View Full Version : 10 Things I have Learned from 40+ years of being a "Hi-Fi Enthusiast"
Not quite sure what kicked this off in my brain, but here goes! :)
10. Bass that makes your chest rumble isn’t much fun… You may think it’s recreating that “stadium effect”, but in reality, it’s only showing off… (Discuss)
9. Just because it’s a “Remaster” it doesn’t necessarily make it better. (Though sometimes it does.)
8. Completism is pointless. Yes, I have 33 Bob Dylan albums (really!) , but how often have I played them, and do I actually like them, just because “they” said they are good…? No… (Though he has written some brilliant songs.)
7. Experimentation is all part of the fun. Stuffing squash balls cut in half under your CD player may (or may not) make a difference, but this is a hobby, right? (Definition of a Hobby: “a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time”)
6. Just because something is expensive, it doesn’t automatically mean it sounds incredible. Male jewellery?
5. Hi-Fi kit is nearly always black or silver. (Or wood in the case of speakers.) I don’t really have an opinion on that, it’s just an observation.
4. I have hoarded far too much kit than I will ever use… Owning 15 pairs of speakers, umpteen amps, CD players etc. is not an “investment” and will only give the charity shop a headache when my kids dump them on their front door when I’m gone.
3. Sometimes we play our music LOUD - but 90% of the time we don’t. A system that’s comfortable to listen to at normal levels if far more enjoyable long-term than one that pins you to the wall and makes your ears bleed… Isn’t it?
2. The biggest difference to a hi-fi system is the speakers. The old maxim of “source first” might have worked when a turntable or cassette player was the only option, but it doesn’t wash with digital.
1. It’s all about the music – whether it’s a £100k system or a £10 portable radio, if the music doesn’t float your boat, whatever system you play it on will make no difference, but a tune you love played on your phone will make you smile. And isn’t that the point?
(And a bonus one – I absolutely hate the term “audiophile” I would never call myself one, hence the title of this thread being “Hi-Fi Enthusiast” – and if that’s you, welcome to the club!)
okay - what can I disagree with? :D
10 - I like the bass to be 'satisfying' but it doesn't have to demolish buildings - bass is big part of most music
7 - God no I gave up on all that tweaking business
4 - sometimes it's an investment - my Technics SL1200 has outperformed the S&P 500 - but yeah, most of the time it's just hoarding like a crazy person.
Not a lot then really. I'm an enthusiast too, being an audiophile is more like a religious calling.
What a superb thread you have started Alex!
A lot of interesting questions which demand answers. So to answer in the order you have asked:
10. Agree. I never liked deep 'stomach churning' bass at concerts, and I certainly wouldn't want to hear it at home. Anyway my speakers are incapable of reproducing bass at those sorts of levels.
9. I'm inclined to agree, although to be honest I'm not really clear how a 'remaster' differs from a 'remix'. I have three copies of the Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers", all have different publishing dates, yet they all sound the same.
8. I too am guilty of completism, though my excuse is that I like recordings of live performances, many of which are 'bootlegs'. FYI, I have 43 Dylan recordings, and at least thirty by the Pink Floyd. :doh:
7. It used to be, when the idea was something simple and inexpensive to try out. For years I have made up all my own cables; largely because I had to connect various items of equipment together that used different connectors. But out of interest I have done side by side comparisons of different cables using sensible cables that are used in the electronics industry, rather than 'audiopho' cables you see advertised in the HI Fi magazines. All sound the same to me, except once when a very expensive cable I borrowed, repeatedly and consistently displayed a very small and subtle improvement. Curious as to why, I had it x-rayed so I could see the construction, and try to copy it. I failed!
6. Agree!
5. No - Being a Quad enthusiast for a long time, much of my gear displayed the Quad 'snot green' livery. :D
4.Wow, now you have touched a raw nerve here Alex. I'm as guilty as anybody in this hobby of ours of hoarding, I rarely sell anything on, or give it away to the needy: in fact I can only think of four items I have given away to someone who could make better use of them. That still leaves an embarassing quantity of gear left. From memory I have:
35 cartridges
10 tonearms
4 turntables
15 amplifiers (two are integrated)
5 preamps
4 MC cartridge transformers
2 cassette players
4 CD players
1 CD recorder
1 DAC
and only 2 pairs of speakers. (fancy doing a swap? :eyebrows:)
3. Agree - it's all about scale. Quiet music (say a folk guitar) played too loudly sounds just as wrong as rock music played too softly. There is a correct volume level for all music, for it to sound realistic.
2 I can understand the "source first" approach - GIGO, "Garbage In, Garbage Out". However if the front end costs over ten times that of you speakers, how can you hear the effect. These days I regard all the components as links in a chain, all of which should be the best you can afford.
1.Oh so true! Can't argue with that.
Finally as to what to call fellow travellers in this hobby of ours. Well much of the terminology comes from the US, so is the source of most audio neologisms. However when it comes to neologisms, lexicographers, prefer the roots to be either all Greek, or all Latin. They dislike bastard constructions such as "audiophile", which is half Latin (from 'audire', to hear) + half Greek (from 'philia', to like or love). Ideally it ought to be either "audioamarata" (ugh!) or "phonophile" (which could be confused for something highly undesirable!).
Pigmy Pony
12-03-2025, 07:39
I agree with most of what your saying Alex, apart from the ones Martin has highlighted (though for different reasons).
Bass - I think it's very important, it underpins the rest of the music - but it doesn't have to rattle the windows, it just has to be there. Sometimes I'll play something with seismic bass at silly volumes just for fun, but it certainly isn't showing off - I can only get away with it when Anita is out, and as I have no music-loving mates (apart from perhaps Macca), I'm definitely not showing off.
System tweaks - I might have tried one or two things back in the 80s (thank you Peter Belt) but I soon realised that my cloth ears only really respond to equipment changes. I know there are some who claim they could tell whether the squash balls under their CD player are Adidas or Slazenger, but I'm not one of them.
Audiophiles - There are folk who, rather than buying kit to make their music sound good, buy music that makes their kit sound good. I don't remember in my teenage years buying my early Bowie or Roxy Music singles and thinking "I wish I had a better record player, this sounds shit". No, I loved the music itself, the gear was secondary. I think we've all lost a little bit of that. So I reckon most of us occupy the ground between "Hifi enthusiast" and "music lover".
"Audiophile" is next level geek, and I'm sure there must be tablets for it.
Thanks for all the responses chaps. Glad you enjoyed my brain dump. [emoji4]
I must say, Barry, 35 cartridges is next level! But at least they are small enough to squirrel away!
To address the bass point, I totally agree that it underpins most music, so it has to be there, nothing wrong with a good thud but it’s when it actually rattles your innards I am referring to. I recall seeing the Vulcan at various air shows in the 80’s and 90’s and that was a similar visceral experience which whilst amazing in one way I really didn’t enjoy! Level 42 did the same in the early 90’s and made me feel quite sick, never mind being virtually deaf for a week!
Thanks for all the responses chaps. Glad you enjoyed my brain dump. [emoji4]
I must say, Barry, 35 cartridges is next level! But at least they are small enough to squirrel away!
To address the bass point, I totally agree that it underpins most music, so it has to be there, nothing wrong with a good thud but it’s when it actually rattles your innards I am referring to. I recall seeing the Vulcan at various air shows in the 80’s and 90’s and that was a similar visceral experience which whilst amazing in one way I really didn’t enjoy! Level 42 did the same in the early 90’s and made me feel quite sick, never mind being virtually deaf for a week!
You won't be wanting one of these then. Goes a lot lower than a Vulcan bomber:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/eminent-technology-trw-17-rotary-subwoofer
Wow, amazing but no, I won’t be getting one of those!
Pigmy Pony
13-03-2025, 07:03
More affordable. Attach these to the back of your sofa, cheaper than a massage chair :)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Douk-Audio-Tactile-Transducer-Subwoofer/dp/B0D2L422P8/ref=sr_1_7?crid=3NK3DE0P0N58V&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.IGo9h5iwNQJ820cLUM5fmi5Kk_7H9nRaG WI9Mx7TgqPMmIPImPesUi0Oy4fpUefPz2M_Wb5XDxkcsg8f5X7 Fo8-3bbDNORTlOw97HEaG3xwvRiwpwV_0k_nOPWsMf6M7mxOXbOuQX qVKAB0ZczD0mrR8IWRTJefbtNLwha6AWs93m8gj95zZsFIU_-urVJJelY06UuPi6GjyysHRavvVsrKlWXih_myo_xLpaNjJ94s. Le86eB3cuQ8_P1sKWrDq16p7jaVn3UX8y9SE4jA1-cY&dib_tag=se&keywords=tactile+transducer&qid=1741849311&sprefix=tactile+tranducer%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-7&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f
The mind (and probably everything else) boggles!
You won't be wanting one of these then. Goes a lot lower than a Vulcan bomber:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/eminent-technology-trw-17-rotary-subwoofer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBauT4ADKbw&t=30s
You won't be wanting one of these then. Goes a lot lower than a Vulcan bomber:
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/eminent-technology-trw-17-rotary-subwoofer
Beware the "Brown Note"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note)Sadly debunked by the guys on Mythbusters...
My flat, c. 2003, featuring Maxel man.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250317/6473993fc53f0d9b3c2d4cdcfa0ce43e.jpg
No brown notes there!
How odd does it look seeing a CRT TV now?!!!
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250317/f85783f9bd1c44121512edfc1a4fc895.jpg
Looks like you had put together a fully-functional babe lair there, Alex.
The only thing that's changed in my place since 2003 is the hi-fi equipment. And the telly is bigger ofc.
Looks like you had put together a fully-functional babe lair there, Alex.
The only thing that's changed in my place since 2003 is the hi-fi equipment. And the telly is bigger ofc.
If Marco was around he would love the lilac bedroom… :eyebrows: first time I had a queen size bed.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250317/accff2f65b9aec2b16e42d19cc418ed8.jpg
:bonk:
Pigmy Pony
17-03-2025, 16:47
My flat, c. 2003, featuring Maxel man.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250317/6473993fc53f0d9b3c2d4cdcfa0ce43e.jpg
No brown notes there!
Just missing a tiger skin rug and a black silk dressing gown with kung fu dragon on the back hanging on the door. I don't want to know what you did with the melting wax off those candles :eyebrows:
Just missing a tiger skin rug
Or a zebra skin rug.
You missed a trick there Alex.
Shame that there isn’t a “like” button - excellent thread :thumbsup:
Shame that there isn’t a “like” button - excellent thread :thumbsup:
Go to the top of the page and click on 'Rate This Thread'.
Back to sort of on topic. Another point, and this applies not just to hi-fi but certainly cars and no doubt other stuff - a “Mk 2” isn’t necessarily an improvement on the original.
Take the speakers in my babe magnet flat above - KEF Coda 9’s - they were and still are superb speakers to my ears, made out of cornflake boxes and not very pretty but did everything right at their budget floorstander price point. A few years later, along came the Coda 9.2 - excited to hear the improvements of the upgrade I was left underwhelmed as to me, they were a step back, not forward.
I am sure there are many examples of where the updated version was actually better, but in my experience it’s not always guaranteed.
For me the Mk.2 version of the Quad 405 amplifier was a definite improvement on the original. This was due to inferior, low-specification components employed in the original being upgraded, and a small change to the front end supply voltage.
Similarly the Mk.2 version of the B&W DM2 speaker used an improved crossover to its benefit.
I would also argue the Mk.2 SME arm is an improvement on the original.
Thanks Barry, I have an "improved" SME 3009 but not had the original to compare too, and will bow to your experience on the Quad and B&W DM2. It would be difficult to quantify if Mk2 versions really are better or worse, overall, I guess. Just my opinion that not necessarily a given.
Pigmy Pony
18-03-2025, 09:28
There may be times when the bean counters deem the manufacturing costs to be unprofitable and lean on the designers to come up with something largely similar but with cheaper parts. And through some clever marketing buyers feel like they're getting something better than before.
I have nothing to back up this theory, it's just a thought.
There may be times when the bean counters deem the manufacturing costs to be unprofitable and lean on the designers to come up with something largely similar but with cheaper parts. And through some clever marketing buyers feel like they're getting something better than before.
I have nothing to back up this theory, it's just a thought.
I think that is the usual reason for a mark 2 - along with a part ceasing to be made - drive unit, transistor, DAC chip, whatever - so they have no choice but to change the design.
Plus once you've saturated your market a mark 2 is a good way to sell the same people what is essentially the same thing all over again.
What I have learnt is that some people might blench if you call yourself an audiophile or any sort of phile. If anyone has the courage to enter my enclave I always say that they may not like what they hear.or see With 80% being DIY they would not be able to replicate it eeven if they wanted to. I used to be very keen that anyone listening went away having had a good experience but now......each to his own of course.
Go to the top of the page and click on 'Rate This Thread'.
Cheers never noticed that :doh: - now done
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.3 Copyright © 2026 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.