best for a tweeter in a bi or tri amplified speaker, whereas a thicker gauge wire works better for the midrange, and thicker still for the woofer. That’s because there is more electricity running in the cable for lower frequencies and, therefore, thus a thicker wire to properly transmit that electricity from the power amplifier to the speaker. A tweeter requires less power, thus less electricity and therefore, a thinner wire is all that is needed to get that job done. This person also believes that the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge spans Niagara Falls.

And there, dear Audiophile, you have it. We owe our gratitude to the unbelievable numbers of OCD Audiophiles. For if it were not for them, you would not have the beloved hobby of audiophilia you have today. You would not have the life­like quality of sound you now enjoy in your home if it were not for the determined, passionate, obsessive compulsive, almost insane Audiophiles that began their experiments in home audio way back in the early 1950’s.

It was the OCD Audiophile back in the 50’s who took us from a monophonic FM broadcast to broadcasting on an FM station and on an AM station at the same time to present “stereo” radio. The left channel was an AM radio playing on an AM station and the right channel was on an FM radio on FM station. When both were turned on and both radios were placed 8 feet apart listeners would swoon over the “realism” of the sound.

It was OCD Audiophiles who brought you D.I.Y. hi­fi mono preamps and power amp kits such as the Dynaco, and later the Stereo HeathKit back in the early 60’s. It was the OCD Audiophiles who took the budding audiophile from zip cord (lamp cord) for speaker cables to something that can pass for a firehose today. Then they figured out how to put that giant fat cable on little tinny­weenie cute little floor stands to get the snake-like cable off of the floor so they could pretend it made the sound of music more real.

OCD Audiophile’s delight our local utility company via a larger electricity bill sent to folks like you, dear audiophile by simply keeping your audio equipment turned on at all times. OCD Audiophiles carefully explain (but can’t scientifically prove) that solid state and/or digital tuners, preamps, analogue amps and other auxiliary items need time, usually an hour or more to reach a specific temperature to sound right. Meanwhile blind ABX listening tests and calibrated, laboratory grade, precision test instrument readings of any solid state component turned ON from a dead OFF status, after 10 seconds sound no different from the same components left turned on to idle in an ON status for 24 hours or longer and then listened to. Well, there is one difference…your electric bill will be higher as the average he­man audio rig in a state of idle on all components turned on runs about 300 to 450 watts of power. That’s like leaving three to five 100 watt light bulbs turned on 24/7 (and your utility company thanks you for that when you mail to them your check to pay your electric bill).

The OCD Audiophile will keep his class A pre­and power amp or tube amps turned on. Not only is this a waste of electricity, it also breaks down the values set forth in the parts found in those amps, be they capacitors, transistors, resistors and are solid state, tubes or digital chips. Simply put, heat is your hi­fi’s worst enemy and by leaving your hi­fi turned on all the time you are shortening its lifespan…period!

The OCD Audiophile does not mind his listening room becoming uncomfortably warm by leaving his class A or tube amp on, especially if it is winter time.

Tubes may take 3 to 5 minutes to reach an operating temperature to meet its published specifications, however it does not have to be left turned on to sound good.

What is very strange about an OCD Audiophile is they will spend nearly what they pay for their home on audio gear and musical recordings. It never occurs to them that for that kind of money, they could fly all over the world frequentlyand listen to the same artists, bands, orchestras and musicians live in concerts and enjoy sightseeing the world at the same time.

Without OCD Audiophiles we would not have the Bose tinsy­weensie cube speakers, the Bose Radio which is claimed to sound as good as high end hi­fi rigs costing thousands of dollars more, and it sends chills up my back to try to imagine what it would be like to not have the famous Bose 901 speakers which defy all acoustic science, thus are musical instruments in their own right, but cannot accurately reproduce the sound of any musical instrument. Even our Japanese Audiophile Brethren with OCD who were audio engineers for Yamaha back in the mid 70’s and presented to the world the Yamaha ear speaker. That’s right, a speaker about 20 inches wide and 30 inches high and six inches deep that was shaped like a human ear. These OCD engineers claimed the music omitted from this speaker sounded more “natural” because it transmitted like the human ear hears. Oh, don’t you just love those who have Audiophile OCD? And, no, I’m not kidding. Such a speaker was sold in better hi­fi stores at that time and novice Audiophiles who were slowly being infected with OCD bought these speakers and raved at how “natural” the music from them sounded. So, how did they really sound? Well, stuff a small cheap car radio speaker into the base of a banjo and fire it up and what you would hear is about how the Yamaha natural ear speaker sounded.

I think, dear reader, you get the point of all of this. First, what you have read is actually true. OCD Audiophiles actually exist and by the tens of thousands throughout the world. And, when OCD audiophiles read this, they will brand me as a heretic and demand my excommunication from the world of audiophilia, insist I be fired as a reviewer of Dagogo, then sentenced by the readers of this article to be hung by the neck with Cardas speaker cable, or electrocuted to death with a Boulder 400 pound 1,000 Watt Mono Block power amp, and buried in a huge Tannoy Speaker enclosure.

My next article will be about an ABX blind test of a group of OCD Audiophiles using a pair of high end silver speaker cables compared to a coat hanger wire used for a speaker cable.

I want to warn you in advance, this article will be banned in Boston and will prompt written hate mail and death threat letters from manufacturers and consumers of high end interconnects and cables. All I can say in defense of this article forthcoming is please don’t cut off the head of the messenger.

As my audiophile Brethren (and Sisters, too), and as a Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy and a professional psychotherapist, I am compelled to tell you the truth and rely on audio measurement science and known science regarding the workings of the human brain and mind on my articles of assessment of audio gear and those who obsess over it. When I am done with my next article (coming soon on this website) and if you have mortgaged your home to buy very high end speaker cables and interconnect wires, you will feel you have been had because you are an OCD Audiophile.

Once again, please don’t cut off the head of the messenger when it is proven to you that 3 feet of coat hanger wire versus 1 meter silver speaker cable that cost $1,000.00 sounds exactly the same in an ABX blind tested by audiophiles known to have good “trained” ears. Stay tuned as you’ll learn how you can have the same sound as one of the world’s finest audio cables provides for the price of measly coat hanger.

Until then, my very best regards for your audiophile entertainment.

Robert G. Dean, Ph.D., C.Hth.

 

Copy editor: Laurence A. Borden

13 Responses to The Obsessive, Compulsive Audiophile


  1. JamesD says:

    It’s unfortunate that the writer gives credit to ABX tests and standard technical measurements as meaningful indicators to sound quality. ABX test limitations have been beaten to death – a primary limitation being the length of listening and the quality of listener and their familiarity with the system and component under test. Standard technical measurements are still pretty meaningless indicator to sound quality. A case in point being that virtually all solid state electronics would test “perfectly”. To buy into these notions is to suggest that audiophiles are fools. I do not believe that to be the case. Audiophiles only part with their hard earned money when it is worth it for the sound. There are certainly mistakes being made and foolish purchases being made, but not to the magnitude that inadequate technical tests and meaningless ABX tests would suggest. Buying into these two meaningless indicators shows massive inexperience and lack of understanding about excellent sound.

    • Dr. Dean’s response to To James D’s. reply:

      James, when you listen to your hi-fi and favorite recordings to evaluate the sound of your hi-fi, you are only building MENTAL muscle memory of what you are hearing. And, what you are hearing is what your particular hi-fi sounds like. You have essentially made your standard of reference to be the sound of a what your hi-fi produces. The fact is, James, there is not a hi-fi rig on this planet that can accurately produce the live sound of music as heard in its venue. If you could first carefully listen to your hi-fi play one of your favorite musical pieces, and then have the musicians with their instruments play that same song in your listening room at the same decibel level, you would hear an enormous difference between the replicated playback and the live playing of the music. This has already been done numerous times to prove this point. Therefore, if you are hammering into your subconscious mind what music sounds like in you listening room by playing music artificially through an electronic/mechanical means, you are simply pushing into your mind the sound of what your hi-fi sounds like and not the sound of real, live, “you are there” music.

      The only true absolute reference is hearing, in person, the music live within the venue it is played. Now, James, get this clear in your mind. There is no hi-fi on this planet that can reproduce music with such accuracy that it sounds exactly like the live music within the venue the music was recorded.

      Since the aforementioned facts are true, the only way one can evaluate their “he man” hi-fi rig is to first determine how accurate it can pass an electronic signal to transducers (speakers) and how accurate those speakers can replicate the signal passed to them within an echo free environment. To determine the level of accuracy involved, it requires the proper and skillful use of calibrated, laboratory grade electronic and mechanical instruments. Once you have the facts revealed by the reading of these instruments in test use, what you then have is merely an “idea” of how accurate your hi-fi reproduces electronic and mechanical signals fed to it and through it and out of it.

      Understand that the recorded media you are playing is flawed beginning with the mic and other recording electronic instruments used to record the music played in its venue. One only has to be in the recording studio and hear the “live” music being recorded and then step into the mastering booth and hear the recording of the live music to understand the two do not sound exactly the same. They can’t for numerous reasons. So, my audio friend, you are evaluating hi-fi rigs music reproduction based on a flawed reference (the sound your hi-fi produces) to another individuals flawed hi-fi to evaluate how good their hi-fi sounds. This is the “blind leading the blind”. When you read a reviewer’s remarks on how a given hi fi item (amp, speaker, wire, etc.) sounds, you are really hearing a human being expressing the difference they hear between their distorted hi-fi item of gear to the distorted hi-fi item of gear they are evaluating. In other words, the standard of reference used by reviewers are flawed to begin with, thus are not suitable for an accurate standard of reference. Only live music one personally hears within the venue in which it is played can be used for a true standard of reference. And, when that is done and then compared to the reviewer’s hi-fi rig or any of its components that make up that hi-fi rig, one realizes how flawed their hi-fi rig really is.

      The only thing you can hope to do is obtain hi-fi gear which measures mechanically and electronically as close to perfection as is possible in all measurable parameters plus provide a modest amount of room treatment, and further perfect the sound via digital manipulation of the signal to overcome flaws in the recording (CD, records, tape, etc.) and the hi-fi gear that produces the sound and the room in which the speakers are located. When this is done, most audiophiles are very pleased with the sound of their hi-fi as it approaches a loose idea of what the real live sound is.

      For instance, when one uses a tube based hi-fi rig on the basis the music sounds more real, warmer, our “musical” compared to solid state based systems, what they are really saying is that is their preference of distortion when compared to the live sound of the same music in the venue in which it was recorded. How does music sound warm? Does it change the temperature? How does music sound more musical if, in fact, it is already music? These terms only appeal to the subconscious programming of experienced audiophiles. The fact is music does not sound warm, dynamic, cold, fast, tight or compressed. Music sounds like music played by live musicians on real musical instruments…period! So, if one likes the sound tubes do to distort musical reproduction, which is generally a softening of the transient response and a slight decibel reduction in the higher frequencies and deep bass, but with a slight rise in the upper bass, then they have been “programmed” to “believe” that is how real live music sounds, therefore, they are living in a lie. This does not make the tube loving, experienced audiophiles liars or crazy. They are simply programmed into a false belief as to how real live music actually sounds. Some audiophiles prefer the sound of music reproduced via hi-fi to the sound of live music. This proves how powerful subconscious programming is in the minds of millions of audiophiles worldwide. (Instead of living in a lie, I propose we’re seeking to experience aspects of a live performance in the comfort of our own home. Still, Bob’s point is valid. For a small portion of the money spent on audio equipment, we could easily hire soloists to perform for us. -Pub.)

      People who swoon over how “real” their hi-fi sounds would be shocked at the difference in sound from their hi-fi if they could hear the live music at the venue in which it was recorded within less than a minute after hearing their hi-fi rig’s reproduction of that same live music.

      Therefore, to obtain hi-fi gear and even recorded media by one’s “listening judgement” is a farce; doing so is merely deciding which component or hi-fi rig sounds the most like music they have heard in spite of the fact accurate musical comparative memory is only good for about 30 seconds.

      So, what to do? It’s simple. Obtain audio and video components which electronically and mechanically measure as close to perfection as is possible in which a human being can actually hear. A amp that measures + or – .0001 from 5 to 100,000 Hz is amazing and very accurate, but of no consequence in what you’ll hear. The fact is, most human beings cannot hear below 10 Hz or above 20kHz. So, anything that goes on below or above those frequencies is a moot point (not heard). Therefore, when I say obtain hi-fi gear that measures as close to perfect as possible, I mean measures to as close to perfection within the realm of what a healthy (young) human being hears with unimpaired hearing ability.

      Now James, I want you to think about what I have said to you. Once you realize these truths, you can enjoy your hi-fi rig for what it really is, which is a “musical instrument” in its own right and not a very accurate musical reproducer when actually compared to real, you are there, “live” music.

      Regards;
      Dr. Dean

  2. Eric Lubow says:

    Very enjoyable and sadly true. This reminds me of a posting I made several years ago about vinyl audiophiles, very much along the same lines:

    The vinyl world has recently been abuzz with the discovery in a small apartment in Vienna. The apartment belonged to a Helmut Freud, a great great grand nephew (on his father’s side) of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Apparently, going through an attic of his recently deceased father’s apartment, Helmut’s son came across an old unpublished monograph of his father’s entitled “Vinylphilia Nervosa.”Helmut, during the 1970s and 80s owned a shop called Vienna Village Vinyl at 31 Friedrichstrasse Street . Apparently he ran this shop as a second business. Like his famous ancestor he had a degree from the Vienna Psychiatric Institute and treated patients for almost forty years.

    The monograph discovered by his son Sigfried came as a complete surprise to him. His father had apparently planned to publish it, but died before he was able to complete it. Sigfried explained that his father had often spoken of the customers that frequented his shop as “the greatest comglomeration of nuts in one place” that he had ever seen. Getting to know them over a period of the seventeen years he owned the shop, he described his clientele as ranging from the “slightly quirky “to the “quite decidedly insane”.

    Sigfried recently had the monograph published in a small Viennese psychiatric journal. “Vinylphilia Nervosa” seems to be an attempt to classify the various and sundry diseases that afflicts vinyl lovers. Though loosely translated from the German, it becomes clear that Helmut was on to something. He describes a cluster of syndromes that are inevitably all too familiar to some of us. I will try to enumerate these as best I can.

    The first section of the monograph deals with his obsessive-compulsive clientele. By far, the largest percentage (77.2 %) of his customers fall into this category. He divides these into four sub-categories: buying, storing, cleaning and listening. It is impossible to enumerate all of the case-histories he cites but I will touch on some of the most salient.

    BUYING

    These are individuals that can never have enough records. Many have more records than they can listen to in ten lifetimes, even listening 24 hours a day. They are simply obsessed with accumulating. One of his customers apparently had a fixation on Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and owned every version ever issued on vinyl or acetate, 78s, 33s, or 45s. He categorized them chronologically by year of performance and every evening would attempt to make his way through as many versions as he could before bedtime. After several years of this, he succeeded in driving his poor wife to suicide. The sad epilogue to this is that he actually was late for the funeral service because he discovered a version of the symphony that had dropped behind a shelf and, consequently, had never heard. By the time he had cleaned and listened to it, the service had almost ended.

    Freud cites another case of a client that had accumulated so many records that they filled two of his upstairs bedrooms from floor to ceiling. Visiting guests would have to sleep in the basement. His wife, a generally congenial companion, would rarely complain, even when finding overflow records in the pantry. But she eventually put her foot down when she came across several albums of Hawaiian music in her broiler.

    CLEANING

    The necessity of cleaning vinyl records has been well documented. But apparently some of Helmut’s customers carried this to extremes. One history recounts a gentleman who unequivocally believed his records were not clean until he washed them 24 consecutive times on his VPI machine. Every single record he owned went though this process. Often, he ran his machine for eight hours at a stretch. Not surprisingly, he was not overly popular in his apartment building. Apparently, he spent so much time washing his records, he had little time to wash himself, with the result that he had emptied quite a few elevators. Eventually he was evicted from his apartment for being a general nuisance. He also blew quite a few fuses in his time.

    Another interesting case involved a collector who put his records through a succession of cleaning machines before he was satisfied, including a Nitty Gritty, VPI, a Monks, a Hannl, and a Loricraft. He never really seemed to settle on a fluid that he liked having gone through Disc Doctor, lâ Art du Son, Last, Smart, Bugtussel and several unnamed solutions. Once, apparently upset about the shoddy cleaning these methods produced, he allegedly wrapped the thread of the Loricraft machine multiple times around his throat in an attempt to choke himself. Fortunately (or not) he ran out of thread before he could complete the task.

    LISTENING

    In this section, Helmut describes a gentleman in a town outside of Vienna with a very expensive and elaborate audio system. He was enamored of the wonderful sound his vinyl produced but had one problem: He was a stickler for a huge soundstage and pinpoint imaging. For years he searched fruitlessly for a phono cartridge that he felt would do his system justice. Finally, he found it- a $16,000 Japanese cartridge that was a revelation. He would invite friends over and with some frenzy would rush back and forth pinpointing instruments and showing how far the soundstage extended beyond the walls. It was, indeed, impressive, but came to a rather abrupt end when, trying to locate the tuba player at extreme stage right, he crashed into the wall, suffering a serious concussion. He was briefly hospitalized, and subsequently promised his wife he would listen only to string quartets.

    STORING RECORDS

    We may think there is nothing to be added to the already crowded rulebook of vinyl storage. But, alas, the gentleman noted here has added a new dimension to this controversy. This audiophile had several large coolers constructed to store his records. According to Helmut, he apparently believed that the vinyl must be stored at exactly 47.5 degrees. Once removed from the cooler, they may be played safely for a period of only 30 minutes. After that, the vinyl would thaw too much to play. Although labeled a “crackpot” by his fellow audiophiles, he insisted that his theory was sound. Clearly, he said, the stylus produces very high temperatures as it moves through the grooves, inevitably leading to distortion and wear. In his opinion, playing a cold record reduced the temperature, and thus wear, considerably. He was only known to break this rule once when he played Peggy Lee’s “Heatwave.” DON’T EVEN ASK!

    Helmut next turns to the MANIC-DEPRESSIVE category. Here he describes the strange behavior of one of his customers as related by his wife. She reported that he had come home one evening from the vinyl store seemingly elated. Apparently he had found a rare Shaded Dog pressing that he had been searching for for some years. He seemed “really pumped up” she said, and started doing what she described as sort of a tarantella dance, shouting, screaming and leaping. After about 30 minutes he seemed to calm down and went up to his room to play the record. His wife, concerned that she hadn’t heard anything for several hours went upstairs, only to find him crying under the covers. Nothing she could do seemed to comfort him. Apparently, after discovering that the record played only a VG+ though it was marked a M-, he abruptly feel into a severe depression. Several days passed like this until his wife, playing an old cassette of Kenny G, discovered a smile on her husband’s face., and subsequently reported him quite improved.

    The next case cited is one of VINYL CATATONIA. Here is described an individual who left his Vienna apartment one morning to pick up bagels for himself and a houseguest. When he returned, he discovered that his guest , during his absence, had been playing his vinyl, and had inadvertently dropped the tonearm on his prize Beatles’ album, “Yesterday and Today” (in a butcher sleeve), scratching three tracks. As if to rub it in, his friend recounted that the stylus bounced three times before settling on the label. Within minutes, the gentleman started shaking, and ultimately went into a rigid pose completely unresponsive to stimuli. The friend, unable to arouse him, became quite concerned and immediately called 911, but not before he finished all four bagels.

    This just about sums up the monograph. I thought perhaps reporting these unusual cases might be instructive and help us all to identify those who may need help. THANK GOD NONE OF US ARE LIKE THIS!

  3. john a says:

    Just for the record, might you supply the name of the accredited degree granting school or training institute from which one can earn a a “Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy”? Also, You mentioned the “DRM” as a source for listing “psychological disorders”. Did you mean the DSM or DSM-5, the standard professional source for diagnosing mental disorders?

    • Robert says:

      Joha a; The university in which one can earn a Doctor of Philosophy, Clinical Hypnotherapy, is the American Institute of Hypnotherapy which was later purchased by the American Pacific University in Honolulu, Hawaii. I attended both schools. One must have a Bachelor or Masters Degree in psychology or hypnotherapy to begin their Ph.D. program. It takes up to seven years to complete which includes intern training and completion of and acceptance of a dissertation related to psychotherapy and/or hypnotherapy and doctoral thesis. And yes, it was very-very expensive.

      Finally, you are right, the desk reference manual is the DSM-5 (Diagnostic Service Manual) which I keep on my desk. What you read, DRM, was a typo for which I apologize.

      Regards; Dr. Robert G. Dean

  4. Psycho-acoustics has suffered from the general mis-conception of applying the methods of mineral science to biology. Things that have supposedly been proven by science can be patently false under this paradigm. For example, properly trained humans can hear ten times better than the Fourier uncertainty principle, ostensibly violating the laws of Physics and Mathematics:

    http://phys.org/news/2013-02-human-fourier-uncertainty-principle.html

    This perceptual proficiency is uncommon, however, because it requires specific focused training. In fact, the post-industrial population suffers from neurologically stunted hearing. Individuals who practice playing music during childhood grow substantially larger cortex regions for musical and spatial intelligence, plus more white matter, for neuro-genesis of an additional 10 billion brain cells:

    http://www.jneurosci.org/content/23/27/9240.full.pdf+html

    OCD audiophiles then should not be seen as necessarily delusional, but possibly stimulated hyper-sensitivity to variations in sound fields. I will say that in my highly educated opinion the majority of audiophile lore is pure bunko, and people who listen to live acoustic music more hours per week than to speakers and headphones have a far better grasp of reality.

    At the least, the vast sums spent on audio gear is better applied to attending live concerts and music lessons, or funding house concerts.

    • Larry;

      Well put my audiophile friend. I play sax and keyboards and my wife, a few years back, came out 1st place in her singing group competing in the California Barber Shop Singing Contest. We love “real” “live” music and attend music concerts of all kinds regularly. When I hear my he-man hi-fi rig give me several brief glimpses of a live musical note or portion of a sound, it startles and bring joy to me . This is the listening pleasure I realize from our audio hobby. When this occurs, I can then relax and enjoy the music (even if it is a reproduced myth) because it “reminds” me of the live sound of music.

      Best regards;
      Dr. Dean

  5. Doug says:

    Great article, if it’s one thing I know about we people, it’s that we are all crazy, it’s just manifested in different ways.
    Worked at a dealership repair center once and can’t tell you how many times I’ve ridden with people who were convinced the car was making a noise, “hear that”? ” no” …”ok there it is” ..”no sorry”. Turn the radio and ac off, turn left “hear that”?…”NO”! Just obsessed..it’s some peoples nature.

  6. Hubert says:

    Sorry guys, this all ends up to not much, but just to say that there are real obsessed audiophiles. That seems very logical, as you would find all sorts of other obsessions, and the exchange of thoughts between doctors who seem to believe they know better because of the Dr title, remind me a lot of audiophile sharing thoughts about their passion. No true and wise audiophile would go about saying that their music system sounds just like the real event, and I mean a truly pure acoustical event, without microphone, amps and speakers. Audiophile, in their own absolute right, go about pursuing that prospective reproduction, and they should be respected and not associated with unconscient nuts and bluntly discredited in doing so. The idea of putting the money in attending to live events is just so basically stupid and short minded. How much of such events can you attend at wish, and are you always well positioned in the often noisy and coughing crowd, are the musicians always good, do all music lovers live in areas with such wide choice of musical events? The answer is obviously no to all these questions. Is studio recorded popular music better than reproduced by a very well designed home music system? Hell no! Studio music is not music that really exists other than on a cd or vinyl, is it? Is sound quality of a rock, or blues venue, or any sound engineered venue better than an excellent home system playing with you sitting pin point? He’ll no, no and no. In these situations, the best home systems are far superior. Only live acoustically pure venues better the best audio systems, of course, that is an evidence. You are not crazy if you try to get close as possible to that, it’s a kind of science, nearly an alchemist search, it’s a great voyage and if you have the chance, education and intelligence to be able to constitute a great gear, you can go close and nearly touch it, and just whenever you want to do so in your free time. It is greatly rewarding hobby. If it was just subjective sound, it would be an insult to millions of people, and they might just as well sell off their gears and get an iPod, with some hypnotherapy, you may force in their poor head the idea that it sounds great.

  7. donnie newell says:

    I don’t care what any of you experts say. It’s a hobby and I’m not looking for perfection. Only enjoyment.

  8. Bob says:

    I knew of a person who owned so much
    Mark Levinson audio equipment his listening
    room looked like a store. He would swap out
    Preamps or Amps between individual cuts!

  9. GM says:

    Bose 901s had 4″, not 3″ speakers. When I was in the pro audio industry back in the 70s-80s, I recall that I was informed that Bose had purchased 10s 0r perhaps 100s of thousands of surplus blue-coned 4″ speakers from Fisher Radio and needed a product that would help them burn through the excess inventory and make them some money, and thus the 901 and it’s attendant expensive international marketing campaign was born. BTW, it is a pretty safe bet that the aforementioned 4″ table-top radio speakers cost Bose a good deal less then $3.00 each.
    To this day I still see people occasionally comment on how the 901 was a “true classic”. To my ears they always sounded like the dog’s breakfast.

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